I’ve had this pedal for a few years. It never got much use for various reasons, the main reason being that at fat, boosted levels it is noisy. It wants to be at the head of the signal chain but that just leads to amplification of the hiss. Although I could run it lower boost and lower gain, that would defeat the purpose—I’m not looking for distortion, just good tubey fat boost/drive conditioning. Which it delivers. With noise.

So I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to quiet it down. Is there any chance that the light bulb illuminating the tube (come on, guys, do you really need to impress Homer Simpson?) adds to noise? If I wanted to ditch it, can I just remove it or would I need to jumper that connection or something? Or is there no way, no how, that that could contribute to noise so why bother? Any other thoughts about where the noise comes from that I might be able to remedy? I’ve put a lower gain 12AT7 in there but that’s not the issue.

This unit could do exactly what I need on my board but not if I can’t quiet it down.