noisy HolyGrail, but only through smokey amp...

[remmelt]

I got a 2nd hand EH Holy Grail. As far as I can see it's the latest issue type.
When i plug it into my Bluesbreaker, the sound is great (nice sounding reverb, by the way). Just as expected.

When I run it into my Smokey amp, even the bypassed signal has a high pitched whine through it. The effect signal is worse. The effect still works, but is unusable.

Is this a mismatch between the HG and the Smokey? Am I overfeeding the Smokey input? I know it can't take too much up the front, my beginnerprojectnpngusboost sends it over edges it won't recover from, like no sound at all even.

Can it be fixed in some way? I haven't checked if the HG is true bypass, if not I'm going to make it that, with grounded input.

Any thoughts?

[The_Philth]

Could be the tubes in the Smokey. I think reverb tubes have the nerve to get "high-tone" when they're looking for attention.

Check the tubes!

Cheers!

[remmelt]

ah! no!

with the smokey I meant the pack-of-cigarettes. no place for tubes in there!
see here

the only pedal that emits this noise is the HG (so far...), but there's nothing to be heard when i plug it into the bluesbreaker (now THAT thing has tubes )

[The_Philth]

Uh... yeah... I knew that! :mrgreen:<---- DORK!

One thing to check is the power supply. If it ain't an original EH Power Supply, then much like the Boss pedals/PS's, they can get pretty noisy!

Since I don't know much about the Smokey (obviously:oops:), I really can't comment on that anymore!

I think I'll just sit this one out then!

[remmelt]

well it doesn't have the original PS. could that be a problem? the one i'm using provides enough (obviously) current, and is regulated as well.

[Lonestarjohnny]

Mine is very Quite, i'm running it on a homemade 9V. regulated power supply i built under my pedal board,
some of my friend's that have the same pedal as mine have had problem's with the new one's being a tad noisey, they were running them on wall wart's, maybe Puretube can shed some light on this, he's the EH man,
Johnny

[remmelt]

anyone?

[puretube]

hi there from my Turkey-vacation:
I`m certainly not the E-H-man, nor the Holy Grail-boy, but are you using a switching PS? (those small, light-weight ones?).
Or - I don`t know - the smoky amp uses a HF voltage doubler?

[remmelt]

if by switching supply you mean i can switch between different voltages, yes i am using one of those. it's not light, though. it's a pretty large powerbrick. it's adjustable in steps from 3 to 12v. i set it to 9v and have the tip as positive (or it won't work at all. come to think of it, i don't know which way around and can't check right now. it's the opposite from what boss pedals have.)

should i try with another transformer? don't you think it's weird that it's just noisy with the smokey? i must say the smokey doesn't really like effects too much.

by hf doubler, do you mean hi frequency? that's as far as my knowledge goes here, i'm afraid. the insides of the smokey are a large dot of hot glue. i hear it's a pretty simple design. according to this thread it is a "It's a cookbook LM386 circuit".  i don't really know what that means, but i guess the circuit can't be very hard.

thanks for the help, how was Turkey?

[puretube]

those heavy power supplies generally don`t cause the H(-igh) F(-requency), english: R(-adio) F(-requency) noises...

so maybe that smokey amp has a HF (RF) voltage doubler or
a plus-to-minus converter chip in it: this could cause interference with the Holy Grail`s internal clock...