BSIAB 2 Noise/Hiss Problem

[Rocrrr]

Hi All,

I have a BSIAB 2 and find that with the gain past 2 o'clock that it gets rather noisey/hissey sounding when idle. I know that this can be typical with higher gain settings on certain pedals, but the noise seems somewhat excessive. I'am also aware there are other factors such as pickups, etc., that can cause this, but my setup - guitar(humbuckers), amp (Peavey Classic 50 212), and cables(Death Valley) is rather on the quiet even when I use my other stompboxes(MXR Classic Distortion, Digitech Bad Monkey) dimed out. I'am somewhat of a newb in electronics, and was wondering if someone could tell what areas/components in the BSIAB could be causing this, and if there's anything that might help such as component changes etc.

Any help is greatly appreciated! 

[compuwade]

From my experience the BSIAB is a very noisy circuit. Noisier than any of my other pedals, and some of them combined. Some people have replaced the j201's with all 2n5457's or used mpf102's in the Q1 position to tame the pedal down a bit. But this also lowers the gain quite a bit. However, I find myself only using the gain at 12 most of the time anyway, so lowering the gain for me wouldn't be an issue. It's still gonna hiss though. Most high gain pedals do to some degree. You could also filter some of the highs out which will tame the hiss a little but may also mess up your tone. Using shielded cables for the input and output may get rid of some of the noise, but probably not the hiss.

[Rocrrr]

Thanks for the reply! I'll give your suggestions a try and see how it works out - Thanks again