Sound issues with Line 6 DLR + Big Muff Nano + Voodoo Lab PP3+
I am pretty new to this stuff, so pardon any stupid questions...
My current setup is WAH > Big Muff Nano > Chorus > Line 6 DL4 > Reverb. All pedals, except delay, use 9v. I have the Line 6 DL4 connected to my VL PP3+ using 12v 500 mA with the special red cord provided in the box. When the Big Muff is connected I have a lot of sound issues such as cutting in & out, as well as having a low hum. From what I've read it seems like a power issue. So what I did to troubleshoot is isolate each pedal and test them. Then I tried a Line 6 + Big Muff combo, and this is where the sound issues began. I realized that I had forgot to take out the battery in the Big Muff (didn't think it was a super big deal), so I removed it and all sound issues went away.
My question is, can a battery have that much impact? It almost feels like it was getting additional power from the battery, on top of the power supply, causing issues. This is merely a hypothesis as I have a very minimal understanding electricity. My concern is that there is an underlying issue and my solution is only a band-aid on the problem. Thanks!
Posted Jul 9, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC
Normally a pedal that runs off battery/external dc input has a switched dc jack. With nothing inserted, the battery is connected to the circuit. When an adapter is inserted, the battery is disconnected and power is taken from the external source. I’ve never used or paid much attention to the dc jacks on the ehx nano stuff, so maybe they do something different.
That makes sense. I feel like I'm going crazy trying to figure this crap out lol. I have very minimal experience with EHX as well. I've always just had some distortion and flanger, so it was never anything crazy.