Noisy fx loop in Orange TH30

scarry67

Annoyingly makes a hissy noise with a delay pedal (powered by good psu) in the loop. Anything I can try to improve matters? Or test what’s at fault? 

ecc83

Some FX loops are not that well designed. Try a jack-jack link, if that increases noise, on a bit of a hiding?

Dave.

ICBM

What Dave said - try just a cable in the FX loop. If you get hiss it's the amp; if none it's the pedal.

scarry67

No hiss with patch cable only in loop. Will experiment further...

ecc83

Crappy bucket brigade delay?

Dave.

scarry67

Tone City Tape Machine. Certainly cheap but seems well made. 

ICBM

Is that one of those mini pedals? I’ve found a lot to be poor quality unfortunately. There shouldn’t be any real reason for it to be so, but it does seem to be.

It’s also possible that the loop is operating at too *low* a level - that would be unusual, but if so that would increase the noise level from the pedal when it’s reamplified at the return.

Does it hiss as badly if it’s in front of the amp on a clean sound?

Epsilon

I had the same issue with another Orange amp. Turned out that my (mooer) loop pedal just didn't agree with it. It seems that Orange loops are quite sensitive! Suggest you experiment with other delay pedals.

scarry67

No hiss when in front of amp. I’ll try cleaning the input sockets. It’s a nice sounding delay but I did want to use it in the loop. Sounds a bit unconvincing in front of dirt channel. 

ICBM

Sounds like the loop level is too low, unfortunately. It’s usually the other way round. There probably won’t be a lot you can do about that.

martinw

If the level in the loop is set particularly low, to avoid clipping with high signal levels pre-loop, then any slightly noisy pedal will have that noise amplified a significant amount on the return side.
It can be a big problem in some amps with wildly varying signal levels, dependent on how the player uses the amp. The designer might have the choice of hobbling the range of the amp in order to get a loop that performs well with all pedals.
The answer is fully adjustable send and return levels for the loop, but most people don't  want that level of complexity. A simple +4/-10 switch is the next best thing.
In this case, the easiest solution might be to get a quieter pedal.

ICBM

martinw said:

In this case, the easiest solution might be to get a quieter pedal.

I would suspect the best solution is to get a different amp...

martinw

ICBM said:

martinw said:

In this case, the easiest solution might be to get a quieter pedal.

I would suspect the best solution is to get a different amp...

Is that because you don't like the TH30? 
Clearly it's up to the OP to decide his priorities as regards amp or effects.

ICBM

martinw said:

Is that because you don't like the TH30? 

Clearly it's up to the OP to decide his priorities as regards amp or effects.

No, it's because if the loop level is so low that it causes trouble with a modern digital (admittedly possibly not especially high quality) delay, then it's quite likely to cause trouble with most other ones too. Given that the pedal isn't noisy when used in front of the amp, the loop level must be significantly *lower* than instrument level. That sounds like a badly-designed loop to me.

scarry67

A Vox Delaylab has similar hiss in loop too so I suspect I’ll be sticking anything in front of the amp. 

martinw

Ah.
Spotted that the TH30 has a valve driven loop.
Not something I would recommend!
It might be worth trying another ECC81.

scarry67

Could be the thing. Thanks. 

ICBM

Not if there is no hiss when you jumper the loop with a cable.

Headphones

Power supply/ground loop issue?  Does it go away if fed from its own isolated supply? Or  a battery with a connector?

scarry67

Tried it with psu in another socket: no change. Doesn’t take a battery. To be fair this afternoon it sounded rather good through front of amp. 

gearaddict

I've not noticed any noise with my TH30 and I've had all sorts of things in the loop, including various digital pedals and multi-fx...not tried any micro pedals in the loop though.