El Capistan Issue

[rupe]

I've had the El Cap for a while now and love it, but an issue popped up out of nowhere this past weekend. Even when the delay was not engaged, you could hear a clicking sound that was in time with the tap tempo of the pedal (it followed the flashing LED which stays on all the time). I tried multiple amps and outlets and nothing changed. Mine never did this before, but a buddy of mine who also bought an El Cap based on my recommendation has the same issue, and says that he has since day one.

Anybody have any ideas why this is happening?

 

[rlord1974]

Have you split the DC send from one isolated outlet on your power supply in order to power the El Cap in your loop and another pedal in front of your amp?

 

[rupe]

Have you split the DC send from one isolated outlet on your power supply in order to power the El Cap in your loop and another pedal in front of your amp?

I'm running everything on a small board into the front end. Signal is guitar > Strobo-stomp tuner > wah > Jetter Vibe > Timmy > Lovepedal "Believe" octavia > El Cap > amp. Currently using a Visual Sound One-Spot for power...has worked well for the small board. Should I should try my Pedal Power 2+ from my larger board?

 

[rlord1974]

Try just powering the El Cap with the 1SPOT. So, guitar --> El Cap --> Amp. (Unplug all of the other pedals from the 1SPOT for the test.)

If that fixes the issue, try your normal set-up, but exclude the Jetter Vibe from your guitar signal and DC power daisy chains. It might in fact be the cuplrit. Vibe/Trem pedals can be very finicky when sharing power with other pedals, and can cause other pedals in the chain to behave oddly.....

It's worth a shot.

 

[rupe]

Try just powering the El Cap with the 1SPOT. So, guitar --> El Cap --> Amp. (Unplug all of the other pedals from the 1SPOT for the test.)

If that fixes the issue, try your normal set-up, but exclude the Jetter Vibe from your guitar signal and DC power daisy chains. It might in fact be the cuplrit. Vibe/Trem pedals can be very finicky when sharing power with other pedals, and can cause other pedals in the chain to behave oddly.....

It's worth a shot.

I'll get on that tonight...thanks Rob

 

[cyndicate]

Could it be the secondary settings that are causing this? If you hold the two stomp switches down and turn the knobs it changes secondary settings (reverb, level, etc).

 

[rupe]

From Strymon:

Hi Bill,

This is likely caused by a daisy chained power cable and/or a ground loop. Please try the El Capistan with our supplied adapter to see if that eliminates the problem.
This article may be helpful: https://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/I ... oard.aspx/

Thanks for supporting Strymon

Terry
--
Strymon Engineering
http://www.strymon.net/

 

[Digital Jams]

I run my El Cap with a voodoo labs PP2+ and do not have this issue but from what I understand each output is isolated from each other.

 

[rupe]

I run my El Cap with a voodoo labs PP2+ and do not have this issue but from what I understand each output is isolated from each other.

When it's in my rack system, that's what I use as well...no issues. That said the One-Spot always worked fine as well. I think Rob may be onto something...I noticed this right around the time I rebuilt my small board and added the vibe...it wasn't on there before.

 

[university81]

only time i had this was as the strymon tech ppl said a ground loop issue, used it's own adapter and it worked fine

 

[John4021]

Thanks for bringing this issue up Rupe.
I thought my cords or power coming in from the wall was screwing with me.
Like you,my El Cap didnt do it right away,then all of a sudden that "throbbing" came outta no where.
Same thing happened to my Red Witch Chorus pedal as well.

Time to invest into ways of re-powering my board and geting a power strip mounted for just those two pedals.

 

[rlord1974]

Get a Cioks DC-10 power supply. It will do all of your pedals, including the ones with a hunger for power, such as the Strymons.

Here, my entire board is powered off one Cioks DC-10 with no issues. And, there are a lot of "thirsty" pedals on the board, such as the POG2, Blue Sky, Orbit and Superdelay.....

Fellow forumite Casey Hanson built this board for me. It's genius!

 

[rupe]

It wasn't the vibe...definitely the power supply. My small board doesn't have space for a dedicated power supply so I'm either going to have to get a different delay that will work with the One-Spot or try and find the original Strymon power supply that came with the El Cap. Can anybody show me/tell me what it looks like? I'm sure its buried in my wall wart graveyard with a few dozen other AC adapters.

 

[John4021]

Get a Cioks DC-10 power supply. It will do all of your pedals, including the ones with a hunger for power, such as the Strymons.

Here, my entire board is powered off one Cioks DC-10 with no issues. And, there are a lot of "thirsty" pedals on the board, such as the POG2, Blue Sky, Orbit and Superdelay.....

Fellow forumite Casey Hanson built this board for me. It's genius!

I only see 7 lines coming out of the power supply...am I missing something

 

[rlord1974]

Get a Cioks DC-10 power supply. It will do all of your pedals, including the ones with a hunger for power, such as the Strymons.

Here, my entire board is powered off one Cioks DC-10 with no issues. And, there are a lot of "thirsty" pedals on the board, such as the POG2, Blue Sky, Orbit and Superdelay.....

Fellow forumite Casey Hanson built this board for me. It's genius!

I only see 7 lines coming out of the power supply...am I missing something

You can split the power coming from any given isolated output on the power supply.

For example, if one isolated outlet on the power supply produces 9VDC @ 100 mA, you could power multiple pedals off of it.

Let's say you run a boost and a wah in front of your amp. The boost needs 9VDC @ 25mA and the wah needs 9VDC @ 15mA. They could both be powered off the one 9VDC @ 100 mA power supply output, as the combined mA draw of the two pedals is less than the 100 mA being put out by the output on the power supply.

There is a LOT of such power sharing going on on my board, hence, why Casey is genius.

One important thing to keep in mind when doing such "power sharing" is that you cannot share power across pedals that are in front of your amp as well as pedals running through your FX loop. Share power across the pedals run in front of your amp, and do separate power sharing across the pedals in your FX loop. If you cross-share, you will get ground loop or other extraneous noise issues.

Obviously, you need custom DC power lines to enable you to wire a board this way. If you're no good with a soldering gun (such as myself) or you are lazy (wait, that describes me as well!), get in touch with Casey. He will tell you how to measure your cable runs and he can make them for you and mail them to you. I just did this "mail order" approach with Casey a month or so ago when I built myself a mini board. I'll post up a thread outlining that build later this afternoon. Have a look at it when you see it pop up here on the forum!

 

[John4021]

Sounds good

Thanks