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  #1  
Old 10-25-2014, 10:24 AM
jacm81 jacm81 is offline
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Default Neon Signs Disabling Tuner Pedal

I played a show tonight and I was set up right next to a big neon sign. Surprisingly, I didn't get any horrible buzz from my magnetic pickup, but my BOSS TU-3 tuner pedal, that's connected to the Tuner Output of my D-TAR Solstice, wouldn't work at all. I've had trouble before with it being a little stubborn in live environments (also near neon, now that I think of it) but I've never had it become completely inoperable like this. I actually thought the pedal might have broken. But once I got it home, it worked fine again. Anyone had similar experiences? Any solution other than moving the pedal? Or would that even make a difference? Again, there was no buzz coming off the pickup. In fact, I turned the magnetic pickup all the way down and the K&K Pure Mini piezo I also have installed all the way up, and the pedal still didn't register. Could the neon be affecting the pedal itself? Or the Solstice?
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Old 10-25-2014, 06:18 PM
BTF BTF is offline
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Was the TU-3 working via battery, or on mains? If on battery, that is a strange phenomenon. Neon signs can be problematic about polluting the mains power supply as well as causing trouble with pickups. Without knowing more, if the pedal was on an adapter, I'd suspect that perhaps the neon light transformer caused some sort of buzz or hum in the mains and that the noise perhaps kept the digital circuitry from operating properly.

At our shop dealers would often give us neon signs to put in the windows. They looked cool, but caused all sorts of noise through the mains. You'd be demoing a high-gain amp, cut into overdrive and hear more "ZZZZZZTTTT" than guitar!
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Old 11-02-2014, 12:16 AM
jacm81 jacm81 is offline
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The pedal was plugged into the powerstrip on my pedal board that also powers the DTAR and a TC Electronics reverb pedal. Like I said, the piezo pickups, which shouldn't be affected by the neon, also wouldn't work, and there was no buzz coming from the magnetic pickup.
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Old 11-02-2014, 05:55 AM
jonfields45 jonfields45 is offline
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What are you using to power your effects? Some of these power supplies, for example the One Spot, are known to pass through noise from AC side (and a long list of of other strange behaviors -- it must quite the primitive switching design). The first few harmonics of 60Hz will step directly on what your tuner is attempting to lock to. Jon
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Old 11-03-2014, 11:44 AM
jacm81 jacm81 is offline
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The Solstice and the the TU-3 are both plugged into the power strip. The TC is powered by the a link to the the TU-3.
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Old 09-15-2015, 07:38 PM
jacm81 jacm81 is offline
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I had this problem happen again. Once again, if I aligned myself just right in relation to the neon, the tuner would work. Otherwise, it wouldn't register at all.
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  #7  
Old 01-23-2022, 05:32 AM
jacm81 jacm81 is offline
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Noticed the same behavior last night, this time with a BOSS TU-3S tuner. The venue had extremely bad power. The speakers on their house PA buzzed incessantly as soon as they were turned on. I flipped the ground lift on my amp and it fixed it for me, but the tuner pedal would not function at all. Again, everything is powered from a power strip on my peddleboard. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this, and if so, is there any way to combat it? It was a pain and having to dig out my clip on tuner at the last moment.
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Old 02-06-2022, 10:56 AM
doublescale1 doublescale1 is offline
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Try a TC PolyTune mini. I've used them for my electric guitar rig in rooms with lots of neon (some directly behind me on the wall too) and had no issues at all.
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