Voodoo Labs Iso 5 - Total Garbage

[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.

 

[GuitarStv]

So like . . . was there a fire or something at Voodoo Labs? Hit by a meteor? Drone strike? Drafted by time commandoes to fight in a future war with plot holes so big you could drive a mac truck through them?

Three weeks and still no contact - phones going to voicemail, nobody manning their message boards, nobody answering email. I've had better customer support from Mooer.

 

[jeremy]

damn, wonder what happened over there?

 

[ErikH]

Wow. That is definitely not normal for them.

 

[Dudeman7]

That sucks! Sorry for your experience, man.

Is it time to sell those things on Reverb and try something else?

 

[NegativeEase]

So like . . . was there a fire or something at Voodoo Labs? Hit by a meteor? Drone strike? Drafted by time commandoes to fight in a future war with plot holes so big you could drive a mac truck through them?

Three weeks and still no contact - phones going to voicemail, nobody manning their message boards, nobody answering email. I've had better customer support from Mooer.

Strymon pics up the phone, and they make a killer power supply (Suma, Ojai)

Most of the companies I use in my own rig religiously pick up the phone -companies like Origin, JRockett, Empress, Eventide, Earthquaker, TECh21 etc etc.

That counts for a lot in my book

 

[GuitarStv]

I got an email response back last night, so will see what happens.

 

[Blille]

I got an email response back last night, so will see what happens.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[GuitarStv]

After some debugging they have taken the supplies in for repair. We'll see what happens when they get back.

 

[Blille]

After some debugging they have taken the supplies in for repair. We'll see what happens when they get back.

Good luck!

 

[NegativeEase]

In comparison, Eventide got back to me with my issue in 2 hours last week, and Empress called me back on the phone within a day

 

[Blille]

Fun fact, I had a support question for my Voodoo Labs unit last week and they got back to me three times (back and forth convo) in the same day. Evidently, it may depend on the topic.