# Low Tide - hiss



## slowpogo (May 21, 2021)

I finished my Low Tide build and it worked straight away. But there is some fairly loud hiss. Not constant, but coming and going with the wobble. The BIAS trim doesn't have much effect on the hiss.

The Shallow Water does not seem to hiss like this from the demos I've watched.

any ideas ?


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## BuddytheReow (May 21, 2021)

Pics please


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## ryland (May 21, 2021)

Mine hisses more than I’d like as well.  Mine is constant.  I was planning on messing around with the trimmers a bit more this weekend.


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## fig (May 21, 2021)

What type of PSU?


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## Leftovernoise (May 21, 2021)

Does it go away when you use the low pass gate? I'm fairly certain most bucket brigade circuits have some hiss in them and usually I think they have a filter in the circuit to tame the hiss.


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## slowpogo (May 22, 2021)

I'm away tonight but will try to put pics up soon...everything functions properly aside from the hiss so I didn't think it would be a "visible" problem like a solder bridge or whatever.
I'm using a 1 Spot CS12 power supply, it's isolated and very quiet. The Low Tide is on its own output, not daisy chained.
If I turn the low pass gate far enough, yeah the hiss goes away, but it's way too dark for my taste.
I'm wondering if it could be the 2N3904's I got from Small Bear? They're NOS and look pretty old. I recall vintage transistors being noisy in some previous projects.


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## slowpogo (May 24, 2021)

Here's the top. I'm not interested in trying to photo the underside at the moment...the double-gang pot can't be lifted up, nor can the one next to it (not very far anyway), so I won't be able to show every joint. And in general I don't want to bend all the other pots up and take 10 photos to cover all the angles, which are of questionable quality and probably not very useful. Let me know if anything looks awry.

I did try some new NT brand 2N3904s and it made no difference.


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## Robert (May 24, 2021)

I notice some noise occasionally right after playing, not like a constant white noise, it seems to only happen briefly after playing.

The original behaves the same way.


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## slowpogo (May 24, 2021)

Robert said:


> I notice some noise occasionally right after playing, not like a constant white noise, it seems to only happen briefly after playing.
> 
> The original behaves the same way.


Hmm, that is not what I'm experiencing. I'm getting  a white noise that drifts in and out in a random way, not only after I play. It's there whether I'm playing or not and doesn't go away.

Revisiting some Youtube demos, I can sort of hear a similar behavior, just less pronounced than mine. I suppose I can turn the GATE frequency down a little to lessen it...the tone will be darker than I prefer but I guess it IS supposed to sound like tape.


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## slowpogo (May 25, 2021)

That said...I'm still super interested to understand why the hiss is way more obvious in my build than the original. Any ideas? 🙏


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## junderwood (May 25, 2021)

I've got all the parts ready to start on my own soon and would love to know if I'm about to build a hissmonster,  - any further developments here? I'm happy to report back once I've built mine as well.


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## Robert (May 25, 2021)

slowpogo said:


> That said...I'm still super interested to understand why the hiss is way more obvious in my build than the original. Any ideas? 🙏


Try turning on the Boost and lowering the Level knob,  the original comes with the Boost on by default.


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## zgrav (May 25, 2021)

if you have another v207 you could try swapping it out.  or order another one when they eventually come  back in stock and try it then.

my build for the low tide does not have a hiss issue.


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## slowpogo (May 25, 2021)

zgrav said:


> if you have another v207 you could try swapping it out.  or order another one when they eventually come  back in stock and try it then.
> 
> my build for the low tide does not have a hiss issue.


It doesn't seem to be a BBD issue. The one in there is an original Panasonic MN3207 that I used without issue in a different build. I swapped in a BL3207 from Banzai just to check, and there was no change.


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## zgrav (May 25, 2021)

maybe it isn't the BBD, but it seemed like a likely candidate.   does the hiss level change when yourotate either the depth pot or the skew pot?  both?  do you hear the hiss when the mix pot is fully CCW?


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## slowpogo (May 25, 2021)

Robert said:


> Try turning on the Boost and lowering the Level knob,  the original comes with the Boost on by default.


That didn't seem to change anything. 6 of one, half dozen of the other situation.



zgrav said:


> maybe it isn't the BBD, but it seemed like a likely candidate.   does the hiss level change when yourotate either the depth pot or the skew pot?  both?  do you hear the hiss when the mix pot is fully CCW?


Hiss definitely increases with depth. It's harder to tell with skew. Hiss goes away with mix fully CCW.


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## r.callison (May 25, 2021)

I have 3 I'm building side by side, exact parts. Waiting on the 3207s to show up, but can share notes when they're done in 1-2 weeks, figure that'd be a fair comparison to see what is or isn't simply part of the circuit's sound.


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## Leftovernoise (May 30, 2021)

Just finishing mine up and I love it. There is definitely some hiss that I mostly notice on my headphones right after I play. It's way less noticable on my monitors. It does get much quieter when using the filter.

Actually my mixer has a 12k eq and when that's turned down I can't really hear it at all.

Overall this think is wicked cool!


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## Robert (May 30, 2021)

I believe what we're hearing is BBD noise when the random LFO transitions towards the longest delay times.

If you're having a _constant_ noise (or if it's to the point of being troublesome) you might need to look into what is causing that (possibly BBD bias adjustment).      I haven't experienced this on any of the three I have here (original + two Low Tide builds), but a faint distortion that happens occasionally seems to just be a characteristic of the circuit.

The circuit is by no means a "hissmonster", overall it's relatively silent.


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## Leftovernoise (May 30, 2021)

So I pulled up the manual and it does actually say when describing the filter/gate that when turned up there will be noise from the bbd. Which Definitely makes sense. After a bit more messing with the trim pots and regular pots I don't even notice the hiss, just kind of fades into the background vibe of nostalgia.

Also found when increasing the treble going into the low tide, you can get back a little upper end sparkle and still have the filter cut out most of the hiss.

Thanks again pedalpcb, I am astonished with the amazingness of your work!


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## slowpogo (May 21, 2021)

I finished my Low Tide build and it worked straight away. But there is some fairly loud hiss. Not constant, but coming and going with the wobble. The BIAS trim doesn't have much effect on the hiss.

The Shallow Water does not seem to hiss like this from the demos I've watched.

any ideas ?


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## Leftovernoise (May 30, 2021)

Robert said:


> I believe what we're hearing is BBD noise when the random LFO transitions towards the longest delay times.
> 
> If you're having a _constant_ noise (or if it's to the point of being troublesome) you might need to look into what is causing that (possibly BBD bias adjustment).      I haven't experienced this on any of the three I have here (original + two Low Tide builds), but a faint distortion that happens occasionally seems to just be a characteristic of the circuit.
> 
> The circuit is by no means a "hissmonster", overall it's relatively silent.


Yeah as far as just noise from the pedal when not playing thing is damn near silent. Probably one of my least noisy pedals


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## slowpogo (Jun 2, 2021)

Leftovernoise said:


> Yeah as far as just noise from the pedal when not playing thing is damn near silent. Probably one of my least noisy pedals


That's where I'm stumped. The hiss behavior when I AM playing is kind of like what you all are describing. But the hiss keeps coming/going randomly even when I'm not playing.


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