Electrical noise / interference concerning pedalboards

[Nadz1lla]

I have a few pedals now that need power adapters, and I had thought about using a daisy chain from a Boss, but someone advised me today that my Delay and Reverb pedals in particular might need their own dedicated power supply.

I want to start building my pedalboard soon, inside which I'd like to integrate a multi-socket to plug all these PSUs into and have just one master plug coming out the back. My concern will be that I'll get interference from using more than one PSU, so are there any good multi-sockets on the market that are extra shielded or designed specifically for this kind of thing?

I have a Boss NS2, which might help to some extent, but there are subtleties I want to include in my playing that I don't want the NS2 to cancel out.  :?

EDIT: Would this be the kind of thing I'd want?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/tacima-2m-six-socket-mains-conditioner-plus-rfi-filter-for-home-cinema-and-hifi-46830

[Telerocker]

I have a few pedals now that need power adapters, and I had thought about using a daisy chain from a Boss, but someone advised me today that my Delay and Reverb pedals in particular might need their own dedicated power supply.

I want to start building my pedalboard soon, inside which I'd like to integrate a multi-socket to plug all these PSUs into and have just one master plug coming out the back. My concern will be that I'll get interference from using more than one PSU, so are there any good multi-sockets on the market that are extra shielded or designed specifically for this kind of thing?

I have a Boss NS2, which might help to some extent, but there are subtleties I want to include in my playing that I don't want the NS2 to cancel out.  :?

EDIT: Would this be the kind of thing I'd want?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/tacima-2m-six-socket-mains-conditioner-plus-rfi-filter-for-home-cinema-and-hifi-46830

My Old Ibanez AD9 runs perfect on the Boss-daisychain. Should be no problem.

[Dave Sloven]

I haven't had any problems with noise on my pedalboard coming from a power supply, and I use a daisy chain for the front-end effects.  I put the tuner (which is digital) on a separate isolated outlet.  I haven't separated the loop though, and I have a pedal in the front-end (a line-driver) and a pedal in the loop (a 10-band EQ) running off the same 18V outlet via a Y-connector I bought on ebay.

The power supply I use is the T-Rex Fuel Tank Chameleon, which I have mounted under my Pedaltrain using the Universal Bracket Kit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgJLx3cL9JQ

I recently moved it slightly, this is what I have found to be the optimal position (note that I have spread the brackets more, to give better access to terminal 1)



The main noise generator on my board seems to be the MXR Custom Comp when the compression is turned up.  I am currently experimenting with pedal order so I have everything off the board, you can see what a mess it looks like in this photo (I have more to add soon, hence the Pedaltrain, which will make everything so much neater and easier to set up when moving it around).  You can see it in this thread:

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=30701.0

[xXNicFlairXx]

I used to use a 1-spot daisy chain, i was getting a terrible swooshing sound in synch with the flashing lights on the front of my old Boss RE-20 pedal and my treble-booster was super noisy too. I think some pedals just don't like to be daisy chained.
I recently put together my pedal board and invested in a Voodoo Labs power supply. No noise now.  Just make sure you got enough power, some of the larger modern pedals are pretty thirsty!

[Dave Sloven]

My pedals seem to be noisy today, probably because they have been pushed back into the corner a little more with cables looping around everywhere.  I'll get a better idea of noise issues once I have tried routing them properly around my board with cable ties, but I suspect the problems are from power cables going over guitar/patch cables.

Also, that single P-90 guitar I bought is noisy, even with the Decimator on!  The 60 cycle hum with distortion sounds like puff puff puff every so often when not playing.

[Alex]

The cheaper options:

Non-isolated, but lots of juice and you can just put a UK kettle lead on it.
http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_powerplant.htm

Isolated outputs (no noise), but will require an EU-UK adapter. I use this one and it is great.
http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_powerplant_junior.htm

[Nadz1lla]

Alex, I just ordered that isolated Thomann box. So cheap! I figure if it ends up not being too great, I only lost £30 all in. Worth it for an experiment, and we're nowhere near gigging yet so perfect for the practice room where I can test it fully before deciding to keep it for my gig rig or upgrade later.  :D

[juansolo]

It's a bit of a tough subject as you're not going to know until you try it.

The pro's and cons of each are:

Single grunty daisy chained PSU - cheap, simple lots of power (if you get a good one) and doesn't take up much space. However you can have odd problems with pedals not playing well with each other.

A PSU with isolated outs addresses the interference issues, but they cost a LOT more and generally have pitiful amounts of power on each output. Which is all well and good for a lot of pedals to be fair. But some reverbs and delays can be very power hungry. Tube effects are straight out of the window too.

[Dave Sloven]

I guess if the non-isolated ones are so cheap you could always add one if you run out of outlets on your T-Rex or whatever.  I have used up mine with the following:

Two pedals (wah and polytune) on a Y to #1 9VDC
Five pedals (phaser, compressor, 6-band EQ, distortion, overdrive) on a daisy chain to #2 9VDC
One pedal (power-hungry ISP Decimator G-String) to #3 9VDC
Two pedals (in the loop, boost and 10-band EQ) on a Y to #4 18VDC
Two pedals (in the loop, delay and chorus) on a Y to #5 9VDC

Of course you have to know the mA draw of each pedal.  All of mine work out fine.

I bought the three Y-cables on ebay

[Alex]

Alex, I just ordered that isolated Thomann box. So cheap! I figure if it ends up not being too great, I only lost £30 all in. Worth it for an experiment, and we're nowhere near gigging yet so perfect for the practice room where I can test it fully before deciding to keep it for my gig rig or upgrade later.  :D

Cool, let me know how you like it. The only thing is that you need a UK adapter for that one and I would use one with ground, i.e. not one for shavers.
BTW I think that those power units are basically T-Rex rip-offs.

[Dave Sloven]

I'm finding that the two MXR EQ pedals I have are noisy on the board.  The 6-band is worse than the 10-band.  Is this common?  I would have thought an EQ unlikely to be noisy, but it seems I was wrong.

[lamp]

I use a Diago Powerstation and daisy chain my effects.  It has plenty of power and any pedals that are noisy I use a virtual battery with and my set up is as good as silent.
http://www.thegigrig.com/acatalog/Virtual-Battery-VB-DC.html

[Lew]

My Diago Powerstation makes some cack noises when I use delay and phaser on the daisy :-( I'm weighing up the options but at the minute I'm using a cheap seperate psu for the delay

[Nadz1lla]

I'm finding that the two MXR EQ pedals I have are noisy on the board.  The 6-band is worse than the 10-band.  Is this common?  I would have thought an EQ unlikely to be noisy, but it seems I was wrong.

My Boss EQ pedal is noisy, too. I think it's just EQ pedals in general, heh.

[Dave Sloven]

The interesting thing about the EQs is that I didn't notice any noise when they were spread out on the floor.  Perhaps when you mount them on a board in closer proximity to other pedals and power cables (neither of them are over the power supply itself, that's where I have the delay and boost, neither of which seem to be noisy) they pick up noise from other pedals?