Your best and worst pedal hot takes? 🔥

Guardians of the analog said:
Pedal power supplies are soo important, especially with analog modulation and delay. I'm working my way through some projects and learned that even ones I thought were good introduced lots of noise into circuits. Not something we talk about enough as builders.
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But what’s acceptable? Not trying to criticize, this is also a self-reminder as I usually try to minimize excessive noise.

-pickups hum and hiss
-amps have background hiss
-raising and stacking gain brings hiss
-more volume brings more noise
-wall ac/earth can be dirty
-pedal circuits can be hissy
-wires bring noise and this adds with close proximity
-air is polluted with rf and emi

So how much power supply noise has to do when considering all the former? With fuzz driven tube amp dimed, not much? Maybe much more with clean guitar on lower gain amp? Is this supply noise audible with ear plugs?

Please tell more about what you’re tried and where to look at with supplies!
 
drgonzo1969 said:
Most definitely agreed. also not enough DIY power supply porjects out there.
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Yeah, the PPCB DC ISO has been out of stock for a while. And I threw my last one into this year’s PIF!

For a long time I used to plug wall warts into a power strip. No big deal for a tuner and a dirt pedal. But as I got into this hobby and built out a proper pedalboard, I switched to using a dedicated iso power supply and it definitely brought down the noise floor. I have a Nux Zeus and a Strymon Zuma (only strymon thing I own!)
 
JohnnyCreepy said:
But what’s acceptable? Not trying to criticize, this is also a self-reminder as I usually try to minimize excessive noise.

-pickups hum and hiss
-amps have background hiss
-raising and stacking gain brings hiss
-more volume brings more noise
-wall ac/earth can be dirty
-pedal circuits can be hissy
-wires bring noise and this adds with close proximity
-air is polluted with rf and emi

So how much power supply noise has to do when considering all the former? With fuzz driven tube amp dimed, not much? Maybe much more with clean guitar on lower gain amp? Is this supply noise audible with ear plugs?

Please tell more about what you’re tried and where to look at with supplies!
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All that’s true but I can tell you that an inferior power supply will absolutely make all of that worse. I have a low tolerance for noise level and I found that a good power supply can make a huge difference.
 
Guardians of the analog said:
Pedal power supplies are soo important, especially with analog modulation and delay. I'm working my way through some projects and learned that even ones I thought were good introduced lots of noise into circuits. Not something we talk about enough as builders.
Click to expand...
we've all done the wall wart + daisy chain extender :|
 
drgonzo1969 said:
not enough DIY power supply porjects out there.
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not a PCB, but they're there.

Misc > The Ultimate Power Supply : DIY Fever – Building my own guitars, amps and pedals

[DIY Fever] The Ultimate Power Supply - heavy duty isolated power supply for all my effects
diy-fever.com
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initially built it just like the schematic above about 5 years ago into an old flour tin (before i discovered tayda exists) and it works brilliantly (12V and 9V outputs).
IMG_4752.jpeg
then i replaced the L7809 and squeezed in an LM317 circuit to boost the sad 8.9V to a robust 9.3V.
(just followed the datasheet)
1780444471735.png
IMG_4753.jpeg
IMG_4754.jpeg

although it looks stupid with it's comically oversized enclosure, this supply has been brought to and kicked around at every show and rehearsal ive played since joining the band 4 years ago, with zero failure or noise issues ever.
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+ im a lazy prick and daisy chain everything (still havent got around to building the 4 tap DC isolator project ..will we ever see a drill template?)
 
Well, I have a couple pedal power 2+, a true tone cs6, mxr iso and some.dedicated dunlop 9v and 18v wall warts. The true tone is digital and the voodoo labs are toroidal. Vintage style bbd devices are super sensitive to power and can pick up lots of high frequencies that cause clock noise, heterodyne noise and other nonsense, especially if they have less than stellar power filtering. My Dunlop 18v dedicated supply that I thought was pretty clean with causing all kinds of noise in testing of a circuit that I thought I needed to troubleshoot. On a whim I hooked it up to the pp2+ and no noise. My rig is pretty damn quiet. Humbuckers, my home built amp that's got a low noise floor and Furman power conditioner.
 
I like Voodoo Labs. I had a Pedal Power 3+ which was great, and then I was looking for something to run a smaller board so I bought an x4. I realized I can daisy chain my drive pedals with the x4 and there is no difference in noise so I sold the 3+ and now use the x4 to power a board with 8-10 pedals. I try to give modulation or delay pedals dedicated outputs. I run out of room on my board before I have 4 mod or delay pedals on there anyway.

Here's a vid about the VL power supplies. Around 3:15 he begins talking about their noise levels
 
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Guardians of the analog said:
Well, I have a couple pedal power 2+, a true tone cs6, mxr iso and some.dedicated dunlop 9v and 18v wall warts. The true tone is digital and the voodoo labs are toroidal. Vintage style bbd devices are super sensitive to power and can pick up lots of high frequencies that cause clock noise, heterodyne noise and other nonsense, especially if they have less than stellar power filtering. My Dunlop 18v dedicated supply that I thought was pretty clean with causing all kinds of noise in testing of a circuit that I thought I needed to troubleshoot. On a whim I hooked it up to the pp2+ and no noise. My rig is pretty damn quiet. Humbuckers, my home built amp that's got a low noise floor and Furman power conditioner.
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Nothing new under the sun for me. 😌

Btw I found lightly build and dirty cheap Mr.Power branded 9vdc supply was quieter with some pedals than the usual OneSpot.

I’ve been using this one for a while:
IMG_8240.jpeg
www.vitoos.com

DD12-SV3 | VITOOS MUSIC

effect pedal power supply
www.vitoos.com www.vitoos.com

What I’ve gathered Vitoos is manufacturing most of the isolated PPSs for the familiar brands we all know, f.ex. F-word ’ngine room, Behringer ISOs etc. This Vitoos I got was a bit less than comparable Behringer and almost half of F-worded one. No excessive noise. Only restriction is current draw rating when using few digital FXs. Luckily I have some excess supplies for current hungry circuits.
 
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