Electric Druid Flanger

[Amptroll]

Hello Everyone.  My name is Rob.  I have built quit a few amps but I am new to FX peds.
I just built the Electric Druid Multi-waveform version of Toms flanger.  It works but it
makes little digital talking sounds, for lack of better description.  Is this the clock bleeding thru?
The sound is like something from a 50s scifi flick, with bleeping and chiming sounds kind of.  It is
not constant but comes and goes.  I don't think it is periodic, but it does seem to make the same
set of these bleeping/chiming noises I am trying to convey here each time it does present itself
and it does not go away.  The flanger works while this is going on, and sounds great, but the noises
ruin it.
  HELP!!!
Rob

[mauman]

First of all, welcome!

Second of all, in my experience, clock noise is a regular ticking or pulsing.  What you describe sounds more like a cell phone, laptop, pager (I'm showing my age here), printer, etc bleeding noise into your pedal.  Check for something with a CPU or radio transmission capability within 5 feet or so.   If that's not helpful, let us know. Mike

[Amptroll]

Thank So Much for the quick reply and warm welcome.  I understand where you are coming from, pointing
me to an external RF source and or EM source (I know same phenom, different field).
My next statement is meant to have you and I on the same playing field nothing more; I am surely the
novice here!  I am a 63 year old electrical engineer; with 40+ years in DOD stuff.  I have contemplated the
same idea, but again, my experience in the field tells me these "noises" are being generated internal to
the device.  They almost sound like if you synthed speech, and then increased its rate to were it is not
understood.  Definitely sometime of synthesis going on.  Also the sounds are very clear, above the noise
floor like the rest of the signal, definitely being generated somehow along with I would speculate the wet
signal path.  Now one would say that is a heck of a lot of intuition stuck in all that; however to
eliminate the possibility of some external source being the culprit, I took the thing in my car with
a little practice amp I have and my strat and drove out into the boon docks; and then walked
for half hour into the woods.  I know this area, used to own a farm there and there is nothing around,
that would be within the range to induce or penetrate the device enclosure enough to cause what
we are discussing.  I know its weird. 
   Let me switch gears.  I have the thing wired as shown in the construction docs, using a 3PDT latching
stomp, for the "Bypass/Engagement" action and then I have a DPDT latching for the "TAP" function.
Is this correct, or should it be a momentary, like in Tom's Digi-Delay.  I made the mistake of putting
latching in it at first and it worked but you could not adjust the rate.  I then re-read the docs and
saw that it should be momentary.  I re-read the flange docs but, don't see indication.  Maybe I am
missing it; somehow, probably frustration.  My business partner is also the lead guitarist in a band in
Maryland.  They are our field lab so to speak; his name is Rick Olaguer you can find him on YouTube.
The band is The RAT Pack.  I need to get this thing working so I can run it through a new fx buffer
I just designed.  We have run just about everything else through.   Just a thought.

    Thanks again, and always if there is anything I can help you or someone with, let me know.  I have
a complete facility for building valve amps; been doing it since I was about 14.  I don't make the small components of course, but just about everything else including power trans and output trans, mostly toroids.
Look forward to further conversation,
Rob.