Marshall Yjm And Fulltone Soul Bender Issue

[Argon66]

I recently picked up a Soul Bender. (germanium fuzz)
I fist tried it deeper into my pedal chain (after the modulation effects) but hen decided to move it close to the front as that is where a fuzz usually likes to sit.

So I right now go guitar - wah - Soul Bender - Deja Vibe - Phase 95 - OCD - Timmy - Tuner.
In the loop ive got delay.

When i moved the fuzz to this position, I get really fast note decay. My clean tone with no effects sustains longer. WTF? The note is strong once struck, but it dies so quickly....then silence...and some feedback eventually creeps in. Its like it craps out or oversaturates the front end of the amp? Donno.

Both the timmy and OCD stacked work fine.

What could be happening to kill the signal so fast? Thoughts?

 

[jon1917]

Impedence. Try the fuzz before the wah. Old school germanium stuff does not usually play well with a buffered pedal before it. Don't know the Soulbender, but you could also be overloading the signal into cut off. Try it on its own into the amp to get an idea of how it should sound, then find somewhere in the chain where it behaves.

 

[Argon66]

It was after the wah before. In fact after 4 pedals. I’ll will try moving it around but I’d does seem like it is way overloaded or something...and choking off the signal and note.

 

[jon1917]

Put it first in the chain. Also, does the pedal have a bias adjust? Might be worth playing with that too.

 

[Argon66]

The weird thing is it had tons of sustain further up the chain after the wah and several more pedals.

The tone is better near the front but it clips like crazy and single notes die.

 

[jon1917]

Where do you live? If it's hot, put the pedal in the fridge for half an hour and try it again. You may have to try an A/B pedal to separate the pedals that play nicely.

 

[Jakeboy]

Germanium likes to be first in line....best advice is play it alone with the amp and you’ll know exactly what it is supposed to sound like....good advice given in this thread above.

 

[Argon66]

Well...today everything seems much better. I did pull some patches and replugged some stuff in though.

The joys of tubes and germanium transistors I guess?

I did leave the fuzz second in line just after the wah as the wah after sounds like ass.

Thanks all. I’ll keep frigging with placement but it goes to show each rig has its own idiosyncrasies.

Peace.

 

[Bogmonster]

Argon66, as far as I know the Soul Bender requires a centre negative pin to operate. What are you using to power it? Normal 9V adapters won't work. If you're using a Voodoo Labs pedal power, use the wire with the red tip. I think that's centre negative. I don't own any pedals that require that or what difference it makes so someone who knows more about this might chime in. My guess is it could fry the pedal.

 

[Argon66]

Bog... you are so right. At first I was going to plug it into my pedal power but then realized the same thing. It is running on a 9v battery right now.

The fuzz is a beast. I’ve used one very little but have been wanting to try some of those old tones plus really push the leads.

Wild how sensitive they are to volume control.