hey everybody,

Anybody out there know anything about the newer Voodoo Labs Pedal Power II as far as the sagging 9 volt battery ports for two battery type devices??? They claim to have adjustable sagging voltage for "vintage" effects... my question is: has anyone tried powering a real DA Fuzz Face, DA Fox Fuzz face or Arbiter Fface, RM Octavia or RM Axis fuzz thru one of the two 9V battery replacing power ports on the Voodoo Labs PPII power supply?"
These are tricky pedals to try to get off the 9v battery "jones", and so far I have not heard of it being done with a device like the Voodoo Labs PPII. Anybody out there doing it now or tried??????????????? Batteries get old after just an hour in some cases for the older fuzzes..... so I need an alternative power source that is conditioned and may need adjustable DC voltage to closely simulate the presence of a new battery (about 20 ma +- 5 ma).
a very old problem!!!!!
cheers,

jeff

Hi,

No experience with Dallas Arbiter units. However, I've played several quality ge, si, and ge/si fuzzes, as well an Addrock Electric Smile (Tychobrahe-inspired box), with the VL PPII's "sag" circuit. As best I can tell, whatever similarities that exist between this emulation, and the desirable aspects of a "dying battery", are not "toneful", at least to my ear. The only thing I hear when I turn the sag trimmer counter clockwise on the PPII is loss of volume, sustain, and bass response.

I've read several accounts that the sag emulation of the ADL Juicebox is superior to that of the VL PPII, but have no experience with that unit.

+1 on that. I've never "gotten" the whole dying battery thing with ge fuzzes ... at least for a live application. Sessions - yeah because you can monitor and control the output and EQ from another part of the recording chain. I do prefer non-alkaline batteries in my ge fuzzes though, just not dead or dying.

Thanks Corleone & Klasaine for the thoughts here, I am convinced the "sagging" ritual is mostly non-sense anyway as I have used these ge, si, RM Axix, Octavia and similar types for many years. My real question would be then..... did you feel the ge, si fuzz face device was able to get it's regular tone and output thru the VLII power pedal battery interface ports to where the pedals behaved in their normal manner and had optimum distortion/ gain (without the typical 60hz hum from 9V battery eliminators, ie Rad Shack eliminators)as if they had just had a brand new coppertop battery installed?? Any "yes" answers here???

In my experiences, the older ge, si ffaces lose most of their punch and sweet sounds after about 1 hour of continuous playing, then you get a "tanked out" distortion that has a lot to be desired and even sounds horrible after a certain point no matter what you do with the amp volume. In my opinion the "sagging" sound is horrible. I just want to know if the pedal will sound normal and stay in the normal range indefintely by using the VLII power hub???

I noticed from the Voodoo labs website that the ports we are talking about here deliver up to about 100ma at 9V... plenty for a fface but does the little devil actually like that kind of power feed and sound good getting it??????????????????????????

again a very, very old problem to deal with
Cheers,

quote:

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Originally posted by Dutchtreats4u:
My real question would be then..... did you feel the ge, si fuzz face device was able to get it's regular tone and output thru the VLII power pedal battery interface ports to where the pedals behaved in their normal manner and had optimum distortion/ gain (without the typical 60hz hum from 9V battery eliminators, ie Rad Shack eliminators)as if they had just had a brand new coppertop battery installed?? Any "yes" answers here???

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In a word, "no". I definitely prefer the tone of battery-powered fuzzes to that of those powered by the VL PPII, or any other power supply I've used. I throw batteries in 'em for recording. For the live thing, I guess I'm as much a convenience freak as I am a tone freak. Other than the occasional wah, I can't seem to hassle myself with batteries. Plus I always seem to forget to unplug the cable and just wind up wasting batteries. Generally, I think it's gonna be tough to satisfy a fuzz connoiseur with a power supply.

Hi Corleone,

Well i was afraid of that realization but kinda expected it at the same time. I just wanted to get some good feedback on this approach before getting all wound up on fabbing a custom rig and attempting to solve the fuzz DC power supply/battery replication dilema. I guess it is the curse of the fuzz in general. The older ones: DA FUZZ & RM classic fuzz literally eat battries in less than two hours of continuous full on lead playing with feedback. I have to start with the fuzz volume pretty low and by the end of two hours or so the volume knob on the fuzz is all the way up, then the quality of sustain and tone begin to decay pretty rapidly. i typically have two all ready to go and swap them out when the time comes. And yes if you leave the battery connected in the fuzzes or wah they will be dead after about 4-6 hours. Interestingly my RM modified wah in a cry baby shell runs well with the 9V dc Boss type power supply. But the RM Octavia, and all the fuzzes hum like crazy with cheap battery eliminators... so that went out the door a while back as well. Sooo i think since i hear nothing good about this approach with a VL PPII or similar dc power source i will
stick with the battery plan. I was actually wondering what would happen if both were used and the battery ending up being kind of an impedence capacitor if left in the fuzz and also being attached to a 9V buffered power source like VLPPII at the same time...but i am afraid to fry any of my fuzzes as they are pretty old and are worth some bucks and are very hard to replace, especially the landmine RM Octavia. I have asked Tom Lanik from North Star Audio in Hawaii (he is an authorized Roger Mayer repair tech) the same type question in general and basically got the same response as Corleone has mentioned. So there's concurrence, not what i wanted to hear but hey at least i know what's going on without too much drama time/money spent on another goose chase. Same reason the number of effects i use has dropped down to about 3-5 depending on what i am doing (keeping it all analog).. jamming, playing gigs, some recording or composing..... kinda expensive at times (boxes of coppertops)but i guess the beer and other things are as well so i go with what I need in this case. Corleone, thanks for your help. Definitely appreciated. !!!!!!!!!!
cheers,

Dutch, you obviously know fuzzers better than me, so I feel silly saying "you're welcome" - but hey, you're welcome! Fuzz has been responsible for some of my most glorious and most crappy of tones... I'll never use one at an outdoor Summertime show again - battery or not. Best wishes toward your Fuzzial Pursuits.

Corleone,

seems the 30-40 yr fuzzes with ge transistors are the worst to deal with, they are actually very heat or cold sensitive, the si are more stable and save the juice a little longer like the RM Axis fuzz. One guy told me he uses his in a temp controlled chamber with a hot plate set on medium for it???? I'm not going there... Like Jimi's tech said "you can try 20 of them and maybe find 2-3 that sound good. I now have enough of them (6) to where i can't see getting anymore, i will have to buy a battery company. I have one that is an English SoundCity combo DA fuzz/wah pedalfrom 68-69, it is even different sounding than the others with of course the same battery problem (nice old wah though)... still begs me that i can drive my modded wah with a continuous 9 Vdc source with no problems but just about eveyone says the same as you about the battery issue for the fuzzes. the batteries are not going away!!!!!!!!!!! Outdoor gigs are a beast anyhow right? temp, wind, bad grounding, amp hissing, tone changes... axe gets strange if it is too cold temp wise. I get the Marhsall 50w & 2 4x12 cab stack out then and go for broke. Really about the only time i can use that amp rig (then with absolutely minimal effects). It reminds me of the monolith in the movie 2001 with all the monkeys staring at it like it is something from another planet. 98% of the time it is in my music museum (my walk in closet). you are right though .... the fuzzes can either kick butt or trash the whole signal if they get out of control. can't live with them sometimes but other times can't live without them. i think i'll just fab up a separate pedal board just for the pre-historic effects and split my signal off into two club style amps.. one with the old analog chain and another board with all digital power supplied gear and go from there. A near cabling nightmare but like you said in another thread...once you have been to the nuthouse then there's no going back!!!!!!!!!! stay tuned, this stuff is never ending. I wish i had thrown some of these type ideas up for discussion in the past instead of experimental buying and wondering in the hell i was thinking at the time???????????????????? cheers!!!!