Home › Forums › Help/Technical Questions › Is my Muff’n faulty?
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January 6, 2012 at 1:43 am #82103MiloCrotonMember
Hi,
I got what I was told (and looks like) a fairly new English Muff’n pedal as a trade with somebody. It has some issues that I dont think are normal, but there is no way for me to check. As there are no shops near me which sell them.
The power supply is VERY noisy, it buzzes like a bee and only gets worse the longer you keep it on. Is this normal?
Secondly, the power supply rattles. The transformer block inside doesnt seem to be attached to anything, so it rattles about. Is this normal?
Thirdly, actual sound of the pedal is strangely “fizzy”. The pedal is extremely microphonic, even at low volume. It turns everything including the guitar into a microphone. Even a strong breath is picked up, but comes through the pedal as a strange whiny fizzy sound. This is even with very low gain setting.
Any light touch of the strings, with palm muting for example, with very low gain. Through a regular amp/pedal would come out as a soft clean bass sound. But again this sets off an intense high gain fizz which I can only liken to a cheap musical toy synth that is running out of juice. When playing through with a rather clean setting, you can hear this fizz in the background with the clean sound on top. Its like two guitars are playing at once, one high gain fizzy fuzz and the other clean.
The pedal sounds the best on a higher gain setting as its harder to notice this bizzarre fizz underneath, the standard 12ay7 didnt put out enough gain to cover it up plus sucked out a lot of tone/clarity, I just put some new 12ax7’s in it (also EH brand), which has increased the gain dramatically. Now I cant get a cleanish sound even with the gain on 0, but need it about 12’o’clock to cover the fizz. The tone is better now though.
Could all these issues be down to the power supply?
I have a lot of spare power supplies for things around the home, would I be correct in thinking I can use anything that is 12v 1000ma and has the right polarity?
January 8, 2012 at 8:50 pm #116714moonmin82MemberThe power supply seems to be notoriously cheaply fitted. Mine works its way loose more often than not and inside there’s certainly a rattle.
Some of the other issues you mention I think are down to the nature of the tubes. Could it also be work checking the earthing in the house electrics?
January 8, 2012 at 9:33 pm #116716MiloCrotonMemberQuote:The power supply seems to be notoriously cheaply fitted. Mine works its way loose more often than not and inside there’s certainly a rattle.Some of the other issues you mention I think are down to the nature of the tubes. Could it also be work checking the earthing in the house electrics?
Thanks for the reply, I emailed EHX customer support nearly a week ago and they have not replied. I find that disappointing.
Im really suprised that you also have a power supply rattle. I have used and owned hundreds of them over the years, for musical equipment, battery chargers, household appliances, toys etc. Never in my life have I come accross a rattly power supply.
In terms of the sound issues, its definitely not a earth thing. I have 5 different guitar amps, 2 tube and 3 solid state, other dist/OD and effects pedals, also a bunch of recording gear. Never heard anything like this before. It literally sounds like high gain fuzz through a broken speaker cone underneath everything.
So its impossible to use the pedal for either soft playing or low gain, as the fizzy sound is much to dominant. I changed to brand new EHX tubes, same problem.
January 9, 2012 at 2:24 pm #116726CryabetesParticipanthey
I’ve had the rattly power supplies before
They’re usually a direct result of about a four foot fall onto concrete. Made my Kaoss pad act the same way your muffn did.Your best bet is to buy another power supply and don’t drop it.
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