More on my popping issue...it only pops when...

[Hiwatt25]

So, I went down to my little cave where my amps are set up and took my popping pedal out of my pedal chain and ran it by itself.  Still popped.  Took the back off to see if something was shorting.  Still popped.  (hang in there with me)

Then I remembered that my pedal was still plugged into one effect and that until last night it hadn't been.  See, for the first time in AGES, I hooked my old ass EH polyphase pedal up to my chain for a little freaky phase action.  Coincidentally, that's when my popping started. (and when I say old, I mean my dad bought if for me at a garage sale and the fella that sold it to him used to play in a bar band...in Saigon...when it was still called Saigon)

So, I took the PP out of my chain and what do you know, no more popping.  So here's my question...why in the shit does it pop when my PP is in the chain?  Never heard of that before.

[Mark Hammer]

Not sure where you have things plugged in, but my schems for a Polyphase show no pulldown resistor on the input cap.  If you have the Polyphase on and switch a true bypass pedal before it, you will experience a brief moment where the Polyphase's input cap is "left hanging".  the moment it is reconnected to a path to ground, you probably would hear a pop.  The pop is not from the pedal before the Polyphase,but is potentiated by the preceding pedal.  the polyphase doesn't really care where the discontinuity is created.  All it knows is that something, somewhere, has left that poor old .047uf cap on its input with nowhere to drain.

Does that fit your scenario?

[markm]

That makes sense to me.

[Hiwatt25]

Mark...and Mark.  That makes sense to me too. 

So, would it be stupid to mod the PolyPhase, it is after all...vintage.  I never use it except when I want to be really weird so I think I'll leave it alone.  Interesting how things work out.

[MikeH]

Because of wierd intances like this and other circumstances, I've started putting pull down resistors on the input and output of all effects I build, regardless of wether or not it's needed initially.  Every thing is working fine until one day you decide to mix things up a bit, or throw in a new pedal and bam.  The damn thing starts popping.

[Mark Hammer]

Mark...and Mark.  That makes sense to me too. 

So, would it be stupid to mod the PolyPhase, it is after all...vintage.  I never use it except when I want to be really weird so I think I'll leave it alone.  Interesting how things work out.

There I disagree.  Tacking on a pulldown resistor onto the back ot the board is a trivial matter, and if the next buyer wants it "stock", then just take the resistor off.  This is one of those happy instances where a mod that makes a vintage pedal more usable is easily reversed.