Noisy builds, noisy builds everywhere...

[Willybomb]

What is it with all these noisy high gain circuits I'm building?

Just finished a BE-OD (pcb), a Sovereign (vero), a BSIAB2 (pcb), and a None More Black (vero with trimmers, and an etch with fixed resistors), and of the four of these, only the Sovereign's noise floor is acceptable - ie, a noise floor that isn't at the same level of the distorted signal.

In all fairness, I compared them to my TS-7, and the sovereign is about the same, but the others are ridiculously loud.  My Boneyard is near silent.  I'm running these off a Joyo JMP-1 battery power supply, so I don't think it's a dirty house power issue.  Bypass to the amp (some crappy little squier practice amp) is fine. 

Just tried a Klon buffer in front of the BE-OD, and now it's usable.  The noise still goes up substantially with increased gain.  No difference with the Sovereign.  Any suggestions?

[bsoncini]

Sometimes that is the nature of the beast with high gain circuits. Have you tried shielding your wires? That normally helps a bit.

[Willybomb]

I've jumpered the chargepump sockets (removing the IC) and combined with the klon buffer it's actually acceptable now. 

I've tried the builds with the usual suspects - 7660s, tc and max1044 and none of them helped.  Jumpering was the only thing I was happy with.

[m-Kresol]

maybe try a LT1054. its more pricey, but I had good experiences with it. don't forget that the LT1054 does not need Vb connected to pin 8 like the 7660 and 1044. if you try to use it, please check the datasheet as I'm not entirely sure it's pin 8...