I recently built the Informant and so far the pedal is just Ok as its so bloody noisy. 95% of my playing is done with the HX Stomp & the informant is by far the nosiest pedal I have when played through the stomp. Even when compared the the Kilt V2 with similar gain settings its still a lot noisier. I just shrugged it off as being a noisy pedal, however my kids wanted to hear my pedals so I plugged into my AC30 and played the pedals. The Informant was pretty much quiet with a noise floor similar to the Kilt while playing through the amp. The HX was still in my signal chain I just dropped the amp sim/IR portion and just had a delay, chorus, EQ and FX loop running. Has anybody dealt with this and any suggestions on how to fix this or what may be causing this?
The Informant Noise issues
- Thread starter jfk911
- Start date
daeg
Well-known member
My first impression is that it's less noisy than a stock Rat and pretty quiet for a distortion pedal.
Describe the noise you're hearing. How does it relate to the positions of the pots? What kind of pots did you use? Did you make any parts substitutions? Are your chips genuine TL072 and an LT1054? Can we see a gutshot?
Describe the noise you're hearing. How does it relate to the positions of the pots? What kind of pots did you use? Did you make any parts substitutions? Are your chips genuine TL072 and an LT1054? Can we see a gutshot?
spi
Well-known member
If I understood you correctly, you never noticed any noise with your amp, but only when running through HX Stomp?
I don't notice any noise with my informant, but then I'm always using it through an amp.
Some things to try:
Is it noisy when bypassed? Since this pedal has an active bypass, if the noise is always there it might help indicate if there is a ground issue. If it's only when the pedal is engaged, maybe it's just boosting the noise and the HX is sensitive to the boosted noise. In this case, if there's a noise gate you adjust in the HX it might help.
When you plug into HX Stomp, is it going straight in? If so, put another active pedal in-between the Informant and the HX. That would help identify if there's an impedance issue with the output of the Informant and the HX in. Or if there is a grounding issue with the pedal's jack.
I don't notice any noise with my informant, but then I'm always using it through an amp.
Some things to try:
Is it noisy when bypassed? Since this pedal has an active bypass, if the noise is always there it might help indicate if there is a ground issue. If it's only when the pedal is engaged, maybe it's just boosting the noise and the HX is sensitive to the boosted noise. In this case, if there's a noise gate you adjust in the HX it might help.
When you plug into HX Stomp, is it going straight in? If so, put another active pedal in-between the Informant and the HX. That would help identify if there's an impedance issue with the output of the Informant and the HX in. Or if there is a grounding issue with the pedal's jack.
@daeg ill take gut shots when I get home.
@spi correct with an amp it’s a quiet pedal or no louder than any other distortion pedal. I have it wired in true bypass, right now it’s informant - Kilt V2 - Kliche - volume - Julia - Stomp. The noise gets louder as I turn the gain up. It could be that this pedal just does not get along with the stomp for some reason. I also have stomp set to line level with a very mild gate. My power supply is the Zuma and Ojai and it’s not sharing it’s power.
@spi correct with an amp it’s a quiet pedal or no louder than any other distortion pedal. I have it wired in true bypass, right now it’s informant - Kilt V2 - Kliche - volume - Julia - Stomp. The noise gets louder as I turn the gain up. It could be that this pedal just does not get along with the stomp for some reason. I also have stomp set to line level with a very mild gate. My power supply is the Zuma and Ojai and it’s not sharing it’s power.
daeg
Well-known member
Stacking a compressor and a distortion is like the noisiest thing you can do. You don't hear it when you run the compressor into other distortion pedals?
JamieJ
Well-known member
Isn’t the informant a buffered bypass build? It would be great to see how you have wired it up.
without the compressor its fine and exactly what you would expect from a distortion, its just weird that its the only pedal that amplifies the noise. I did quite a bit of reading last night I think the compressor is amplifying ground noises from the HX stomp when I practice with my IEMs as its PS is not grounded and my house has shitty wiring. However when I use an amp/DI/USB the HX noise drops as the output becomes grounded. Its something I have always noticed but never thought to much of it as it was never amplified the way the informant amplifies it.
