ilovefuzz.com

Is it common for Modulation pedals like these to have so much noise when depth/mix is high? When I listen to Warped Vinyl demos e.g there's no noise at all but for me it's bad. The Empress and Bitquest are nice and clean but the rest are pretty hissy. It's slightly less noticeable when DI'd (like the samples) but when playing through my amp it's so obvious and kills any enjoyment from playing those pedals. I've tried various cables and power sources where I can i.e. the Warped Vinyl but still doesn't seem to help.

Could you kindly listen to the very short samples on my soundloud? I couldn't embed properly

https://soundcloud.com/rembrandtvanrijn

Yeah, modulation can be noisy.

Which Warped Vinyl do you have? The first version is slightly noisier than the later one. They're not quiet pedals though.

Some pedals are inherently noisy. Nothing much you can really do that's gonna make 'em quieter. The noise is something you may just have to accept. If it's unacceptable, that particular pedal may not be for you. For me, pedals which are noisy tend to have a little more character than pedals where the noise is more heavily filtered out.

(I don't think we can embed soundcloud anymore.)

Thanks for the reply, it's the MKII Warped Vinyl I have. I think it's the worst offender so I may just need to avoid some of the more extreme ModuShape settings and dial back on the depth a little.

Out of curiosity, have you tried changing the location? There is one spot in my house where my rig buzzes like a bug zapper, but 10 feet away and with the guitar turned 90 degrees I get vacuum of space silence. Just a suggestion.

rembrandtvanrijn wrote:Is it common for Modulation pedals like these to have so much noise when depth/mix is high? When I listen to Warped Vinyl demos e.g there's no noise at all but for me it's bad. The Empress and Bitquest are nice and clean but the rest are pretty hissy. It's slightly less noticeable when DI'd (like the samples) but when playing through my amp it's so obvious and kills any enjoyment from playing those pedals. I've tried various cables and power sources where I can i.e. the Warped Vinyl but still doesn't seem to help.

Could you kindly listen to the very short samples on my soundloud? I couldn't embed properly

https://soundcloud.com/rembrandtvanrijn

That's normal for a Warped Vinyl mkII. Sounds like you are doing a square wave with a big depth setting.

Warped Vinyl does its pitch modulation thing with an old school analog bucket brigade device, and they just aren't quiet, especially when pushed to extremes (which I like to do in big depth settings)

a couple ideas

1) try a compressor in front, and/or a noise gate behind... Preferably one that decays in a musical way.

2) try a different amp (if you have one)

3) everyone has a bit of a different noise tolerance... And it could be that analog BBD pitch modulation pedals just aren't your thing and that's totally cool. Digital pedals generally perform better in this area.

Joel

Thanks for the advice Joel

Joel always gives good advice.