Home Forums Help/Technical Questions Crazy sound from big muff :S

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  • #77749
    Dr. Matt
    Moderator

    Hey

    I’ve just been messing around with my wah pedal, trying to get the switch to be “stompable”, and somehow as soon as i fixed my wah, the big muff went odd.

    It’s not an especially noticable problem but my dad agrees with me that something’s not right – it seems to have started producing some very very odd dissonant harmonics which become more apparent as the note decays, and making lots of noise, kinda like a dying battery, except that i’m using an external power supply. It does, however, still do it when i use a battery.

    turning the volume down on the guitar and sustain up on the muff seems to eliminate the normal signal that remains and single out the craziness, and it sounds like a ring modulator. anyone know what the heck is going on here? :doh:

    #93379
    Quote:
    Hey

    I’ve just been messing around with my wah pedal, trying to get the switch to be “stompable”, and somehow as soon as i fixed my wah, the big muff went odd.

    It’s not an especially noticable problem but my dad agrees with me that something’s not right – it seems to have started producing some very very odd dissonant harmonics which become more apparent as the note decays, and making lots of noise, kinda like a dying battery, except that i’m using an external power supply. It does, however, still do it when i use a battery.

    turning the volume down on the guitar and sustain up on the muff seems to eliminate the normal signal that remains and single out the craziness, and it sounds like a ring modulator. anyone know what the heck is going on here? :doh:

    Where are you placing your wah? Before or after the Big Muff??

    #93380
    Dr. Matt
    Moderator

    the wah is before the muff, but i’ve always had it like and never had any problems until now, so i’m not entirely sure if the little work i did on the wah is relevant – the only thing wrong with the wah beforehand was the fact that the rubber pad that makes contact with the switch when you push the pedal fully fowards had fallen inside the chassis making it very hard to stomp and i simply retrieved it and stuck it back on with blu-tac!

    i have had the 2 working together fine before with the same layout of wah in before the muff.

    #93430
    asatbluesboy
    Participant

    Sounds like something’s shorting. Open it up and check for things touching each other that shouldn’t be doing so. And then tell us so we can circuit-bend our Muffs. :D

    Also could be a faulty DC wire (the red one going from the DC jack to the board).

    #93433
    Dr. Matt
    Moderator

    update: without the wah pedal it’s fine, it’s also fine while the wah is in use- just when the wah is bypassed it goes weird.

    i’m gonna get the shop to have a look at it… i’m completely lost as to why it would suddenly not like the wah’s bypass, when i think the wah is true bypass, and it already has 2 marshall pedals, a boss, and a doctor Q between it, i know at least one of those is buffered…

    further edit: well, i took it into the shop and it sounded better than ever, it cleaned up when i turned the volume down on the guitar (something it’s never done before!), just sounded better even though i was using a marshall MG15DFX in the shop… So they think it’s something to do with my wah, not the big muff.

    #93459
    Ned Flanders
    Moderator

    If its weird with the wah bypassed that sounds like the wah is buffered bypass to me.

    #93497
    Dr. Matt
    Moderator
    Quote:
    If its weird with the wah bypassed that sounds like the wah is buffered bypass to me.

    I have an EHX Doctor Q, Marshall ED-1 compressor and JH-1 overdrive, and a Boss DS-2, between the wah and the muff. I know that the DS-2 is buffered bypass too, but i get the problem whether there’s any pedals between them or not. I’m at a loss here as i’ve tried almost everything.

    I would naturally diagnose the problem as the wah, but then, wouldn’t that mean that all the other true bypass pedals would be having similar problems?

    I Honestly don’t know a lot about my wah pedal – It’s a mysterious old “mister crybaby super” made in italy by a company called JEN elettronica. There’s very little information about them on the net. In bypass mode, it’s a volume pedal, which is something i forgot to mention. so i’d imagine it is a buffered bypass since there’s no “inactive” setting. it’s either volume, or wah.

    #93526
    Ned Flanders
    Moderator
    Quote:
    I would naturally diagnose the problem as the wah, but then, wouldn’t that mean that all the other true bypass pedals would be having similar problems?

    Not necessarily no. It sounds like the wah’s the problem to me.

    #93769
    Dr. Matt
    Moderator

    this is a mixture of :doh: and :thumb: now.

    I took both the fuzz and the wah to the shop to see if they could find out what was wrong, but it was working fine!

    anyway, when i got back, i discovered that a cable was dead, which may have been part of the problem. also, due to the fact there was lots of noise which stopped when i touched the strings on the guitar, i decided to check the earthing in the socket everything is plugged into.. and it was bad wiring done by whoever wired the house’s electrics (i’m told the last time the wiring was checked was in the ’70s!) :facepalm:

    so i fixed the wiring in the socket, and now it works fine :D

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