rainbowreality

Just bought some pups from George, a nice chap didn't want the earth and got them to me quickly. A pleasure to do business with and I'd happily do so again!

Bought some pickups from Alan. Top man, came super fast and very well packed. I can't wait to set them up. Cheers man

Dave, I emailed Zoom about this issue. Does it happen when you use headphones or an amp? They told me it will buzz through headphones because they are not grounded and the unit does not ground itself. I also started this thread in the effects section where amongst other things I've recently Posted Zooms response to my buzzing query. Hope it helps!

It does, yes. Nice they answered quickly and actually gave a decent explanation rather than a dumbed down fobbing off some companies try!

I emailed the zoom people with regard to this and I got a response from the engineer The low volume buzzing he describes is almost certainly due to Zoom's use of a switch mode type power supply and his monitoring the output via a headphone. This type of supply is not grounded as is evident by the use of a solid plastic earth terminal on it's supply connector. Also to conform with electrical approval and CE compliance the output negative connection is normally decoupled to the supply neutral, albeit with a very small value high voltage capacitor, which promotes a condition know as standard mode rejection. All switch mode unearthed class 2 supplies do this and the solution to the buzz is to have a ground connected to the B3 via an output screen connection. This is what would happen normally when it is connected to an amplifier via a guitar lead. The USB connection to a PC would do much the same as it connects the B3 audio earth to the low impedance ground plain of the computer's. All manufacturers are now using switch mode supplies for DC regulated supplies as the price of copper for traditional transformer based adapters is at a premium. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

Oh ok, so do you reckon the unit is faulty then? Sorry for all the questions!

Do you mean a grounding issue with the B3 as opposed to grounding on the guitar?

Thanks for the replies! It's not being daisy chained and I'm using it's own psu that came with it. Unfortunately I don't have another psu to try to eliminate that but I'm thinking whether to buy one as a back up, the original seems like kinda of flimsy, can anyone recommend a decent one? I bought My B3 from guitarbitz which seems a decent company but they don't have any more in stock so it would probably be have to be sent off for repair if it is faulty. Which is a bummer as I really like it otherwise! One thing I've thought of, each time I use it, it's been on a strip socket multi plug type thing. Could that possibly affect it?

Hi all, I've recently bought a zoom be and it's great apart from one thing, it's pretty noisy. At first I thought maybe the guitar needed more shielding as when I touched the strings the buzzing stopped to a large degree but it seems it may be the power supply as when I use usb power the buzzing stops. I can even power from the plug and as long as I have the usb also connected up to my PC there's no buzzing. Also if I put in a shorted Jack in the input and have a normal plug power without usb it's ok. The buzzing also stops if I hold parts of the case too. I've tried a couple of basses at a couple of different places and same result. Has anyone else had this happen and is it a faulty power supply? Any advice appreciated as it's driving me bonkers!

Hi all, I've recently bought a zoom be and it's great apart from one thing, it's pretty noisy. At first I thought maybe the guitar needed more shielding as when I touched the strings the buzzing stopped but it seems it may be the power supply as when I use usb power the buzzing stops. Had anyone else had this happen and is it a faulty power supply? Any advice appreciated!

Olliedf89 sold me a pedal and it arrived super duper fast and in bomb proof packaging. Top man

I think I may have a similar problem with a zoom b3. Silly question but what is a shorted Jack? I'd like to eliminate the guitar out of the problem!

It's all very psyched out, spaced out, stoner rock, heavy walls of beautiful noise

I'm seriously thinking of going to this in May next year. Just wondered if anyone's ever been and if so what did they think!

Got it from PMT music (yeah I know), will fit a p-bass and that sort of thing happily, in good nick just superfluous to requirements. Also comes with a free smiley face I painted over the logo. Free to a good home, or even not so good home...

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1381665419' post='2241923'] There are loads of ways of doing it, some of them more complex than others. The easiest one is to just use an ON-OFF-ON switch - that central 'OFF' point will be thud free. [/quote] Brilliant! simple but effective, a bit like me. (Except I don't seem to have developed the effective bit yet)