Pedalboard Hum Help
 

Hi all. I have problems with my current pedal set up.
Pedal chain is guitar > knock off tube screamer (Joyo Vintage Overdrive) > Joyo American Sound > NUX looper > Yamaha THR 10C. I use this for practice and it is great for that.
Problem 1. I use a daisy chain (6 plugs) to power the pedals. It all works fine if only the American Sound and Looper are plugged in but if I add the Vintage Overdrive it hums like a swarm of bees. Power the Vintage Overdrive by battery and the hum goes away. I checked the power requirements of all 3 pedals before buying the power supply - and while not a 1 spot it is rated with more capacity than all 3 pedals together. It was however a cheap daisy chain. I don't want to go to the expense of independent power supply for each pedal like the 1 Spot Pro. Would a better quality daisy chain help? The Vintage Overdrive has had the same battery for about 18 months, so going through batteries is not a problem, but it is really difficult to get the battery out of the pedal (ridiculously so).
2. Having to set it all up each time I want to practice takes time and puts me off practice, or limits the amount of time I practice. A pedal board would allow me to keep them hooked up, move them easily and set up and take down more quickly. Any suggestions for a good cheap pedal board that would fit 5 or less pedals?
Thanks.

Are you plugging the amp and the pedal power supply into the same electrical outlet? A ground loop can cause the problem you are having. My rule of thumb for sound reproduction is that every part of the signal chain gets plugged into the same electrical outlet.

As far as a pedal board goes, Pedaltrain makes nice stuff. I like my Novo for my small rig. I opted for the hard road case. After having two out of two zippers fail on the soft bag models, I've come to the "cry once buy once" philosophy with gear.

One Spots are a bit flaky.

If you can swing it, the Vodoo Labs Pedal Power units have NEVER given any one I know who owns one a lick of trouble. I've had one for,, I can't even be sure.. 20 years???
like said,, cry once, buy once is a good way to look at this.

Donner has some Power Supplies available too, I use for one my Acoustic board. it runs a # of nine volts as well as an 18v pigtronix delay

I think mine is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Donner-Guitar...xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

not all that much more than the One Spot, and I've had ZERO troubles with it.

For pedal boards, Pedal Trains are built like tanks. I have a large one, and a smaller one (Metro). Solid as rocks.

My acoustic stuff sits on one of these:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...B&gclsrc=aw.ds

I ran a daisy chain, and gigged lots with it, for many years with no problems. I have always heard that they can cause problems though and perhaps that is what you are seeing now.

FWIW I am now using a Joyo power supply with individual power to the pedals. Been running that for about 5 years now. I only ever had one Joyo pedal and frankly it was garbage so it could be the pedal quality too. Their power supplies seem to be real good though, go figure.!

This is not what you're going to want to hear, but the solution is to buy a good power supply. It'll cost more than one of your pedals. What you're looking for is one with isolated, individually regulated and filtered lines. I ended up with a One Spot Pro. There are cheaper ones out there, but for less than $100 they're not going to be truly isolated. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, this was a hard bullet for me to swallow too.

+1 - A good quality Isolated power supply will benefit all of your pedals.

OK the tells you the issue is isolation (or lack there of), in using the the Daisy chain power Battery is isolated,,,, daisy chain isn't.
Possible solutions
# 1 Use battery in the OD
#2 get separate power supply for OD
# Get power supply with isolated output (rather than daisy chained)

Pedal Board lots of choices (depending on definition of "cheap" ). I use a PedalTrain Board . Note generally better to have bigger than you think you need. they make a 14 " and this 18 " same price
perhaps https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PTNPLSC--pedaltrain-nano-18-inch-by-5-inch-pedalboard-with-soft-case

I have learned the hard way that cheaper pedals and cables will work but are tricky to set up, and that more expensive equipment is more forgiving and requires less attention.

Thanks for the information everyone. For the record, yes, the amp and pedals are powered by the same power board. The OD is fine powered with the daisy chain if it is the only one plugged into the chain, but as soon as either of the others is plugged in it introduces hum.
Looks like the easiest and cheapest way around this is to stick with batteries in the OD. At least they last a long time in there. The looper goes through a new battery in about 90 minutes!
I appreciate the advice 'Buy once, cry once' but I'm not performing and acoustic is actually more of my interest. I'll keep looking at the pedalboards, thanks for your suggestions.

Just remember to unplug the OD patch cable on the input side when you are not using it otherwise it will use up the battery even while just sitting there doing nothing.

Hey Sean, curious, what happens if you swap the OD and the American Sound in the chain? That would rule out whether the American Sounds doesn't like the OD in front of it. It may not give you the tone you want but it may not be the OD that is the problem.

When you say hum, are you talking about a 50/60Hz AC hum or something else? I've had AC hum with certain power supplies, and that can usually be attributed to the quality of filtering in the power supply itself. If the power supply has a grounded three-prong plug you may also be having ground loop issues, but in this case I suspect not.

I was having issues with my compressor/sustainer pedal giving me hissing issues, and I solved that with a noise reducer pedal, putting the compressor in the send/return loop of the noise reducer.

Overall, if you have no noise using a battery, then IMO, the problem is likely related to the power supply itself, and, although less likely, a possible ground loop.

I have some issues that I think are related to ground loop. Tried everything. finally bought a Fortin Zuul noise gate. That fixed it but if are using modulated effects like delay and chorus you need to run those through the amps effects loop. If you amp does not have effect loops it might not work well. YMMV

That Looper is the culprit. No pedal should go through a battery in 90 minutes. Either get a new looper pedal, or use power only for it and batteries for all else, or get a better power supply rated at least 3x of what you presently have

Not true. Digital pedals can easily eat a battery in 2 hours or less, and I'd have to believe a looper is among the biggest power consumers even among digital pedals.