pedal whistle's (Boss)

[OME]

I am using a DS-1 that is in the good shape, but lately I
have been getting a whistling sound coming from the pedal.

I am using a One Spot to power the pedal and the battery has
went dead sometime ago, so I took the battery out. In the meantime
the thing has began to whistle when engaged. Is the whistling
because of no battery or is there another problem?

TIA

[OME]

Any takers???

[cypher2198]

Best guess is that your power supply is not in great shape, and the changes of current and voltage being supplied is what is causing the whistle. Having the battery in place probably smooths out the power being delivered to the pedal, reducing the whistle.

Try getting the loan of a Boss PSU, and try powering the pedal with that. If the whistle disappears, it's time to replace the power supply.

(I run ALL my pedals off a Boss PSM-5, and a single PSU, but I have a feeling you can't get the PSM-5s anymore)

[OME]

I broke down and put some new 9 volts in the pedals
and still got hum with new batteries, so I disconnected the
One Spot and the hiss went away........how can these power
supplies just suddenly go bad after just a few hours of use.

[Vladdrac]

I donīt know about the quality of the Spot One, but in electronic everything tend to go BAD SUDDENLY..Sorry for that..but in a good way is better that the problem IS in the power supply and not in de pedal, isnīt it?..

Cheers

[OME]

Vladdrac:
That is for sure, I'm thankful for the quality of the Boss pedals.
I'll probably be looking for a Boss tuner pedal so I can power the rest of my pedals on their daisy chain, but I'll still have to deal with my
Whammy, Bad Horsie, and Little Alligater pedals.

[rgr]

Did your One Spot "whistle" when you first got it, or is this a new thing?

If it is not a new thing, here is what is going on. The "whistling" is from the One Spot, they use digital switching for their rectification so you don't hear 60 cycle hum, its a much higher pitch, somewhere in the kilohertz range but not quite out of the audible frequencies (unfortunately for us, your dog may disagree). I have a One Spot too, and it does the same thing. A Boss power supply will hum, at 60 cycles (50 if you are in other parts of the world).

The only way to get a clean power supply is to spend the $ on a Voodoo Pedal Power, Fulltone Power Supply, or similar that uses DC regulators. They aren't cheap though. If you have some electronics skills, you can build your own with parts from Radio Shack. Maybe that's a project while I'm unemployed, come up with a cheap, "clean" power supply. Might be able to come up with a box that you plug another power supply into that cleans it up. No promises guys, don't hit me with tons of e-mail yet, I'll post something if I get a chance to work on it.

BTW, if you have a power supply hooked up to your pedals, it doesn't matter if there is a battery in them or not, they are running off the power supply.

Roger