HDRX 20 - Pedal Squeal Threshold

[Tanis]

Just got one of these a week back and love this thing!! Great cleans and killer gain stages.

As others have mentioned, it takes pedals REALLY well. That said, here's comes my question to others that have this thing and know it probably better than I at the moment.

"Paul's settings" has this thing CRANKED! And ya, it sounds amazing set like that. That said, with MV all the way per the diagram... I have to have this thing routing through my attenuator (Fryette PS-2).

Now the question is this, when it's in that full setting per the diagram... any gain pedal I try to add on instantly squeals. I can back the MV off and all is good... but dialed all the way maxed out and it's game over for gain pedals.

This goes for any guitar I have and pedals are all on isolated power (plus, I'm not on top of the amp).

Reality is I have the MV at 11ish no matter how I have the rest of the settings going... and adding some amount of gain pedals it holds together (unless I flip them all on... but that's expected at that point).

So, not know the amp all that well yet.... any tips? This typical? Am I missing something? Thanks in advance!!

 

[DreamTheaterRules]

I have the 20 as well, and when I crank it way up (treble master dimed, bass master at half, but master volume above 1:00 or so, and then attempt to tame it with the Power Station, it squeals even if I'm not hitting it with a boost or OD. I had to do some research and basically the answer was, Some times, with some amps, they will squeal even if volume is down on the PS, because of the interaction of the transformers of the amp and PS. Apparently is is pretty much a "case by case" thing and it is not a "flaw" or electrical problem with either unit, just the interaction between the two. And... if it does it, there is nothing you can do about it.

I bought the PS for two main things; 1- so I could crank the HDRX10 and tame the volume, and 2- To run digital modelers into real speaker cabs. Mine doesn't really offer any benefit for #1 as I found turning the amp master down and using a pedal sounded as good as cranking it and pulling the volume down with the PS. I AM going to try to move it further away from the HDRX (it's sitting on the speaker cab next to the HDRX now, so maybe 1 foot away) and see if that does anything, but haven't gotten around to that yet. It "may" help. Other than that, you could try a true attenuator instead and see of that worked better for you.

 

[Tanis]

This is FANTASTIC!! I mean not great that you are getting the same problems I am, but it puts my mind at ease that this is 'expected' behavior (as I was up for hours trying to sort out swapping components and etc.).

I also have the PS for those reasons you listed. Ironically, I've not had to use the PS effects loop... but opted to try it for the HDRX20 because I still wanted that section of my pedalboard routing through it like it does on my amps with effects loops.

I do also agree that the MV does a great job and that I find the amp a tad more responsive not going through the PS. I know the HDRX was all about recreating what that amp was... but I do wish it had an effects loop on it to solve this last concern.

I'm assuming you run your delays and reverb in front?