Hum Debugger Test/Demo

Just a little follow up on this pedal. @smitty_p asked if I’d heard any “metallic” artifacts, as some other users have. My answer was no....until tonight...
Tonight, I was finishing up some laundry, and while I was waiting for a cycle to finish I fired up the amp.
I chose my SG P90 Standard from the rack, and decided to play quietly...some noodling over a loop on the Ditto. I turned the master volume down to approximately an acceptable TV volume level.
My key of choice was A minor(actually A flat minor, I guess, since I regularly tune to E flat).
Well, wouldn’t ya know...I started getting some metallic artifacts. Stuff that I definitely was not getting at normal rehearsal, or live performance, volumes. It was some kind of ugly too...when I did any bends to around A6(14th fret G/F# string...somewhere around the 30th harmonic to 60Hz @around 1.8kHz).
To be honest, this set up didn’t require use of the Hum Debugger at all. The level was far too low to have enough hum to care about, but the pedal was on at power up, so I didn’t think twice about it.
The artifacts are not audible when the volume is increased to approach rehearsal levels. Levels where the pedal is desired...and they seem to only show up on certain, higher, notes when playing at lower volumes.
When I get a chance, I will record some samples, and see what’s what with this. Tonight was the only time I’ve experienced this...so far...and I’ve been playing with this pedal quite a bit, as it has made my P90s even more fun at ludicrous gain, and volume, levels.
 
Just a little follow up on this pedal. @smitty_p asked if I’d heard any “metallic” artifacts, as some other users have. My answer was no....until tonight...
Tonight, I was finishing up some laundry, and while I was waiting for a cycle to finish I fired up the amp.
I chose my SG P90 Standard from the rack, and decided to play quietly...some noodling over a loop on the Ditto. I turned the master volume down to approximately an acceptable TV volume level.
My key of choice was A minor(actually A flat minor, I guess, since I regularly tune to E flat).
Well, wouldn’t ya know...I started getting some metallic artifacts. Stuff that I definitely was not getting at normal rehearsal, or live performance, volumes. It was some kind of ugly too...when I did any bends to around A6(14th fret G/F# string...somewhere around the 30th harmonic to 60Hz @around 1.8kHz).
To be honest, this set up didn’t require use of the Hum Debugger at all. The level was far too low to have enough hum to care about, but the pedal was on at power up, so I didn’t think twice about it.
The artifacts are not audible when the volume is increased to approach rehearsal levels. Levels where the pedal is desired...and they seem to only show up on certain, higher, notes when playing at lower volumes.
When I get a chance, I will record some samples, and see what’s what with this. Tonight was the only time I’ve experienced this...so far...and I’ve been playing with this pedal quite a bit, as it has made my P90s even more fun at ludicrous gain, and volume, levels.

Thanks for the info, Don.

I've noticed this metallic artifact anomaly with other Electro Harmonix pedals. I have an EH Memory Boy and I get the metallic thing with that, too.
 
I took some time today, after last night's studio re-set rehearsal, to run the Hum Debugger pedal through the DAW.
The recording was done direct(no amp), with my most offensive P90 bridge pickup-volume on 10, guitar>pedal board(the only pedal in use was the Hum Debugger-set to "normal")>ART USB Dual Pre>iPhone7>Multitrack DAW.
Guitar:
View attachment 29335

Recording devices:
View attachment 29336

Recording: pedal engaged, and disengaged, a few times with the guitar strings palm muted, then a TC Aeon(like an E-Bow) was used to attempt to produce a steady tone on the open A flat string. The pedal was on and off a time or two.(the pedal clicks are audible)
Its not a pretty sounding recording, but it's accurate.

I imported the WAV file to Reaper for analysis.

palm muted, and pedal disengaged, yielded this frequency response capture:
View attachment 29334

palm muted, and pedal engaged yielded this frequency response capture:
View attachment 29333

I hope that this answers some of the questions from the @guitarweasel thread:
if-you-play-a-p-90-or-another-single-coil-guitar.6824

The audio upload doesn’t seem to have worked, so...uploaded to SoundCloud:

Very impressive, Skywalker...
 
Very impressive, Skywalker...
Hahahahaha! Thanks! Nice of you to say!
This is a weird box...a love/meh sort of thing...when recording...I love it for chording...not so much for lead work. If I’m hanging below 12th fret, it’s great...for sure.
No question about live use though...”always on” when single coils are in play.
 
Back
Top