i thought I would be smart and buy the Psycho box from Gitty and install it into my 2.5 watt amp I bought from Gitty. Also I had found a wiring diagram for wiring in a power adaptor so I could run a adaptor like what you do on guitar pedals. I drew up a wiring diagram and did the install today. The power side looks like it’s working just fine, but the Psycho Box sounds horrible. Pops, crackles, just sounds terrible. I don’t see where anything I did would cause those problems. I had a really nice amp, now I wish I would have never jacked with installing the Psycho in the amp, plus by the time I bought everything I needed I have $60 in it all. I’m going to call Gitty tomorrow. Sometimes I just can’t leave well enough alone.
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I've built the exact same setup, gitty amp, gitty psycho, works fine. So yeah, something is wrong. I know, that's not much help...
Sounds to me like the psycho nob was picking up some interference in the box if it only had a problem in the box and worked ok out of the box. Making a baffle partition may help.
Walwart type Power Supplies can also cause noise in these effects and small amps due to the absence of a dedicated ground wire going back the the wall socket. If your using a single walwart to power 2 or more circuits, make sure the mili-amp rating for the walwart is high. If using a 9volt battery, try 2 in parallel.
Aluminum or copper shielding tape inside the box and shielded wiring can take out RF noise and baffles will protect from feedback issues.
If you don't have shielded wiring, wrapping the ground wires around the hot wires throughout the circuit is just as effective. If no ground wire is present to wrap, add one. Also excess length of wire can cause unwanted noise, especially if the wire becomes situated in a loop.
I think you are right, something from being in the box was causing the problem.
I had a single coil pickup that was very microphonic installed in a hollow body guitar that squealed like a stuck pig. It was good for playing Ted Nugent stuff, but nothing else. I fixed it by wrapping the bottom and sides with some foam. Worked like a dream. Those same pickups later went into a solid body guitar without the foam and didn't have any squeal issues. So it was the excess space under and around the pickup casing feedback issues.
So in your case it could be the excess space under and around the module or it's close proximity to the other amp module. Build a little isolated shallow compartment with thin wood/plastic around the psycho knob. If that doesn't fix it, then it's a electrical issue pairing the 2 modules that will probable be fixed with a diode or resistor.
One idea, don't remove the psycho knob, instead give it its own input/output jacks so you have the option of bypassing it, daisy-chaining it with your amp, of using the psycho knob only as a pedal for when you plug into the PA system.
and you won't have to uncut your box....
pops-crackles are coming from something that will take a bit of chasing. bad jack contact that crackles as the cord moves, cold solder point, bad speaker.
some small part of the noise 'might' be from using the same power supply for both, Gitty did have a note that some signal bleed happens backwards through the power wires and they should be on different batteries.
Hey Paul,
I've had this similar issue with the Artec amps (not the psycho amp) but it is the exact same crackle sound you are getting. It happens when one of two things occurs, if I'm at shows and people decide they're going to see how far they can turn the knob on and crank on it so it goes beyond full volume (folks are real gems sometimes) and it fry's the amp totally when they crank on it past full volume. This happens when my back is turned or I'm not paying attention or parents aren't supervising they're rugrat kids.
The other thing is when I'm installing the amp to the box and if you tighten the locking nut to much it will have the same effect (fry's the circuit), had to learn that one the hard way. I've done 150 or so of the amps and have had to replace 10 or 15 of the amps thru the years. I just snug the nut up now and dab a little super glue around it to keep it from coming loose.
Final decision, it was a mistake to even try to install the Psycho kit in my amp. I ended up cutting holes in my beautiful little amp for the desire to have a little more overdrive and more volume. I’m going to try to repair my box, fill the holes and put some decals over the places to cover them up. I feel like I destroyed my box for nothing. My final advice is not to try to install the Psycho kit in your amp. Maybe I should have just bought another amp in the beginning.
If you are running both the Gitty amp board AND the Psycho board from the same power adaptor, there may not be enough amperage to power everything...
The pops and cracks might be similar to how some people install car stereo systems that draw too much power and their headlights dim to the bass line...
Also - signal chain, maybe you flipped + and - somewhere along the chain, or have an intermittent short ( or just an intermittent connection somewhere ).
Please provide some pics / diagram how you have it wired up, and if you figure it out post what you found, as a lot of people are interested in the amps and psycho boards from Gitty.
Hope to have an update later today. I’m going to un-connect the DC power adaptor completely so everything is working on their each 9v battery and see what it’s like then.
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