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BOSS AC-3 "Hiss", Mod or Other Workaround?


kingswebe

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Anyone know of any mod's to remove/reduce the hiss produced when turning the "top" knob on this pedal up to 1 o'clock or above?

 

Or, anyone figured out any workarounds for this problem, like using an additional pedal, like an EQ, before or after the AC-3?

 

Thanks!

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I'm very interested as well. The hiss makes it unuseable for me. And EQ pedal might work. The best solution I've found is running it through something with cabinet modeling... it seems to cut just enough of those highs, while still retaining the "acoustic" sizzle. I've run it through my Sansamp Liverpool (set to clean), and it cuts out the hiss, and thickens it up a bit; it sounds pretty decent. I've also tried it through the Sansamp Acoustic DI, which has some kind of tube pre modeling that kind of does the same thing.

 

But, I think I am just too much of an acoustic purist, if I want an acoustic sound, I just bring my acoustic guitar instead. But, the AC-3 can get some 3-dimensional clean sounds, which can be cool, as long as you get rid of the hiss.

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Thanks - emailed him.


I'll post back here if he or any others I found say they've got a mod that's possible.

 

 

Both Monte and Analog Man say that no mod is currently available, although they may or may not research and create one for it in the future.

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I used to have an AC-3 and had the same problem. What worked for me was to run the AC-3 into my Bad Monkey (Humphrey Audio mod) and the hiss was reduced almost to nothing. This did not seem to work for any other OD pedal that I ran it into. As long as I kept the BM on a clean setting the AC-3 sounded nice. I still have the BM but no AC-3. I have been thinking about picking up one.

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I had all the versions of the AC pedals.. was never pleased with them and sold all of them. Tonally not very good and ridiculously noisy for something thats basically used for a clean/acoustic sound. I had such hopes each time that they'd get it right, but there's still issues there.

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I had the several versions of the AC pedals.. was never pleased with them and sold all of them. Tonally not very good and ridiculously noisy for something thats basically used for a clean/acoustic sound. I had such hopes each time that they'd get it right, but there's still issues there.

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  • 3 years later...
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I know that this is an old post but I have some input that could help.  I put the AC-3 at the front of the chain (Guitar, Wah, AC-3, Compression.. Noise...) and that fixed the hiss issue for me.  To be clear, I get the hiss with the compression in front of the AC-3 whether compression is on or not.

One weirdness - I am not using Boss wall warts and when I switched power supplies between the CS-3 and AC-3, the AC-3s light would not go off.  No change on the CS-3.  I rotated the power supplies so that the AC-3 had the same supply as before and all seems normal. 

Tomorrow I will be getting an NS-2 with the power daisy chain.  I will run the compressor and the AC-3 from that power and see if anything changes. 

I hope that this helps someone. 

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  • 3 years later...
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Folks,

 

I had the same issue with Boss AC-3 and here is the ultimate solution:

 

Connect your pedal line out to a DI with an amp sim; could be H&K Red Box 5, Joyo JDI-01, Behringer Ultra G, Palmer Junction, Radial JDX Direct-Drive etc...

 

My personal choice is Palmer Junction DI with 'Bright' setting. Use an XLR cable from the 'Balanced Out' to PA or sound card.

 

If you want to have total control over the acoustic simulated tone on stage, use an EQ right before the AC-3. If you have a plug-in running on your computer, keep in mind; you might want to set the 'Reverb' on AC-3 to zero and use that effect after the EQ plug-in.

 

Hope this helps, cheers.

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Yes, old thread. I would advise using a gate to kill the signal when you're not playing. you set the sensitivity of a gate so it clamps the signal down to nothing when you stop playing and when you pick the string, the gate releases and lest the sound through. This way when you play, you get the full tone of the pedal. The hiss noise floor is low in comparison to actual notes being played and the hiss is squelched when you stop playing.

 

Any kind of EQ is likely going to mask the tone if the hiss is within the range of the notes. The Acoustic simulators boost presence to make a guitar to sound like a bright acoustic. This boosts noise in that range just like an EQ would. Using an acoustic pedal to boost frequencies then using an EQ to cut those same frequencies is counter productive.

 

Boss makes an NS-1 & 2 which will take care of this issue. A Rocktron Hush and even Beheringer clone of the boss works to take care of the noise.

 

My solution however is to either install a Piezo bridge which allows you to get acoustic tones or just plug an acoustic in when you need it. A pedals can only fake the frequency response. Its still going to sound more like an electric then an acoustic.

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  • 3 years later...
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I HAVE A REAL SOLUTION GENTS. NO MOD NEEDED. Aight so listen up :D problem is pedal's output volume. When it is too high pedal starts to hiss.

Step one: set your amp clean. If you have gain turn it all the way down. Keep the Presence knob mid to low..

Step who: set the volume of pedal LOW! like 1/4.. than match the volume of your amp and pedal with BODY knob on the pedal. Sounds weird but it works I guarantee. Turning the body control up will increase the overall volume as well. Once you have balanced your sound you can turn Top knob all the way an it will not hiss anymore. 

So basically you raise volume with body knob and keep volume/output as low as possible. 

Hope it helps yall bcs i suffered for days bofere discovering this 😛

 

 

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