Noisy colour change LEDs!

[Ryan]

I recently heard from a miniberator customer that his colour change LED is audible... it makes a weird bbbzzzrrraaap electronicy noise in the background when the colours change.

I've been using these colour changers for 4 years now and they've always been very quiet, in the 5mm variety. I've tried 3mm and 10mm ones and they were very noise, unusable even, but the 5mm ones were always nice and quiet. So nice and quiet that I stopped checking my bags of them to make sure they were staying nice and quiet. I recently got a bag of 500 though and they're noisy, I confirmed it myself with my amp although I couldn't hear the noise under my usual testing circumstances...I needed the full gain of the distortion channel to bring out the noise.

I believe about 50 or 75 of these noisy LEDs went out in miniberators over the last month, from serial # 75ish to #150ish, all in the red finish. And Pete's proto, 'cause I popped one in there for him.. Tommy's mini too... I'm sorry dudes!

It's not a noise everybody will hear, it depends on your rig and how your gear is set up and how much gain and/or compression and/or volume is involved.

If you find that you can hear the noise though, just shoot me an email (ryan@drscientist.ca) and we'll make plans to pop in a solid red LED for you. I'm going to only use solid colour LEDs for awhile now until I can be sure I've got a silent batch again.. hopefully anyway, I'm worried now that that's the end of the colour changers in our pedals.

If anybody would like a handful of colour change LEDs for fun, not audio purposes, let me know and I'll mail you a package of them. I've got a big bag of them here that I can't use but they still look cool as heck.

Sorry for the complacency with the noisy ones though, I should have checked better that they were quiet. *smacks forehead*

[Blurillaz]

Does that mean my cleanness has noisey noise led?
Oh well, obviously fuzz lovers like noise! :D

[Ryan]

B-man, I'm pretty sure your LED is a-ok and from before the noisy batch... keep me posted though! I think Stan's SDD's colour changer is safe too.

[Nychthemeron]

Aw man, at least my miniberator is just a straight red LED, though those color change LEDs are so cool!

[FuzzHugger]

I recently heard from a miniberator customer that his colour change LED is audible... it makes a weird bbbzzzrrraaap electronicy noise in the background when the colours change.

It's not a noise everybody will hear, it depends on your rig and how your gear is set up and how much gain and/or compression and/or volume is involved.

It's cool of you to be so dedicated to pristine sound...but I wanted to chime in and say there is no issue with my pedal's LED.

I can notice the bzzrraap sound only if I totally crank the pedal's Level and listen closely...I would have never noticed it in a million years had you not posted this.

I play into a clean tube amp, but even with a super high gain fuzz in front of it, there is no noise issue.

[Blurillaz]

B-man, I'm pretty sure your LED is a-ok and from before the noisy batch... keep me posted though! I think Stan's SDD's colour changer is safe too.

Yeah id i crank every knob on it and on my amp i get no noise. Well, no noise from the LED.

[oinkbanana]

errgh, that sucks. hopefully it won't be too big of a bump in the road.

[Ryan]

Right on, Tommy, glad the noise isn't a problem for you! It's pretty easy to get the old LED out and sneak in a new one without disassembling the pedal, so if it ever does become annoying just let me know and we'll take care of it.

I think it'll just be a little bump in the road, Kev, a baby bump. Worst case I'll have to replace about 50ish LEDs and cover the shipping so it will be an expensive enough mistake to remind me to always double check the hell out of everything, even if it's been proven for years.

You guys should hear how loud the bbbzzzzrraap sound is on a 10mm colour changer.. it's so loud that you can clearly and easily hear it on a totally clean amp with no gain at all. It really sucks too cause the 10mm ones look amazingly cool, like a big clear orb of colours.

[jrmy]

Right on, Tommy, glad the noise isn't a problem for you! It's pretty easy to get the old LED out and sneak in a new one without disassembling the pedal, so if it ever does become annoying just let me know and we'll take care of it.

I think it'll just be a little bump in the road, Kev, a baby bump. Worst case I'll have to replace about 50ish LEDs and cover the shipping so it will be an expensive enough mistake to remind me to always double check the hell out of everything, even if it's been proven for years.

You guys should hear how loud the bbbzzzzrraap sound is on a 10mm colour changer.. it's so loud that you can clearly and easily hear it on a totally clean amp with no gain at all. It really sucks too cause the 10mm ones look amazingly cool, like a big clear orb of colours.

That is unfortunate... any chance you could build them into something that's intentionally noisy? Like some kind of weird "drum machine"ish thing, where they blink on and off in sequence specifically to make weird rhythmic buzzing clicks?

Admittedly, that idea would probably take more energy than it's worth, but hey...

[Hector_G]

Can anyone post a video of these LEDs? I'm really curious to see what they look like.

[Ryan]

Here ya go, Hector!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsTStoT4B6U[/youtube]

They're just a neat kind of LED that starts out red, then goes green, then goes blue, then back to red, over about 30 seconds. Silent for years but now I can hear them change. *looks down and kicks a rock*

[Gilmourish]

Make a little noise step sequencer with them! I would definitely buy one!