Ticking sound in JFET overdrive - proximity to power supply?

H

HamishR

Well-known member
I recently discovered that a JFET OD I have built on Vero makes a ticking sound when engaged. It's only noticeable when not playing. As soon as I start playing through it I guess it's drowned out by my racket. The other thing I discovered is that as soon as I lift the pedal off the board the ticking stops. If I leave the pedal at an awkward angle raised off the board it is virtually silent when I'm not playing, but a bit difficult to use!

Directly underneath the pedal is my One Spot CS6 power supply, So maybe that's the issue? I have another pedal made to exactly the same circuit which I sometimes plug in next to the pedal board (Pedaltrain Nano) and run it off the same power supply without issues. The pedal next to the ticking pedal is a UA Starlight delay. Has anyone else had this kind of probem?
 
Discrete JFETs are still around because their practically infinite input impedance makes them a specialty device.

It means their gate is extraordinarily sensitive. Vero makes it tricky because there's no ground plane under the traces and more wires flying from the board.

First thing I'd try is using a shielded wire from on the input jack connection.
 
Ok cool - I'll try that! I had no idea of any of that. The circuit is in a 2-in-1 pedal with two different JFET ODs, and the first OD is tick free. It must be that because it's not exactly over the power supply that it doesn't tick.

Thanks Mr Jubal!
 
Hi! Maybe audioprobe the board to find out which part produces the ticking?

Last weekend I put something on the breadboard and it worked fine alone. But when I connected another pedal to it it went crazy making a loud popping noise. Turned out it was something stupid, I had connected the output jack sleeve to VCC instead of Ground :)
 
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