Voodoo Labs Iso 5 - Total Garbage

[GuitarStv]

One thought I had reading the original post...if you mounted the power supplies directly below the pedals or very close to them, there is a chance you were experiencing interference from the transformers. I've heard of this happening with other toroidal power supplies and some pedals can be particularly sensitive.

The noise does get better on a couple pedals if it's physically moved about two feet away from them (which is as far as the longest power cable that I've got that will plug in goes) but that's not the main problem.

The Empress trem and SD Deja Vu are very noisy as long as they're plugged into a Voodoo Labs supply, and the 18V supply from either iso 5 (when it works) introduces noise into the Deja Vibe. All of the issues disappear completely when using a daisy chained 1-spot and the wall-wart that came with the Deja Vibe.

[Dudeman7]

Hmm. It has been a long time since I dealt with them but they replied in less than a day.

If email doesn't get them moving, maybe try calling them? (Not sure if you have already done this.)

[NegativeEase]

GuitarSTV, apparently Voodoo did some customer support staff adjustments from the last time I needed them or they are way way busy or don't care

-I got no where trying to contact the dudes who helped me with some OEM stuff I was looking for. They were super helpful when I was building road systems for some big touring acts -maybe that's what they care about.

[IMENATOR]

Anyone ever contacted Voodoo Labs before? How many weeks does it usually take to get a response?

Just call them if you need faster response. I work for a tech support company, I know how it works

[GuitarStv]

Just call them if you need faster response. I work for a tech support company, I know how it works

I've called them twice and was unable to get through. Guess we'll try their forums next.

[GuitarStv]

Tried the forums, but I the message I wrote won't be posted until an administrator OK's it. : S

Hopefully they have someone manning the forum since I couldn't get a live person on the phones and haven't got an email response other than "Thanks for sending us a question, we'll get back to you soon!".a week and a half ago.

[Bill Dennis]

I've been using a couple 1-spot adapters and a daisy chain to power a medium sized pedalboard.

Currently running eight pedals - Empress Tremolo, SD Deja Vu Delay, Boss BD-2, SP Compressor, a Fuzz I built, a Mooer E-Lady flanger, and a Korg Pitchblack tuner. I've also got a newer Deja Vibe but was using the 18v adapter it came with.

Figured I'd like to simplify things on the board, so I bought a couple Voodoo Labs Pedal Power Iso 5s. They've got modular cables, multiple 9V 100mA isolated outputs, and would let me run the SP compressor and the Deja Vibe at 18 volts each. Finally got around to tearing apart the whole board, fixed the power supplies to the bottom and plugged everything in last night. It was noisy as ****.

So, first I thought that maybe there was something wrong with my guitar. Swapped guitars, no problem. Then I thought I maybe had a bad cable. Pulled and tested every cable on the board - no problem. Finally I unplugged the power from my trem pedal while it was in bypass - big reduction in noise. Huh. Weird. So I kept unplugging things - Deja Vu dropped the noise a bunch, Tuner did too, as did the flanger, and the compressor. I tried swapping connections from one of the Voodoo Labs Pedal Power bricks to the other - they are both garbage. Finally, I re-connected the 1-spot daisy chain that I had been using. Beautiful and silent once more.

Are you sharing power ports for anything? You need to be very careful with what you combine or you will create ground loops. Only use the splitter from VL that have ground lifted on one side. Don't share ports where one pedal is in front of amp and the other is in the loop. Any loop based pedals should be 100% isolated from anything in front. I also try to combine pedals that are next to each other in series wherever possible. Some pedals just don't like being too close to the power supply. Try moving somethings around.

[GuitarStv]

Are you sharing power ports for anything? You need to be very careful with what you combine or you will create ground loops. Only use the splitter from VL that have ground lifted on one side. Don't share ports where one pedal is in front of amp and the other is in the loop. Any loop based pedals should be 100% isolated from anything in front. I also try to combine pedals that are next to each other in series wherever possible. Some pedals just don't like being too close to the power supply. Try moving somethings around.

Nope. No sharing with the voodoo labs iso 5s - each pedal was on it's own port. Daisy chaining all the pedals that were being noisy with the Iso 5 and plugging them into a 1-spot completely eliminates all noise though.

It seems like moving the Iso 5 power supplies physically further from the pedals slightly reduces noise when pedals are plugged into the Voodoo Labs stuff. But even with the Iso 5s mounted under the board when I power up with the 1-spot there's no problem at all. The issue is 100% certainly with the two Iso 5s power supplies.

What I'm not clear about at the moment is if this is some freak problem that somehow has broken in both of these two Iso 5s from different batches and years, or if it's a more fundamental design problem that with them power supplies.

[Dudeman7]

I'm interested to know what is causing this too. Having similar issues with a different manufacturer's power supply was really frustrating.

Proximity effect interference is one thing but what you are describing sounds like a grounding problem to me. Bottom line is that it shouldn't happen with any isolated power supply.

Mine was nerve wracking since my modulation pedals were audible when they were bypassed. The noise changed if I turned the rate controls on any pedal with an LFO. No such issues with the 1-Spot or the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 3+.

[GuitarStv]

I'm interested to know what is causing this too. Having similar issues with a different manufacturer's power supply was really frustrating.

Proximity effect interference is one thing but what you are describing sounds like a grounding problem to me. Bottom line is that it shouldn't happen with any isolated power supply.

Mine was nerve wracking since my modulation pedals were audible when they were bypassed. The noise changed if I turned the rate controls on any pedal with an LFO. No such issues with the 1-Spot or the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 3+.

Yeah, I think it's somehow a combination of the power supply and the effects and it does seem to be LFO related.

When I have the empress trem bypassed I can hear static/noise pulsing in time with the effect (which I can tell from the LED over the tap tempo button). I don't understand electrically how that could be happening. I'd think that there was something going wrong with the bypass on the pedal except that the problem disappears as soon as I use a 1-spot to power it. Similar deal with the Deja Vu Delay - the noise seems to be tied to the tap tempo somehow. With the Vibe pedal I thought it was a problem all the time initially, but I usually have the rate set very low. When increased, I could hear that the noise is somehow tied to the tempo of the modulation.

[Bill Dennis]

I'm interested to know what is causing this too. Having similar issues with a different manufacturer's power supply was really frustrating.

Proximity effect interference is one thing but what you are describing sounds like a grounding problem to me. Bottom line is that it shouldn't happen with any isolated power supply.

Mine was nerve wracking since my modulation pedals were audible when they were bypassed. The noise changed if I turned the rate controls on any pedal with an LFO. No such issues with the 1-Spot or the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 3+.

Yes but of the ground the units are connected to is problematic all bets are off. The one spot doesn't have the 3rd prong, maybe that's the difference? Try a ground lift on the the ISO5's. I used an ISO5 for years with no issues before upgrading to the PP2+ for more capacity. I used/use a splitter in about every port of both of them and don;t have any noise issues.

The other thing to try is using the daisy chain cable from the 1 spot into one 9v port of the ISO and see what happens. Try each 9v port one at a time. Not the 18v though lest you smoke some pedals....

[Bill Dennis]

Nope. No sharing with the voodoo labs iso 5s - each pedal was on it's own port. Daisy chaining all the pedals that were being noisy with the Iso 5 and plugging them into a 1-spot completely eliminates all noise though.

It seems like moving the Iso 5 power supplies physically further from the pedals slightly reduces noise when pedals are plugged into the Voodoo Labs stuff. But even with the Iso 5s mounted under the board when I power up with the 1-spot there's no problem at all. The issue is 100% certainly with the two Iso 5s power supplies.

What I'm not clear about at the moment is if this is some freak problem that somehow has broken in both of these two Iso 5s from different batches and years, or if it's a more fundamental design problem that with them power supplies.

Its not a design problem. These are some of the most popular power supplies there are and have been around forever. The internet would be filled with tales of horror.

[Bill Dennis]

Yeah, I think it's somehow a combination of the power supply and the effects and it does seem to be LFO related.

When I have the empress trem bypassed I can hear static/noise pulsing in time with the effect (which I can tell from the LED over the tap tempo button). I don't understand electrically how that could be happening. I'd think that there was something going wrong with the bypass on the pedal except that the problem disappears as soon as I use a 1-spot to power it. Similar deal with the Deja Vu Delay - the noise seems to be tied to the tap tempo somehow. With the Vibe pedal I thought it was a problem all the time initially, but I usually have the rate set very low. When increased, I could hear that the noise is somehow tied to the tempo of the modulation.

It sounds to me like somehow you are sharing the audio and electrical grounds. Do you have the issue if you use just one of the ISO's at a time? Does the pedal creating noise still do it if its the only thing connect to the power supply / in the signal chain?

[GuitarStv]

The noise is present when only plugging in a single pedal (of the ones that cause noise) to either Iso 5. This reliably occurs with every available output on either Iso 5 (Empress Tremolo can be powered with 9V and 12V, Deja Vibe uses 18 V, and I've tried all the different 9V ports with the Deja Vibe).

Powering with the 1-spot (or the 18 V supply that came with the Deja Vibe) immediately removes all noise. If I daisy chain all the noisy pedals (other than the Deja Vibe) and plug into the 1-spot there's no noise. If I plug the same daisy chain into one of the Iso 5 high current outputs the noise is present.

[GuitarStv]

This can be an easy problem to miss, and won't cause issues for everyone. This noise doesn't happen with my BD-2, Fuzz Face, SP Compressor (running 9 or 18V), Mooer e-lady, Small Stone, Mad Professor Autowah, or 535Q. Because of this, when I bought the first Iso5 and tested it out I didn't plug in any of the problem pedals and didn't notice any problem.