SOLVED Captain Bit Noise Floor?

[oldacid]

I've built a Captain Bit and it sounds as it should, it sounds very good in fact. But there is quite a bit of background static and white noise, it's present even when the guitar's volume is turned down. I can cut it back quite a bit if I turn the "up" and "filter" counter clockwise to cut out the high frequencies but its still there. Also the level of this pedal is WAY loud, unity gain is like... 9 o'clock on the level pot? I've been fooled before with unconventional pedals though, not realizing that they sound or operate strangely and that's how they're supposed to work. Can anyone weigh in if that might be the case here?

I did try to reflow anything that looked off, and also pressed around to see if there were any components not making proper contact.

 

[Cybercow]

Checking out some of the demos out in the wild, that background noise seams like it's just part of the pedal.

 

[oldacid]

I dunno, I checked out some demos and they don't sound as noisy as mine. Basically if I have the up octave and the filter clockwise even slightly when I stop playing anything theres a WALL of white noise that comes in, and there's a slight delay to it- almost like theres a gate thats opening up? TONS of RF interference as well.

I've been trying to trace this thing down for the last few days and I can't find anything wrong. The transformer resistance measures in spec with a multimeter. Can't find any cold joints, double checked all my resistor and cap values. REALLY frustrating as it sounds so cool but I can't see how I could use this pedal ever without a noise gate right after it.

 

[giovanni]

Where did you get the chips? I built two of these and I don’t recall noticing a particularly high noise floor. And I’m usually quite sensitive to that.

 

[giovanni]

I recorded a very short demo, it sounds pretty quiet: https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/captain-bit.9938/

 

[oldacid]

Ok I'm not crazy- compared to mine that is super quiet. All chips are from Tayda. Maybe I'll pull out the 386 and try it for another one? I built an Acapulco gold with 2 386s from this same batch and it was also crazy noisy BUT it seems as though that is expected with that pedal.

 

[giovanni]

Yeah hard to say which chip may be responsible but that’s where I would put my money. Good luck!

 

[oldacid]

Ok it was definitely the 386- changed it out and much improved. Still getting some pretty bad RF if I turn the base pot all the way up but I'm happy enough to leave it for now.