question about noise issue in analogman sunface, or any fuzz face really...

[vanguard]

so i've got a great nkt-275 analogman sunface. it's normally very quiet for a fuzz face, with minimal radio interference. the last week or so, i've noticed pretty substantial noise with the volume on guitar past 1/2, and suddenly i'm getting very loud and clear mexican radio at volume all the way down and all the way up on guitar. am i suddenly just more finicky about noise, or is there something here? i played a big show last night, i and it sucked because at every pause during the set there was this loud hum from the fuzz that sort of blanketed the music. i'm NOT finicky about noise either, i think it's part of using analog equipment and tube amps.

[vanguard]

bump.

[vanguard]

come on you jerk weeds.

[Liberty Belle]

meh,some times fuzz likes to broadcast teh news!

 

[Kitarist]

hey how does the analogman fuzz sound ? is it bassy and like the hendrix fuzz or is it just different

[damacy]

i have a monsterpiece classic, which i believe is based on germanium fuzz face like sunface. i experienced it once or twice too when i turn the volume of the booster before it all the way up. several radio stations at once. but not often, and i'm not sure what exactly caused it.

 

sorry i'm not much of help here, but mike @ analogman would be able to answer your questions.

[fuzzface71]

I never heard any radio interferance, from a germanium fuzz face before. My MJM germanium London Fuzz never picks any radio frequency, though my other, a silicon London Fuzz did seriously pick it up.

 

It's weird that the analogman sunface does that. Never tried it. I only have an analogman modded Arbiter England FuzzFace (that never gets radio stations)

[newstrat60]

maybe dying battery

[TheAtomicJeff]

The silicon London Fuzz and silicon Fulltone 70's pedals that I owned pickup up radio signals when I turned down the guitar's volume knob.

[fuzzface71]

 

maybe dying battery

 

 

Dying battery won't affect frequencies.

[warioblast]

 

hey how does the analogman fuzz sound ? is it bassy and like the hendrix fuzz or is it just different

 

 

The Sun Face sounds slightly more bassy than a Si Fuzz Face. It nails those early Hendrix Tones.

[t_e_l_e]

it can happen with any fuzz/od if you are lucky. its just an amplifier circuit which amplifies what comes in the input.

 

so what makes it a radio?

you basically need an antenna, and something to dial in the frequency.

 

ok you have guitar, with pickups, tone knobs and volume knobs, you have guitar cable plugged into. and your pedals are in a given order.

 

so in the right room/area with the right cable pickup selection and tone/volume knob position and right order of your pedals you can get radio signals.

 

if you don't want them try first to change your guitar cable, take a longer or a shorter one, it will change your "antenna".

if you can reorder your pedals, it will also change the antenna.

try the other pickup, try tone pot in different position.

 

or change your location and never play a gig there again

[newstrat60]

 

Dying battery won't affect frequencies.

 

 

I've just had this same problem with my Fuzz Factory (Ge based), and Zach told me it could be dying batteries.

But what do I know...

[warioblast]

 

I've just had this same problem with my Fuzz Factory (Ge based), and Zach told me it could be dying batteries. But what do I know...

 

 

Fuzz Factory is hybrid, Ge & Si.

[kismet78]

meh,some times fuzz likes to broadcast teh news!

 

Wow, ass central.

 

Yep, I get all my news/talk radio from breadboarding fuzz circuits (much much noisier than once they get shielding from an enclosure).

[fuzzface71]

I once played in a bar, with a neon light behind the stage. I didn't get to use my silicon FF that night.

[Kitarist]

bumpy :D

[analogmike]

t e l e had a good reply above.

 

Here is part of what I wrote when he emailed me about the noise:

 

 

Radio Frequency Interference (RF IF) is a tough one, most

gain pedals like Fuzzes and even some wahs have a lot of RF problems.

Since we cannot duplicate the problem here (it has no noise here)

it's not something we can fix at our shop.

 

Gain is amplifying the RF from the air like a radio, it is tuned

to the local station. Sometimes shortening wires or adding ferrite beads

will help but since we dont have the problem here we would only

be guessing. If you have a good tech he can try shortening the internal

wires one by one and test to see if that helps, or he can try

adding more and more ferrite beads and see if that stops the noise.

 

Also you can try to add a small capacitor on the input of the board

or the input jack to ground, that often kills the noise. Try something

small like 100pF then go bigger up to .01uF if needed. We often

put a small cap right on the switch from the TO BOARD wire connection

(gets connected to input jack when ON) to the GROUND connection.

 

Also dirty jacks can cause RF interference, try cleaning them

with a swab and some contact cleaner.

 

A customer wrote :

"One thing I did was to uncoil all the power leads in the back of the rack. I had them coiled up pretty tight and then cable tied. This immediately helped, but I wasn't completely satisfied.

 

At this point, I noticed that to make the radio signal be it's worst, touching the audio plugs on the back of the power amp (Metal sleeves) would do it.

 

So next I soldered some 4.7pf capacitors across the DC connectors on my pedals. "

 

another customer with RF problems with a sunface wrote:

 

"Thanks for the note, Mike. After applying an, ahem, no-to-low-tech technique it seems that the RF IF problem is gone. Get this: after reading your reply I got to fiddling with the guitar cables in the chain, which includes a Framptone Amp Switcher in front of two amps. Anyway, I just swung the guitar-out cable from the Strat around from the front and behind my body and presto/change-o, the RF IF disappeared. No contact cleaner, no screwdriver, no solder. No BS."

 

 

Hope that helps, good luck!

[Kitarist]

wow nice post