Big Muff clone noisier in the US than in Europe

[yeeshkul]

I made a Big Muff clone for a friend, who took in on his European and American tour. The pedal was pretty quiet in Europe, but became very, very noisy in the US. It was fed from a DC power supply on his pedal board.

The pedal has a standard 100R/220uF low pas filter on the DC input.

What could have been the cause?

[antonis]

What could have been the cause?

Maybe, Europe "export" its power line rubbish into the States.. 

To be more serious, it could be 115/230 converter issue..

[yeeshkul]

The last think i was gonna say is anything against the US. I love it there.

[bool]

This muff loves Angela better than Donald?

[vigilante397]

Did your friend use a different wall wart in both places? Many adapters like the 1Spot can use 100V-240V mains, so they would be a safe bet anywhere in the world, but if a different adapter was used in different places then one could reasonably expect differences.

[pinkjimiphoton]

the available current is different between 200/220 volts and 100/110
that could definitely have an impact.
lower the current, the more prone to noise pickup in my experience.
shit, my late brother lived up on top of a mountain. he asked me to build him a basic overdrive,
which became the SSOD series i released a few years back.
at my place, they're dead silent in operation other than a tiny bit of "blow"
at his place, they were completely unuseable, and picked up crazy amounts of rfi and noise.
so position and altitude can have an effect, too.
but i still bet its the current differences.
i've exploited this in the past with dirt boxes in some surprising ways, including a couple
soon to be released commercial products.
not at liberty to reveal them yet, but... trust me, the difference caused by available current can and does make a noticeable difference.


@Bool
love it. viva la #resistance

[yeeshkul]

at my place, they're dead silent in operation other than a tiny bit of "blow"
at his place, they were completely unuseable, and picked up crazy amounts of rfi and noise.

Yeah, he said it happened in many places, but there were places where it was quiet too.

[bool]

If you really want to isolate the problem, you need a shorted jack (for the input) and audio-probe.

Shorted input jack will make certain if the problem is within the pedal or somewhere upstream. Audio probe will help to tell where in the pedal is the most of the problem.

[merlinb]

Western Europe has more reliable mains earthing in venues. America has, shall we say, an apologetic attitude to earthing. Who knows what condition the venues were in where he played.

[yeeshkul]

Western Europe has more reliable mains earthing in venues. America has, shall we say, an apologetic attitude to earthing. Who knows what condition the venues were in where he played.

Yeah, that would be it.

[PRR]

> Western Europe has more reliable mains earthing in venues. America....

And yet, we often play nearly buzz-free, in hi-fi and in simple stage-amp setups. Why is this pedal more susceptible than others?

[pinkjimiphoton]

> Western Europe has more reliable mains earthing in venues. America....

And yet, we often play nearly buzz-free, in hi-fi and in simple stage-amp setups. Why is this pedal more susceptible than others?

my first thought is maybe an electro in backwards? hey, shit happens sometimes...
if the outside foil is connected to hot instead of ground, it will become an antenna
couple that with high gain and an already notoriously noisy circuit...

check too to make sure there's a good chassis ground. that could cause issues too.

i'm asuming different guitar cables were tried? does the noise change if you change the orientation of the pedal?

got germanium in it? that shit is wack and highly unpredictable <in a good way>

[yeeshkul]

I use star grounding to input jack ground.
Electros were the way they should be.
No Ge in it.

[bool]

...
Why is this pedal more susceptible than others?
...

Perhaps the problem is elsewhere (upstream) and the muff just exaggerates/amplifies it? Not necessary true in this particular case, but certainly "plausible".

[EBK]

America has, shall we say, an apologetic attitude to earthing.

Yeah, sorry about that. 

[merlinb]

> Western Europe has more reliable mains earthing in venues. America....
And yet, we often play nearly buzz-free, in hi-fi and in simple stage-amp setups. Why is this pedal more susceptible than others?

I'm thinking maybe the common PSU is making the whole board noisy, and the BigMuff happens to be the highest-gain pedal in his setup, making the noise more audible as soon as he activates it. Just spitballing.

EDIT: I see bool said the same thing.