The Drop betrayed me with noise

tubelessone

Inspired
About a month ago I was excited to move from my AX8 to my FM3. I worked on it for a few days and had some patches ready for a show, and then when I turned on the FM3, I got "BUZZZZZ" whenever I engaged anything but squeaky clean. Any drive block, unusable. That was a terrible show, I basically played it all on the CA3 clean (it's covers, so I need a lot of tones). I had tried plugging straight into the FM3 bypassing my other pedals ( Freqout, Drop, and MXR A/B) and nothing. Different plugs, etc. Then I did some major Googling and thread searching, determined my EMI/RFI was too intense, because it didn't matter if I put my guitar in positions 2/4. It was awful. I went through all the stages of grief and I was ready to sell the unit. I had written a long post here, longer than this one if you can imagine lol, and before I hit post I thought, am I really gonna be that guy that says "I can't fix da noize :("?? I went back and again tried to remove each external pedal one at a time. First one off the chain was the Digitech Drop, and HOLY COW, the noise went away. WUT. I'm not sure what it was doing but it was making the line super dirty. It's on a OneSpot so I thought it would be ok. I went back to the patches I had created which caused me grief, and they were way quieter. I can still hear some base hum, which is normal, but the unit is usable now.

All that to say that if you're encountering noise and buzz issues and you have the Digitech Drop, take that out first and see what happens.

My theory based on nothing at all would be that a combination of a non-isolated power to it, and the circuitry inside it caused it to be an EMI magnet.
 
My theory based on nothing at all would be that a combination of a non-isolated power to it, and the circuitry inside it caused it to be an EMI magnet.
I'm not an expert either, but this (or something similar) is almost certainly the case. It was likely a ground loop issue, or depending on the amount of pedals in the chain, could have been that there wasn't enough total power being delivered which can cause lots of wacky behavior in all pedals but especially digital pedals.
 
I'm not an expert either, but this (or something similar) is almost certainly the case. It was likely a ground loop issue, or depending on the amount of pedals in the chain, could have been that there wasn't enough total power being delivered which can cause lots of wacky behavior in all pedals but especially digital pedals.

I duplicated one of my presets and added a half step down pitch block, to replace the Drop. Wish me luck! Previously my AX8 pitch block was so bad I had to buy the Drop.
 
I duplicated one of my presets and added a half step down pitch block, to replace the Drop. Wish me luck! Previously my AX8 pitch block was so bad I had to buy the Drop.
It's probably not the Drop itself.
Maybe try it on battery power?

If it's much better, you still have some exploring to do to find a remedy, but at least your know the real root issue, and can tinker with more complete info.
 
But you tried it before and didn't work, right? So what changed? By "plugging straight" you mean simply bypassing pedals?
Exactly, I had plugged directly into the fm3 while troubleshooting on stage... That's why I think I didn't blame the Drop afterwards, and didn't try it again until it was the last ditch.
 
It's probably not the Drop itself.
Maybe try it on battery power?

If it's much better, you still have some exploring to do to find a remedy, but at least your know the real root issue, and can tinker with more complete info.
I'm thinking I'll get one of those isolated power supply units and try again. Right now I've spent enough lol
 
Exactly, I had plugged directly into the fm3 while troubleshooting on stage... That's why I think I didn't blame the Drop afterwards, and didn't try it again until it was the last ditch.
Sorry for me being stupid, can't get my head around it. If you tried it on stage without Drop, and the noise was there, why do you think it was its fault, even if you had replicated the noise at home with Drop?
The advise to try https://www.thomann.de/gb/furman_ac210_power_conditioner.htm for your FM3 sound like the only choice here, can't really blame Drop if it was bad without it in the chain, no? Sorry if I'm not helping, I'm just confused.
 
Sorry for me being stupid, can't get my head around it. If you tried it on stage without Drop, and the noise was there, why do you think it was its fault, even if you had replicated the noise at home with Drop?
The advise to try https://www.thomann.de/gb/furman_ac210_power_conditioner.htm for your FM3 sound like the only choice here, can't really blame Drop if it was bad without it in the chain, no? Sorry if I'm not helping, I'm just confused.
That makes two of us! I think that's why it took me a while to figure it out, the initial stage troubleshooting I think led me astray. It's possible that the noise was still there because the Drop was plugged into the power strip even though it wasn't in the guitar signal chain. Not sure how else to explain it. That would be something for me to test. Maybe another item would be to use a 9v battery adapter into the Drop... I think they make those. I do have a Furman power strip. Didn't really help much to be honest but it makes me feel better slightly. Probably placebo effect, hahaha.
 
It's possible that the noise was still there because the Drop was plugged into the power strip even though it wasn't in the guitar signal chain. Not sure how else to explain it
Oh, that makes sense to me now!

Furman power strip. Didn't really help much to be honest
Damn, bad news for me :/ I was going to by one to fix the similar issue in a one of the venues I play.
 
Check all the cables. Sometimes a cable can be bad but work sometimes, those are the worse. Replace all cables with known good cables and I'll almost bet money that's the problem.
So true! the wonky ones are the ones that give the most trouble... they end up back in the bin and show up at an unexpected time. Nowadays if a cable sounds weird or shorts out, straight to the trash it goes. I know I could probably fix it, but, I don't want to. LOL.
 
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