Introducing Zuma and Ojai – Pedal Power Supplies
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Have you ever powered up your guitar rig and experienced a low frequency buzz or hum from your amplifier or speakers? Or perhaps a high pitched whine when connecting your effect pedals to your amplifier? If so, you are probably experiencing a ground loop or digital noise in your signal chain.
Ground Loops and Stereo Rigs
Grounding is an important part of your guitar rig. It’s used to protect you and your gear from dangerous voltages in the case there is a failure in your equipment. It’s also important in preventing any additional noise from entering your audio.
Ground loops can appear when there are two or more devices connected to a common ground and can sound like a low frequency hum, similar to touching the end of an instrument cable connected an amplifier. This typically happens when you are using a stereo guitar rig with two grounded amplifiers. The current that is flowing through these different ground connections can cause a 60Hz hum in your audio.
Some things to try when you experience a ground loop are:
- Plugging both amps into the same circuit or power strip.
- Lifting the ground on one of the amps. Some amps have a ground lift switch for this.
- You can also use a prong adapter that eliminates the ground prong for just the second amp.
- ***Make sure to remove this ground-lift adapter when using the amp by itself. Grounding is important for your safety and that of your equipment.***
- Cutting the ground/sleeve wire on the cable connecting the last pedal in your chain to the second amp.
- Getting a ground hum eliminator box between the pedal and one of the amps. Ebtech makes several products for this.
Avoiding Digital Noise
If you’re powering pedals with a non-isolated power supply, noise can creep into your signal. You can experience digital noise in your audio if you are using digital pedals that are being powered along with other pedals by a power supply that does not have isolated outputs to power each pedal.
This digital noise, which can sound like a high pitched whine, is filtered from the audio outputs of the digital pedal, but will leak into the audio signal of the other connected pedals through the shared, non-isolated power connection. The best remedy for this is to power the digital pedal with its own power supply, or use an isolated, multi-output power supply (like the Strymon Ojai or Zuma) to power up your effect pedals.
Proximity Noise
Another manner for noise to appear in your signal is due to the proximity of your pedals or your guitar pickups to other electronic devices.
Certain pedals, especially Wah pedals, when placed on top of or near external power supplies will add noise to your audio signal. You can also get noise if your your guitar pickups are near TVs, computer monitors, or even other pedals. The best way to avoid noise from any of these scenarios is to physically move these pedals or your guitar away from these electronic devices.
If you are experiencing a ground loop or other noises in your audio, please try out the suggestions above. If you are not sure or need further help with noise, we’d be happy to assist. Feel free to send us an email to [email protected].
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Hugo
Hugo is Strymon’s customer support manager and calm voice of reason. He spends his time driving through local canyon roads, noodling on guitar, and playing old Nintendo games.
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51 Responses
Thanks! I have issues with my rig with a high pitch whine and while I do have a 1spot isolated power source for all my on-board pedals, it is near my computer and my wah pedal is near a few other power supplies for my Digitech looper pedal and amp switcher. Thanks for the extra bit of info for troubleshooting–I’ll try this tonight.
Do you include different plugs for the power supply pedals to accommodate reverse polarity wah pedals etc?
@Scott Whitacre – The Zuma includes 9 pedal power cables (18″ and 36″), but not different adapters. These are sold individually on our store: https://www.strymon.net/products/powercables/
Never get used to using a 3-2 prong adapter. Never cut off the third prong. These things are there to save your life. If You get ground loops, have amplifiers designed to ground lift, which accomplish this much more safely than dangerous and possibly illegal conversions.
See here: “The ground lift switch breaks the ground loop by disconnecting the shield of the direct output from the amp. It leaves the AC safety ground connected from the chassis to the wall outlet. This is the opposite of using a 3-to-2-prong AC adapter, which leaves the shield connected and opens the safety ground to the wall.”
Ground lifts that are built into amplifiers are safer. 3/2 converts and sawing off the ground pin are not.
I just got the Ojai. Im geting a rain like noise and an hiss threw my vox ac4. The peddles that I’m using are, polytune, Flint and ditto looper, in that order. This noise only happens when pluged into the Ojai. Not near any othe electrical equipment- computer ECT. Thanks.
@Eric – That is strange behavior we are not familiar with. Can you please send us an email to [email protected] with details on how your whole rig is powered (are the amp and Ojai plugged into the same power strip or wall outlet, for example). A video showing this behavior and your connections would also be helpful.
I just purchased a Strymon Zuma to power my 5 pedals and now I have horrific buzzing which did not exist before, i am greatly dissapointed in this product because I had heard it was a quiet unit. Quiet in compared to what?
@Kristopher De Tar – Sorry to hear that you are having trouble with your Zuma. We have seen where using a cable with a bad ground connection in your signal chain will produce a ground loop buzz in your audio. You try powering and playing through 1 pedal at a time in your signal chain, and adding pedals until you experience the noise to determine where the problem lies. Or try checking one cable at a time in your signal chain with a different replacement cable to verify if this clears up the problem. Make sure to swap your instrument cable and cable from the last pedal to your amp to see if this helps.
I have the Strymon Flint as the last pedal in my effects chain, and I get a high-pitched whine when switching to the 60’s or 80’s reverb modes. The 70’s is fine. Any idea what could cause this? I’m not using a Zuma or Ojai.
@Meteoroz – Sorry to hear that you are having trouble with noise in your setup. Can you please tell me how you are powering the Flint pedal? Does this happen with the 9V DC power supply that it comes with? Powering with a daisy-chain or multi-output power supply that shares its current across the outputs will result in a high pitched noise at the output like you describe. You must always use an isolated power supply or multi-output supply with isolated outputs like our Zuma or Ojai power supplies to avoid any additional noise in your audio.
I get hum when I connect my pedal board in a four cable set-up. The signal chain goes guitar to tuner, overdrive, front of amp. Effects send into boost, mod pedal, flanger, delay, reverb to effects loop return. All pedals are powered via isolated outputs of a pedal train power supply, all patch cables are George L’s, and hum is present with guitar cables or newly installed pedal snake. Any tips I may try?
@mark sendra – From your description, it sounds like you may have a ground loop in this setup. If you place all of these pedals in series before plugging them into the front of your amp (eliminating the effects loop for this test), do you still get the same hum? If not, then the ground loop is coming from the additional ground connection your pedals in the loop are receiving from the Effects Return. In this case, you can either place a Hum eliminator box between the output of the last effect in the loop and the Effects Return, or cut the ground/sleeve connection for the cable that connects between those 2 jacks to effectively lift the ground and eliminate the loop.
Another possibility is that there could be a bad ground connection with one or more of the George L cables. We have seem many issues from customers using solderless cables causing ground connection issues that result in noise.
I had a relatively inexpensive brand X power supply setup and I was having all sorts of weird issues with cables, power cords, pedals, hums, delays, etc. I only had three pedals at the time which made it even more frustrating that I was having those issues. I swapped out pedal cables, guitar cables, used one pedal at a time and all sorts of configurations to try to sort out and identify each of the various problem(s) were.
The end result of all that madness was I researched this on the web and came across the Strymon website and immediately looked into your power supplies. I briefly considered the competition (think black boxes that are in every guitar supply store!) but upon further investigation (web and YouTube) I learned that even those very popular black boxes were having issues now and then. So I stepped up, ordered the Strymon Zuma, it shipped amazingly fast out here to Seattle area. As soon as I connected the three pedals and powered the Zuma up all of those problems disappeared completely, Everything worked perfectly, no hums, no pedal delays, all other previous issues gone, just pure clean sound, it was such a relief. The multiple, high power, isolated channels on the Zuma are key as they kill most problems before they have a chance to sneak into your configuration. As mentioned elsewhere, things like Wah pedals and such demand additional attention but I’m confident as I add pedals down the road the Zuma will power and protect the pedal chain. For anyone looking at pedal power I simply cannot give higher accolades to the Zuma, it works flawlessly and looks so good I’ll be placing it on top of the board with the pedals!.
I use an amp-switching pedal from Lehle, the Dual SGOS, which has stereo capability.
http://lehle.com/EN/Lehle-Dual-SGoS
The important part is: “Hum loops are completely excluded, thanks to electrical isolation of outputs A and B by the Lehle LTHZ high-end transformer.”
Works great as the last in the chain before the amps! Also allows you to match the output level between the signals going into the amps.
Cheers
Oh, and the Lehle SGOS has a ground lift button 🙂
I just got my sunset it sound great but what can i do about the 69 cycle hum? I have a Strat with noiseless pups
@John — Sorry to hear you are having trouble. Noise issues like hum from the AC outlet isn’t something inherently common to our pedals. Please email us at [email protected] and we will be happy to try and help you troubleshoot your noise troubles.
I use a Boss NS-2 pedal. So far it has been the best, I use many prdals. My best luck has been running as much through a looper, built intomu amps.I use one for effects in front of my amps and a 2nd for the effects loop. There are many out there. Some just seem to suck your tone and sustain. My best suggestion, and you can do this many times with out being “Cut off” an exchange/return program like Guitar Center is Amazon. You can use the gear for over a month and free returns. If you find it cheaper, buy late. Best of luck to you. I know how fusterating it is. I hate and will not tolerate, humm, buzz etc.
Hi! My Timeline is connected to a Voodoo Lab 4×4. But when you turn on the effect, a whistle appears. What could be the matter?
@Serge – Are you powering more than just the TimeLine off one of the outputs? A noise like this is usually an indication that the pedal is not isolated off the power, and a ground loops has formed. Digital pedals do not like sharing ground through their power supplies. If your outputs are not properly isolated, or if the TimeLine is being daisy chained from an output, you will experience a noise like this. Please try powering your TimeLine with the factory power supply and see if the issue persists.
Thanks for the answer! The problem was in my inattention 🙂 The Timeline was plugged into a 12-volt connector. After I switched it to a 9 volt socket, the whistle disappeared.
Possibly voltage vaiance. Some of these pedals, I know for sure as I have one the BellEpochDeluxe, has a crazy 18 volt deal going on. I needed to buy a buffered pre amp to get a good signal strength as well as a Boss NS-2 Noise supressor pedal. They are available through Amazon, who has a great free return policy. I know some of the noise gates etc really suck. I am keeping the Boss one. Best of luck. I think there is quite a bit of trial & error.
ooops kiss the warranty goodbye.
hey men why when the power cable moves inside the dc in jack my pedals make a scratchy sound and sometimes lose power at all? they are a couple of analog pedals nothing digital or something it seems that the power jack is cheap does it matter?
@George – I’m not quite sure why your pedals would make that noise, but I do know that the jacks should not be moving around in the jacks while performing. I would make sure that you secure your pedals to a board along with all audio and power cables to prevent this from happening to begin with.
I found many times it can be the cable it self. I only buy Planet Waves/ D`Adarrio as they are the only cables that I know of that have a lifetime warranty. I have used the warranty as well, No reciept required. Guitar Center says their in house brand”Live Wire has life time warranty. I had nothing but noise problems with them, mostly with the patch cables.
I have an issue that is strange. I am using a Marshall dsl40cr. I have about ten pedals. 4 connected to amp input and 6 in the fx loop. On the high gain channel, I get what sounds like a ground issue hum. When I take the cable that is normally plugged into my guitar and hold it over the pedals on the input side, the sound gets much louder. But when I hold it over the pedals in the fx loop, the noise almost completely disappears. Any ideas what I should try?
Thanks,
Andrew
@Andrew Karns – Sorry to hear that you are having trouble. From your description, it sounds like you may have a ground loop in your setup that more than likely exists with both high and low gain channels, but the high gain significantly raises the noise floor along including the ground loop hum. You should try lifting the ground on the cable connecting to the EFFECTS RETURN from the pedals with either a ground eliminator box, or cutting the ground sleeve wire on that cable to see if it clears up this hum. Please send us an email to [email protected] if you have further trouble.
I have a Big Sky, I use a Stratocaster and an 8 String Agile guitar with EMG 808 active pickups. It is going into a Marshall MF350 hybrid amp. It sits on top of a 4 X 12 1960 B cab with 4 Celestion VIntage 30s in it. When I put the amp into any of the distortion channels (this amp has three of them , Crunch, OD 1 and OD 2 I get a lot of distortion more like noise as it’s not pleasant to hear. I am running the output of the Big Sky into the front end of the amp. It does have an effects loop. I thought I read somewhere that the Big Sky should be run thru the effects loop? When going into the front input would that cause the noise I’m hearing? I am using the standard wall transformer that came with the pedal. any help would be appreaciated.
Thanks Dave Proffitt
@Dave Proffitt – What you are hearing is most likely that sound of the reverb being generated by the BigSky feeding into the Overdriven channels of your amp. When BigSky is bypassed, you are feeding the amplifier just your guitar signal to be overdriven, however, if you engage BigSky in front of the amp, you are sending both your dry guitar signal and the wet reverb signal into the overdriven amplifier. This greatly increases the signal that is being overdriven when compared to having the BigSky bypassed in this setup. The ideal solution here would be to place the BigSky in the effects loop of your amplifier if you will be using the overdrive from the amp.
I’m having a weird sound coming out for my pedal board. I have a simply setup two pedals a Aguilar tone hammer, and Boss tuner connected to Ojai R30. I figured out that the boss tuner pedal is making the weird high pitch sound ( it sounds like when you’re brewing coffee). I used a Truetone 1 SPOT 9V DC Adapter for the Boss tuner and the high pitch went away. Just want to know why is it getting that high pitch when connecting the two pedals to the Ojai R30. Is it the cable?
@Zuly Vaszquez – It is possible that the BOSS tuner is not getting a ground connection from the 1/4″ audio cables connected to it and, instead, is getting it through the power supply. Using Ojai can make a bad connection apparent like this. Try changing the instrument or patch cables connecting these pedals to see if anything changes.
Strymon Flint (@ end of chain) emits high pitched whistle when pushed by any pedals (overdrive, compressor). It is correctly powered (9v) to the Zuma ..Seems to happen when any of the tremolos are used.
Hey there! Please shoot us an email to [email protected] and we’d be happy to help!
Has anyone experienced a buzzing when having MIDI THRU set to either THRU or ON. I am using it to chain MIDI inbetween a couple synths and every time I switch the big sky MIDI THRU to ON or MERGE the noise occurs.
Hello there! Can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but if you can shoot an email to [email protected] we’re happy to look into this for you!
I am experiencing a high pitch squeal through my strymon iridium / sunset. Iu am using a tone city power supply with these specs:
Specifications
10 outputs in total
2 x SAG outputs with adjustable voltage (9V, 15V, 18V)
Dimensions: 165mm x 72mm x 33mm
Weight: 500mg
Each output also has short-circuit protection (fully isolated) for ultra-safe operation and minimal noise.
the noise is driving me nutws-Will purchasing the Strymon Ojai R30 and the expansion unit solve the problem? Do I need to also purchase the replacement power adapter, or is one included with the purchase?
Hey there! Sorry to hear you are having issues. We have seen certain power supplies labeled as ‘isolated’ even though they are not, which leads to noise similar to what you describe. Check to see if you still get noise when using the factory power supply for Sunset (Damage Control 9V DC 660mA) and if so, please email [email protected] for further assistance. Thanks!
Hello, I recently upgraded my power supply to the Zuma from a Dunlop DC brick. I’ve been chasing noise ever since.. I recently added a Power Conditioner strip from Furman to plug my board, computer, monitor speakers and interface into and am still having issues. My signal chain is this: Guitar–> HX stomp (digital, I know) –> Digitech stereo looper. In the effects loop of the Stomp I have an Ernie Ball volume pedal 25k–> Chuck Pedals Boost–>Chuck Pedals Fuzz–>Keeley Fuzz Bender–>Keeley D&M drive–>Dunlop mini wah–>MXR mini phase 90–>TC HOF reverb–> HX effects loop–> Digitech Looper–> Fender Blues JR and/or Carvin MTS 3200. The noise when plugged into the amps is tolerable, but when I plug into my Presonus 1810c interface I get a high pitched whine. I have everything mentioned plugged into the Furman Power conditioner, but can’t seem to get rid of noise. Please help.
Hey there Eli, thanks for supporting Strymon! Please shoot us an email to [email protected] and we’d be happy to lookin into this for you 🙂
Owned the Deco for a good year or more then one day click click click etc…. I thought the pedal was dead. I had loved it. Years later maybe 5 or so as it has sat on a shelf year after year my new Nightsky just suddenly does not work and click click click… I wish i could get these to work it is horrible i spent so much for gear that has no value. I took the hit sometimes things break and sometimes i probably lost paperwork that explained this and am the worst i wish someone could help. All of my other stuff works some 15 or more pedals i rotate not so often but on occasion in and out of the loop which has no “noise.” yeah i tried the deco just now again i was in the clouds for about 3 min then click click click this is not signal noise it sounds like mechanical failure. I tried an email no idea if yall ever got like. Only pedals i have with this issue. rofl 2016 no more deco just roast me hard
Sean, we’re so sorry to hear you’ve had these issues with your pedals, especially for so long! If you haven’t already, please email us at [email protected] so we can troubleshoot these issues and get you back up and running. A clicking noise like you describe is likely a simple power supply fix, so reach out when you can, and we’ll dig into this with you!
Thank you! I had my Strymon Digg being powered off the power supply and run through the fx loop on my JC120. The high pitched whine was driving me nuts and I couldn’t figure it out. Moved it back to its own dedicated power supply and whine gone. Great article.
Hi I have a new iridium i just used the first time last night it sounds good it’s what I expected . But when I stop playing the is a crackling or a static noise not the hiss but almost like type of noise you hear when turning a level knob fast on an amp I d know to describe it but I can unplug everything even the guitar and get that out of was and just listen to the iridium by it self on bypass it goes away its almost not as noticeable when backing off on the drive knob but I’m assuming that’s just because it makes it harder to hear almost gone I can hear it through headphones or through the out puts like mono into a power amp it’s not normal it can’t be if it it is I can’t see a sound guy at a gig would be ok with that sound coming through it’s especially noticable when using high gain settings almost hard to detect on the fender amp setting and lower drive . I’m not sure if its the same but it almost seems like same noise you can get from tuning the drive knob like if you turn it back and forth but it doesn’t go away when you stop so I guess it’s like a dirty pot sound that never cleans up . It not noticable when playing only when not playing white pedal engaged through headphones or outputs into power amp or board . Guitar and cable unplugged still there . No other pedals just by its self . I tried the power supply it came with and I tried it with Zuma nothing makes this noise go away . I called Sweetwater where I bought and the tech team listened to it and just said its not normal but they don’t know what it is . I’m hoping this a fluke and they send a new one and it it will be fine .but just for my own knowledge can give me a clue of what it might be ? I’ve heard that these are incredibly reliable and that issues are far and few , it’s just strange the first one I bought had a this issue . I think I’m cursed lol it’s almost like if the a piece of gear out there with a problem it finds it was to me lol any info on what this might be would be greatly appreciated thank you very much
Hey there Richard! Sorry you’ve run into issues with your Iridium. Please email our support team at [email protected] if you haven’t already, and we’d be happy to troubleshoot and get you taken care of as soon as possible.
Thanks!
You could include an isolated and grounded power supply with the iridium . it makes awful ground noise when using headphones that goes away with the cioks power brick. 🙁
I’m running the BigSky (bought less than 30 days ago) through a stereo effects loop in my helix floor. Using the original power plug, the BigSky is creating a steady hum and only goes away when I unplug the BigSky. Do I need a replacement power plug or is there another fix?
Hey there! Sorry to hear you’re having those noise issues. If you haven’t already, please reach out to our support team at [email protected] and we’d be happy to help troubleshoot. Thanks!
Hello! Just got a used DIG v1 pedal, which I LOVE!! So far every strymon pedal I have gotten my first thought is “I am going to want to use this on everything, but I better not overuse it!”
The DIG has high pitch whine when using the Gator 8 Bus power supply, though.. But my Strymon El Capstan does not whine at all when in the same positions and using same connections.. Is it possible something is amiss with the DIG pedal?
Hey there! What you’re describing sounds like what occurs when using a pedal without an isolated power supply, although that’s certainly interesting your El Cap doesn’t demonstrate the same issue! If you wouldn’t mind emailing us at [email protected], we’d be happy to troubleshoot. Thanks!