Home › Forums › Help/Technical Questions › Unwanted noise from Black Finger using bass

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
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  • May 10, 2010 at 5:31 pm #80204
    fuguegnus
    Member

    Hi EHX users,
    I’m new to this forum and was wondering if anyone has also experienced any unwanted noise from the Black Finger compressor pedal. I had bought on ebay and it arrived through the mail with a broken tube. The glass on one of the tubes was shattered and some of it was floating around inside the pedal for a while. Anyway, I bought two new tubes, removed all the broken glass, replaced the tubes and set it up to play. By the way, I use it with my Fender P bass. When I turn it on and start playing my bass, everything will start out fine but eventually a noise will fade in and come through the amp. Like a humming distorted noise and then it’ll fade out. It’s only for a short time but long enough to distract you from your playing.
    Any advice or solutions will be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks!

    Fender P Bass
    Black Finger
    Eden 410XLT
    Gallien Kreuger 700RBII

    May 10, 2010 at 6:02 pm #104258
    The EH Man
    Moderator

    If it’s happening just when the box is first powered up, it’s probably from the tubes warming up.

    May 10, 2010 at 6:17 pm #104259
    fuguegnus
    Member

    It happens all through my jam session. I know power tubes need time to warm up. Do regular tubes require some warm up time too?

    Thanks

    May 10, 2010 at 7:48 pm #104256
    The EH Man
    Moderator

    yes, they do. If the noise comes and goes, it may be a problem w/ a single tube or in the power supply. I’d try tube substitution first.

    May 10, 2010 at 9:09 pm #104257
    fuguegnus
    Member

    So by tube substitution you mean replacing the tubes I bought brand new with other ones or switching their positions? Since I have already spent $35 on two new tubes I would hate to have to buy another set. What would I have to do if the problem lies with the power supply besides buying another power supply?

    Thanks for your help The EH Man!

    May 10, 2010 at 9:35 pm #104163
    The EH Man
    Moderator

    Replace them 1 at a time with another tube. If the sound comes and goes it may be a bad solder connection in the pedal, possibly in the power supply section, but not in the AC adapter.

    July 3, 2011 at 8:35 pm #115908
    sboubi
    Member

    I am new to the forum and I experience a similar problem of noise on the Black Finger.
    My unit is 8 years old and a few years ago it started to have a random noise when engaged. It is a kind of hum (probably some coloured 50Hz) that appears and disappears. It stops when the the compressor is disengaged and re-engaged with the switch but comes back after a while. Typically it starts a few minutes after power up and also it follows notes or heavy playing for several seconds and disappears.
    I changed the tubes, 2 at the same time and one by one. When I saw this post, I resoldered all the solders on the PCB, tried to re-screw all the screws but the problem is still there and the unit is not usable …
    The interesting thing is that the noise is present in all the modes (lamp, led, sqsh and norm whatever the combination) even with the pregain at 0. The amplitude of the noise depends of course of the post gain.
    I use it with an active MusicMan bass and the noise is there whatever setup I use (other pedals before or after the unit in the chain, BF alone …)
    Do you have any idea of what component could cause the noise ? You seems to point out the power supply section. I could try to change some stuff inside …
    Thanks for your help,
    Nicolas

    August 23, 2011 at 12:40 am #115693
    hholmes
    Member

    sboubi:

    Did you ever find a solution? My Blackfinger suffers from the identical symptoms you described, intermittent, slowly oscillating buzz/hum that occurs when pedal is either idle or when guitar signal is present; sometimes it gets “stuck” and you must disengage & re-engage to eliminate; other times it appears only momentarily. I’ve switched out dozens of pairs of tubes (new and nos), chop-sticked the components, re-soldered any suspect points, et cetera, to no avail.

    If anyone else has any suggestion, please posts. Thanks.

    Harrison

    September 2, 2011 at 10:07 pm #115571
    pdxehx
    Member

    I’ve had noise problems with my Black Finger similar to those described by hholmes. I purchased my Black Finger new about 8 years ago. It’s never left the studio and hasn’t been used constantly.

    I’m interested to see if anyone finds a solution.

    Thanks.

    October 17, 2012 at 11:13 am #118281
    props
    Member

    Hi everyone,

    I’m experiencing a similar problem.
    Even after a long tube warmup, noise come and go. It is particularly loud in Normal mode, with the compression knob set from 12 to 5 o’clock. Squash mode is more quiet.
    My BF is only 6 months old and is only a few hours of use. I plug it into the send/return loop of my AMT SS11 preamp (tried all ther other positions without better results).
    I’ve put a sound extract of what happens here

    Any idea of what it could be ? Great pedal, anyway…

    Thanks,
    Prop’s

    Edit : one tube is actually involved. The noise disapears when I give it a little slap. Will change it soon.

    November 15, 2013 at 10:07 pm #119490
    FrankBond0077
    Member

    Hi, here an italian Black Finger owner.

    I these last two weeks I’ve had the opportunity to check TWO Black Finger units in fast sequence.
    In fact I bought two of them …

    … the first one sounded sweet… but something was wrong, it got many of symptoms I read in this forum, noisy (buzzing) when opening Post-Gain (or Pre-gain) already to low levels (expecially in SQSH mode). Distortion when in normal mode.

    So I sent it back to the seller, but I was already in love for that unit (after having used it),

    So I decided to buy another one (from a different internet-seller)… I tried my luck… I felt myself almost sure that I was ahving to get again another noisy unit!

    Instead this one is really a very very silent one!! BINGO! Really silent, more silent of other effect-pedals I got! Even with knobs of gain totally turned clockwise. A real sweet and natural compression! Also the controls seems work differently compared to the first unit, this time more properly.

    Now I am very happy to have it. (together with the other three EH Mic-pre I own)

    . Franco .

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