Please Help! I think my Digital Pedals are Fried!

[Prince]

TL;DR
Keeley Aurora & FBx4 hate each other...And now I think the Aurora fried my Flint & DD-500...

My "new" Keeley Aurora & (modded) FBx4 are not getting along.  Like at all.  When I have them chained together, both signal path & daisy/electrical path wise, they create some terrible noises.  In the better case scenario, it is fuzzy white noise with a sprinkling of Mexican radio.  But depending on how they are chained up, it can sound like Nazgul's.  Surprisingly the RF's are most evident when all the knobs are at 0 on the Aurora.  Blend knob has the biggest affect.

Signal path:
Strat or Santana SE->Donner Pearl Tremor->King of Tone->Flashback x4->Aurora->BillM mods Blues Jr w/footswitcable reverb & fat boost on board.  All powered by a 1 Spot w/Disaster Area patch cables

This is my "new" Aurora, because I finally got a replacement for the one I got two months ago, that I returned to Keeley because it was creating loud digital distortion noises.  Hence I want to suspect the Aurora is to blame, after my previous noisy encounter, but I think it is really the FBx4.  The FBx4 I modded to have a footswitch for the delay/looper toogle & a b25k pot for the expression pedal.

-When I had my old Aurora, it and the FBx4 played together nicely.
-When Aurora is isolated, it is silent.
-When Aurora & FBx4 are on same daisy chain= Nazgul's
-When Aurora & FBx4 are on their own power supplies (1 Spot & Godlyke Powerall): Nazgul's if FBx4->Aurora, Mexican Radio if Aurora->FBx4
-When removing FBx4 from signal path= no/low noise
-When removing FBx4 from electrical path, but remaining in signal path= Mexican Radio gets louder/fuzzier

-When using my Cioks DC10:
-each pedal fully isolated, only one in signal path=no noise
-each pedal isolated, but in same signal path=Mexican Radio
-both pedals daisy'd off of same outlet=Nazgul
-on their own, both pedals will play well with my other high draw digital pedals (Flint, DD-500, M9)

I have tried this troubleshooting processes at both my place and my moms (where the board/pedals in question reside).  My moms house has terrible power, (light bulbs burning out way too quickly, outlets dying), so I figured, "I'll just bring it to my more modern condo & all will be right with the world".  Well, kind of not really.  Things got better when testing over here at my place, but the white noise/Mexican Radio was still there.  I troubleshot on various outlets in various parts of moms house and my place, same results.  Thus, while it isn't specific to the shotty electrical wiring in my moms house, it is exacerbated over there.

I thought it was due to my cable-snakes. "Oh! This is what people are talking about noise from running ac power & instrument lines next to each other!" nope, not quite.  I ripped apart all three of the snakes to separate the power & instrument cables, didn't change a thing.

I thought it was due to having cables for the Blues Jr. reverb & fat footswitches in the snake! Or maybe when I made the reverb mod, I did it wrong and that is causing the noise! Nope.  It is not specific to the Blues Jr., or that footswitch/cables, as this noise also happens on my Vox AC4 & even the lowly solid state Crate I have in my moms attic.

Thus, I have tried umteen different variables, and have gotten nowhere.  Different guitars, amps, houses, cables, power sources, pedal combos...nothing but frustration.  What the hell can be causing this terrible interaction between the Aurora & FBx4!?!

I really want to like the Aurora, & hope it is not actually to blame, but after this two month terribly frustrating process of having it bounce back n forth between me->prymaxe->me->Keeley->me, I just want to actually be able to sit down and enjoy it! Cause it does sound good...when it's working...

[thermionix]

Ha!  I could...but I won't...

Nevermind!

[R.G.]

We ought to try to help.

@OP: your problem is what the folks back at Three Initial Corporation used to call a "systems integration problem".

Each part works fine on its own, but when all is hooked together, mayhem ensues. The problem is that each isolated part was designed and tested with only its own requirements in mind. This is probably not malicious, as it is very hard to guess what some random bit of hardware software from somewhere else - or someWHEN else might have depended on or simply ignored as too unlikely to happen.

Digital effects can have the worst of all worlds - lots of digital switching logic with high speeds and fast edges right up next to high-gain analog amplifiers. It's really quite demanding to get all that to work nicely in one box. Add on another digital+analog box on the same signal wires, near by one another so they can radiate EMI to one another, and things get out of hand. Worse, the only failure is often that everything together is bad, but if you remove any one or two things, all works again. Only it's *any* one or two, not one troublemaker. And sending any one unit back to its maker for fixing gets the reply "no trouble found; working as designed". And they're right.

Sadly, it's also quite difficult to go in after the fact and fix what you didn't design.  Also quite technically demanding. There are engineering pros who have spent entire careers fixing problems like this. Imagine the problems if you're getting Mexican radio stations through your nuclear missile launch messaging system. 

I don't have any stellar responses for you. From one to all of the devices, including possible the power supplies are noisy. They happen to make noise that is above the audio range and not audible until a second, third or Nth device makes its own noise, and the analog stuff picks up the interactions, heterodynes it back down to audio and lets you have some real-time RF monitoring in your speakers. Isolated (i.e. fully separated) power supplies to each may help, as maybe isolation transformers between devices.

And luck. Lots of luck needed, or some really deep RF and EE experience.

I know a lot about this stuff (including the cussed random nature of it) because I work for a company that makes a very quiet, well behaved power supply for musical stuff, and we work on making it quieter and more reliable every chance we get. When your kind of situation comes up, a really common reaction is to blame that power supply we work so hard to make quiet and well behaved, no matter where the noise really comes from. It's a perverse situation, but it keeps me employed. 

Sorry I can't help more. You are dealing with a difficult situation.

[thermionix]

We ought to try to help.

I didn't mean "I could help, but I won't,"  I meant "I could be an a**hole, but I won't."

I'm a luddite, I'll just leave it at that.

BTW, are you R.G. Keen?  Been wondering since I got here.

[mcknib]

Hover over the globe for your answer I think RG doesn't like any fanfares so I'll give him one! the thing I like about Mr Keen more than his other stuff is that he's also got a sense of humour albeit I sometimes have to google it to get it!

We are indeed fortunate to have RG and quite a few others around these parts teaching us luddites a few things 

[Gus]

Have you tried powering them with batteries and doing the same tests?


"When I had my old Aurora, it and the FBx4 played together nicely."   This is a clue, is it stock? 

[Prince]

Mornin' y'all!

Thanks for the replies.  I know these aren't DIY pedals, and as a Noob I'm still not too steeped in the decorum of this forum.  But I didn't know where else to turn after not getting much help on other forums.  I'm most certainly a Noob: I've built 5 pedals (BYOC & GGG), built some aux pedals, make some amp mods & pedal mods, pups n pots swaps/wiring, made patch cables, instrument setups, etc..  So I still have a very rudimentary understanding of electrical components and systems, but I am eager to learn and looking to become evermore self-reliant in regard to repairs/mods. 

I think I solved the Nazgul noise problem: It's a bad patch cable! 

Where I went wrong was that early in the troubleshooting process, I did try different patch cables between the (initial) pedals in question (Aurora & FBx4), BUT I wasn't distinguishing between Mexican Radio & Nazgul noises.  So I didn't target out the bunk cable & kept it in rotation , resulting in far more time lost and frustration gained. I got the new Disaster Area solderless cables for this board, which is friggin awesome in size, flexibility, & ease of construction, but apparently I messed up assembling one of them.  So I am relieved that this is partially user error & the main issue has been addressed/resolved. 

I was freaking out yesterday (prior to creating this thread), when the issue "spilled over" to my Flint & DD-500.  Previously, the Nazgul noise would happen when I integrated the Flint or DD-500 in with the Aurora & FBx4 (w/the bad patch cable), or I got the Mexican Radio.  Up until yesterday when I completely disassembled both boards in order to more effectively route pedal order and access the correct outlets on the DC10, I kept the Flint & DD-500 wired in their normal spot on my main board, so I never put the bad patch cable in between them, aka creating the illusion that the Nazgul invasion had spilled over.  Creating the videos were helpful in troubleshooting, cause it was when I was reviewing them, I clearly saw that the Nazguls only appeared when using that one cable! So I trimmed it and reconnected it and Bam! much better.

Crisis adverted!  BUT, I am still getting Mexican Radio with the Aurora.

1) Aurora isolated power & signal path= no noise
2) Aurora isolated power + another digital pedal in signal path= Mexican Radio (gets louder when both pedals are on)
3) Scenario #2 + Gain pedal on & in signal path= Mexican Radio ever louder (but duh)
4) Aurora + analog pedal= Mexican Radio still present, but = #2 w/o second digital pedal on, > #3

Therefore, I am no longer freaking out that I fried $1,000 worth of pedals (and I'm poor and can't replace these easily), but I am still concerned about the Mexican Radio of the Aurora.  I figure Ill have to send it back to Keeley (again...) and get it repaired/replaced, but have having TWO of these go bad, I'm extremely skeptical about their quality control.  I love the way the Aurora sounds, and I love it's simplicity, which I why I got it cause it's for my Mom so she needs to KISS in order to actually engage and use pedals. 

But do any of y'all have any ideas of what the RF noise issue is or how I could fix it? 

Thanks for y'alls help and thanks for tolerating my Noobdom! 

[Prince]

Have you tried powering them with batteries and doing the same tests?


"When I had my old Aurora, it and the FBx4 played together nicely."   This is a clue, is it stock?

Are you referring to the FBx4?  I did the mods prior to getting my first Aurora, so the original Aurora played fine with it.  But I am not ruling this out as a possibility.  I'm going to go by my local store this week and see if they have a stock FBx4 in stock I can compare/contrast with.  Plus the owner is a builder and super helpful so hopefully that can gain me some clarity. 

The original Aurora's problem, the Digital Distortion, that would happen when the Aurora was fully isolated power/signal path wise, meaning it was inherent to the pedal, not it's interaction with others. 

[Gus]

 Aurora

Did you try them with batteries?  There is a reason I posted that.

It seems things are pointing to the one effect

You are not 100% isolated using two or more wall supplies there is always some cap coupling(should be very small) from wall side to DC side that is why I posted try batteries.  Try a battery in at least one

[R.G.]

I think I solved the Nazgul noise problem: It's a bad patch cable! 

GREAT! I'm really glad you weren't into the nobody-is-the-bad-guy stuff. Bad grounding on patch cables can do it to all of us.

Crisis adverted!  BUT, I am still getting Mexican Radio with the Aurora.

You can try to put a ferrite bead on the wire leading from the input jack if there's a wire leading from the input jack. I'm not familiar with the Aurora.

Radio leakage is best dealt with by shunting it to the grounded enclosure with a small-valued capacitor, maybe 10pF or so, from signal to the enclosure at the input jack, and then a resistor in series the the wire to the circuits or a ferrite bead over the signal wire to the circuits.

I say "if there's an input wire" because some units have the input jacks on a PCB, making it a lot harder to get a bead on the wire.

[Prince]

I don't think any of the majiggers take batteries.  Stupid advanced alien technology! But Ill check later today after work and see. 
All of the power methods I used were:
-1 Spot: all units daisy'd
-Godlyke Powerall: all units daisy'd
-1 Spot & Godlyke: each pedal isolated on their own supply
-1 Spot or Godlyke + DC10: 1 unit on 1 Spot or Godlyke, the other on the DC10
-Cioks DC10: 1) all units isolated,
2) two units daisy'd to 400mA tap (+other isolated units before or after the small daisy)
3) all units daisy'd to 400mA tap (the original board (Donner phaser (low mA), KoT (low mA), FBx4 (190mA), Aurora (85mA))

It looks like the jacks are soldered to the board.  I haven't removed it yet, just opened it up to see if there were any noticibly bad solder joints or leads shorting out.

[Gus]

Be creative with a battery, battery connector and a power jack.

[Ice-9]

Be creative with a battery, battery connector and a power jack.

+1 Solder up a battery snap with a 2.1mm jack on and power the pedal with a battery.

That Keeley pedal in the picture looks like it might be an FV-1 based reverb pedal from the specs and the pictures. If that is correct and depending on the design these can be a little hissy and also picky about PSU so trying a battery with it will help you track your noise problem.

[thermionix]

Hover over the globe for your answer

Right on. Can't say I know much about him, but I know the name going way back, if nothing else from the bottom of the pedal schematics that have been online since...well, forever.

Cool that he comes around these forums and helps folks out.

Done with thread hijack.  Carry on.

[blackieNYC]

the current draw of your digitals is too much for a battery, but if you do as advised and solder one up to a DC power cable, it will certainly last long enough for testing. And, long cables usually make things much, much worse, but something might be learned about the presence of EMI interference if you were to separate the pedals by a few feet.
I must say, the name "Nazgul" should have been saved for a most deserving fuzz pedal. Seymour Duncan should have realized that too. Damn.

"I don't have any stellar responses for you. "
Clearly this is not the real RG Keen.

[PRR]

I would say that Mexican Radio (Hungarian where I used to work) is bad cables and dirty connections.

Interconnect cables are ALWAYS trouble. At best they give little offense for long periods of time.

Making (soldering!) GOOD cables was one of my trade secrets when doing sound gigs.

Nazguls may be the same thing but picking-up digital crap and interacting as R.G. described.

[vigilante397]

BTW, are you R.G. Keen?  Been wondering since I got here.

Yup, that is him. We're pretty lucky to have him and several other very knowledgeable and experienced people around

[Jdansti]

Was the Aurora made in Mexico? 

Sorry...