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Frequently-Asked Questions
Power Supplies
Please ensure that any power supply you use to
power your effects are the proper polarity and voltage. Skreddy Pedals use
negative-ground polarity and accept the industry-standard 9v DC power supplies,
which have a 5.5mm barrel (positive) and 2.1mm center (negative) coax plug. If
you share a single power supply among multiple effects, you are responsible to
make sure they are of the same negative-ground polarity (otherwise you risk
damaging the effects and/or your power supply). You can use up to 18v DC to
power your Skreddy Pedals (unless the particular product's manual says
otherwise) without damaging them, but they generally sound just fine at 9v.
"Unity
Gain"
Any Skreddy Pedals fuzz or overdrive pedal will
give you the same volume as the straight, unaffected guitar signal at some point
in its volume-knob setting along with some amount of BOOSTED volume beyond that,
PROVIDED THAT IT'S THE ONLY THING BETWEEN YOUR GUITAR AND YOUR AMP. The exact
setting of the volume knob required for unity gain may be anywhere from 9:00
o'clock to 1:00 o'clock, depending on the individual pedal. However,
if you stack any other pedals along with your Skreddy Pedal, the volumes, both
in bypass mode and when engaged, will be determined by outside influences—in
that case, the term "unity gain" becomes arbitrary and complicated. The setting
of the volume knob of your Skreddy Pedal required to achieve the same volume as
the bypassed setting then becomes dependent on the volume of other devices in
your signal chain. Also, the amount of perceived volume boost of your
Skreddy Pedal when engaged is dependent on the headroom of all the devices
following it. Also, the lack of headroom of a Skreddy fuzz or overdrive
would likely cause any volume boost of a pedal that precedes it to be nullified.
For example, if you use a booster or overdrive or amp-sim in front of a Skreddy
fuzz, the boosted volume level of that pedal will be converted by the Skreddy
fuzz into an overdriven signal rather than a high-volume signal--your volume
boost, as well as your eq and amp-sim characteristics, will all disappear when
driven into the fuzz circuit. For this reason, it is recommended that you
use fuzz pedals first in your dirt chain and then use overdrives, volume boosts,
and amp simulators after.
The Skreddy Echo is designed to supply unity
gain without any change in tone. Depending on the capacitance in the cables and
switches in your signal chain, though, you may experience a slight brightening
of your dry tone when your Echo is engaged. The Echo's mix control goes from
100% dry to 100% wet. At half way, you should get equal volumes of both dry and
wet signals. The Skreddy Echo does tend to get a strong wet signal fairly early
in the rotation of the mix control. Turn the
mix down if you want a strong dry signal and a subtle wet signal. It
does go all the way to zero; that's what the knob is for. If you need more
wiggle room for subtle adjustments, you can always turn down the delay line's
effect-loop volume trimpot, too.
Noise
Any high-gain effect will boost your noise level. Unless you are using
noiseless pickups, this will mean hum. A Skreddy fuzz may cause your
signal to hum when not playing. The presence of buffers and the stacking
of multiple overdrives in
your signal chain will likely increase the noise levels all around.
Running a fuzz into the high-gain channel of your amp will certainly
make it sound noisy! Skreddy Pedals are all tested and designed with clean
amps in mind--they sound good and do not need a dirty amp to accomplish this
feat. If you just want a clean boost into an already dirty amp, you can
certainly do this with any number of booster pedals; and a few Skreddys will
also do clean boost. But you're missing the point and paying too much for
pedals if that's all you want to do with them. Do try your Skreddy Pedals
through the clean channel of your amp for best results. A little bit of
hiss through a clean amp is fine. A little bit of hiss through a dirty amp
will end up loud, possibly to the point of being un-usable, since a dirty amp
will raise the noise floor of everything plugged into it by a huge margin.
There is no such thing as a high-gain fuzz that has zero noise, unless you want
a noise gate.
To test whether the pedal is
noisy or if it is just amplifying the hum from your guitar pickups, turn the
volume on your guitar all the way off. If it's still noisy, then the pedal
is noisy. If it's quiet, then your guitar is noisy. If the pedal is
noisy, try backing off the sustain or fuzz or pre-gain (if it's a Lunar Module,
try turning up the "body" aka "bite" control) and not boosting the volume
much higher than unity gain/noon. If your amplifier is set to a high degree of
preamp volume or distortion, this will also increase its sensitivity to noise
and hum--try running your amp cleaner and just using the pedals for the desired
amount of distortion. This will also make your time-based effects work
better in front of the amp.
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