Kingslayer hiss

[aballen]

I built a friend a kingslayer for christmas.  He love it but says it is acting a bit strange on him.

First when plugged in to his rack(he has an avid eleven) hey says there is a slight hiss, he said he can get rid of it post recording but if I can do something to remove it I want to.  Is this hiss just inherent in the design?  Is is after all an analog pedal.  Is there anything I can do?

Also, less important, but he says when plugged in to his amp he needs to have the volume cranked to get a good overdriven sound out of it.  So loud in fact that it is no where near unity... and he cant really use it there. 

Anyway, if you have a suggestion, please let me know.

[wgc]

There might be an input/level setting on the 11rack, and it's probably auto something or other.

Might be double buffering or something...!

[aballen]

Seriously?  I don't know a thing about racks.  He just got thaw rack for Christmas so ill bet he is figuring it out too.

What is the setting?

[midwayfair]

How's he powering it? Make sure he's using a separate supply for his digital stuff.

As far as the getting a good overdrive out of it, I don't quite understand that. Do you mean he needs to crank the pedal above unity to overdrive his amp, or needs to crank his amp to have the pedal overdrive it? Or that he needs to crank the overdrive knob to get an overdrive sound he likes? What are his expectations?

[aballen]

Well, first off it was a gift, so I don't think he expects anything, but he is liking it a lot and I think he really wants to get the most out of it.

Overdrive sounds great in to the rack.  But there is some hiss.  I'll check how he is powering it.  I wanted to ask about it here to see if there is something I should look at for the hiss.  Maybe I need to check a filtering cap or something.  That is the rack.

He says when he plugs it in to his amp directly it does not sound overdriven until he cranks the volume.  Which is brutal because when he stomps this pedal the overall volume jumps quite a bit.

I may have to go over his house and play with it to get a better idea of whats going on.

I was wondering if the hiss is inherent in the kingslayer, or if there could be an issue with input impedance on the amp.

[wgc]

Seriously?  I don't know a thing about racks.  He just got thaw rack for Christmas so ill bet he is figuring it out too.

What is the setting?

I dont have one of these, and not sure that's the problem, but worth checking into. 

You'll have to read the manual, but i think most rack preamps have instrument level inputs on the front, not line level. 

There should be a way to change the input impedance, or theres probably an fx loop, or line level impedance input maybe on the back, maybe there's all of the above.

There's a ton of variables and what works in a rack might work differently on an amp.  Is the amp ss, tube, etc?  Does the king slayer work in your rig?  Is he getting hiss with the 11 w/ guitar only in the input?

[aballen]

Well it seems to be working on the rack.  Just with some hiss(I think he can clean that up with protools.. but I dont really know what I'm talkign about

The volume problem is into a tube amp.

[midwayfair]

Ask him how he's powering it. If he's using a battery, make sure it's fresh. If he's using a power supply, make sure it's not the same one the digital rack unit is on.

[aballen]

He is using a pp2 so I don't think that is the issue.  I asked him to play around with the power to see if he gets different results.

[MIM#1]

I've got a Kingslayer and its got alot of volume on tap. Cleans up nicely under 12 o'clock and gets increasingly more overdriven above that. No hiss or hum in mine so it sounds like there might be a problem with yours.
I'd start by checking all the wire connections and maybe the wire routing to lower the hiss?
Best of luck!

[cap98b]

I had a guy build me a Kingslayer and it is having a similar problem.  It hisses when at 9 o'clock or below and it buzzes a little at higher gain settings.  I am using mine with a tube amp, clean power, etc.  Anybody out there have a solution?

[madbean]

Two things I would test with the hiss.

1) Try powering it by battery temporarily. Does it go away?
2) Replace IC1 with something else, like a TL074 or maybe LM347.

[aballen]

I'll try this, plenty of 074s around

[aballen]

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I have not solved this problem yet, and with my recent purchase of an Egnater Rebel 30(tube amp) my Kingslayer is exhibiting the same  volume problem as the one I made my friend.  At least I'm consistent.

The pedal sounds great when I get it dialed in for some sweet overdrive, however to  get the sound I want, the volume is way over unity.  This creates a real problem because when I turn it off there is a significant volume drop.  And if I'm playing at a good level with it off, it just gets insanely loud when I turn it on.

I did not see this problem when using my line6 amp, but now that I have a tube amp(which sounds so much better imho) I'm seing the same thing.  Anyway, I really want to solve this problem, because its such a sweet sounding pedal.

Is this the kind of thing that could be solved by rewiring it as buffered bypass, or do I have to start switching components?