Pedalboard Noise: Do you REALLY need an expensive power supply? $39 Donner VS. $197 Truetone. NS-2??
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- Опубликовано: 6 авг 2022
- Everyone who has built a pedal board has probably heard that they have to spend $200-400 on a power supply, and has equally struggled with justifying the expense when daisy chains and Amazon supplies come so cheaply.
This video compares a 10-pedal pedalboard on a $39 Donner DP-1 Power Supply and on a $197 Truetone One Spot Pro CS12 Power Supply, measuring for noise floor issues. I'll also explore how to deal with causes of noise OTHER than non-isolated power, with real world examples of just how far a good noise gate like the Boss NS-2 can get you.
Check it out, let me know what you think. The results will FLOOR YOU. (Get it? Noise floor?)
Spoiler: The answer to whether you really need to spend $200 on a power supply is a RESOUNDING MAYBE.
Bonus: gain staging and pedal shootout between the Ibanez Nu Tubescreamer and 40th Anniversary Boss SD-1.
Featuring:
Donner DP-1
Truetone One Spot Pro CS12
Boss TU-3
Boss NS-2
Xotic SP Compressor
Ibanez Nu Tubescreamer
Boss SD-1
Xotic Super Clean Boost
Radial Twin City A/B
Boss TR-2
TC 3rd Dimension
Ibanez Mini Analog Delay
Fender 68 Custom Pro Reverb
Sennheiser E906
Seymour Duncan Antiquity II Jazzmaster Pickups
TV Jones Telecaster Neck Pickup 
Видеоклипы
Thanks for this. I have a hiss issue and was trying to pin down the problem. I already have a noise suppressor pedal coming in the mail, but wasn't sure if my power supply might be a culprit as well. This definitely gave me some help figuring out how to set up my rig.
You also created an ad for those tv jones pickups I never realized they had such an effect on the noise
Mostly that's just it being a humbucker compared to vintage styled single coils, but it's a very good humbucker! I def like it quite a lot.
good job man
Interesting video, you can improve that Donner by swapping it's 1amp wall wart for a 2 amp one, I did this and it allows higher draw pedals to work and improves the noise situation.
Interesting, I have not tried that.
would going up to 3 amps 18 volts be safe as well?
@@riffsnoleads No, Amps are taken as needed, Volts must be adhered to.
Think of it like plumbing, the amps are the pressure in the pipe, open the tap further, more amps come out, the volts are the size of the pipe, you can't fit a 15mm pipe into a 32mm tap and expect 2x the water.
Very systematic and thorough. Very helpful thanks
I'm trying to figure out to buy the VDLabs plus 3 high current 12 output, a Truetone 1 stop type, or take a chance and buy the cheapest one on Amazon, the Aklot fully isolated pedal power supply. Any thoughts out there in guitar world?
That's totally going to depend on which pedals you need to be plugging in. If it's mostly analog/simpler/basic boss type of stuff, the one spot or amazon brick are probably going to be totally fine. Digital/higher draw types of pedals are typically a lot more picky and will require the higher end power supplies to avoid trouble.
I've ordered the Aklot. I'll be using maybe up to 12 Boss type pedals. Probably have to use 2 power supplies. If the Aklot works out I'll let ya know.@@feinkevi
Notes you are using a Switching power supply. Would a pure transformer based PS work better?
These are the only two (other than wall warts like the regular one spot) that I have extensive experience with, so I can’t really say from experience. Truetone claims the switching is superior for its flexibility re: power draw.
Where did you get colored power supplies? I can only find black. Great video!
They came with the 1spot pro, and yes the colors are super handy!
@@feinkevi guess I’ll just have to get creative
I don't understand the purpose of the send and return. How is that different than just putting everything in line?
Great question. My understanding is that it will monitor the plain guitar signal input for triggering the gate but then the gate opens and closes on everything in the loop. Sort of like a side chain monitoring the input signal but affecting everything in the loop.
This is good because a noisy pedal could have a noise floor above your gate threshold, but the gate will still appropriately only open and close when the guitar is actually playing. You could potentially need to run much more aggressive gate settings without the loop feature and wouldn’t get as natural a sound.
An effects loop allows you to run the preamp of your amp into a pedal directly as opposed to running a pedal into a preamp. Think of delay...If you run a delay pedal in front of a preamp you'll get super loud repeats that echo your guitar signal. If you put it in the effects loop you get repeats of your preamp single and they're much easier to control. If you're running it in front of a clean amp like a Deluxe reverb, an effects loop isn't necessary because you generally run the amp clean. Now there are players that like to run delay in front, think EVH. That's fine! Experiment! But for me, I run a high gain amp (REVV Generator 120) and my delay just sounds so good in the effects loop. I'm also a recording engineer and the effects loop would mimic putting a delay plugin on a dry recorded amp tone, which is what I generally do when recording and the player doesn't use delay on the amp.
do you put power supply under drivers or delay
I just have it directly under the center of my board, which is where a couple of overdrives and a boost are. I have noticed no noise from proximity to the power supply.
I have both of these PSUs....Let me just say the Donner is a POS. Stay away from it if you're a high gain player. There's so much digital noise from it just coming out of my tuner (Walrus Audio Canvas tuner). It's a 300 mAh pedal and that 500 mAh marked socket can't keep up. If I run my tuner alone it's fine, but the second I add another pedal to the supply (I'm only running 4 pedals altogether currently) the noise comes in and it's so bad it's unusable. I bought the CS12 and it fixed all my issues. You probably won't notice it on a clean amp, I didn't with my Deluxe Reverb, but the second I hooked it up to my REVV Generator 120 on even the green channel it's unusable. The unit can't supply enough power (my effects are the tuner, a Hi Power, Tube screamer and Echoplex delay I put in the loop) to run 4 pedals without noise! I tried to cheap out on the PSU and found out once again, you get what you pay for. I fortunately got reimbursed for the Donner via the company after I blasted them on Amazon. If you filter the 2 and 1 star reviews you'll see everybody echoing my sentiment.
The issue there is your power needy pedals, which makes sense/fits with what I was saying in this video. As shown here the Donner can handle plenty of low draw/analog stuff with minimal issue. It’s not so much a POS as the wrong tool for the job with what you want to do. But yeah the CS12 is miles better for the stuff you’re using, glad it’s working out for you.
donner is not isolated
hundreds of dollars for a power supply that is nothing more than a breakout box and hub. not sure why you have so much noise, even with a cheap supply i have no such problem. seems like you have a serious grounding issue tbh.
That’s pretty much what this shows, that isolated power in this instance helps, but only slightly.
The noise here isn’t a grounding issue, just noisy single coil pickups with multiple stages of gain added exacerbating the problem.
What kind of electrical problem does he have? What equipment are you using? Guitar/amp/pedals/power supply/etc?
You really need to arrange and have a more organized pedal board
Haha I do! This was just playing around with stuff loose on a desk to make unplugging/rearranging easy.
Vague and difficult to follow.
agreed kind of a pointless video.
Just use a 1Spot 9VDC @ 30 $ and you can run up to 12 pedals (9v) without noise ;-)