Fuzzbox, Distortion, Phaser, Chorus, Echo and other Guitar Effects Info

I often see people post that their pedal is making a noise, but they fail to describe the sound adequately to allow anyone to decipher the cause. For example, a hum is low pitched and is often caused by a poor ground connection or bad cables. A hum sounds like this (you may need to turn down the volume):

A noise caused by power supply aliasing, as from a poorly designed charge pump, or from radio frequency interference will be higher in pitch and often sounds like this:

Another common noise is a random background hiss. All electronic components generate a very small noise voltage and high gain circuits can make the sound much more prominent, like this:

Recognizing the type of noise your pedal is producing is the first step to working out a solution to the problem!