The Steel Guitar Forum

I have had a 'Flip for seveal months and it is not a problem to connect/disconnect the tuner during the night.I usually play small venues.
I played a pretty important gig a few weeks ago and decided to use the leg clip and keep the tuner connected.During the sound checks my steel was distorting,I quickly checked out the obvious amp settings etc., and found that when I removed the tuner from the chain the distortion stopped.My steel playing mate suggested that the batteries were low,I told him I had renewed them a short time before the gig and anyway the distortion was present regardless of the unit being switched on or off.
I never did get round to trying it again in the chain,it is no big deal to check the tuning the other way.
I am interested to see if anyone has had a similar problem.
Best regards
Billy

Odd. The worst I've had is a just-barely perceptible signal degradation when the Flip is on (inline). Really, the only reason I notice it is because when it auto-shuts-off I hear a little pop and a small change in signal quality. Not something I would describe as serious distortion although it's enough to make a purist either remove it from the path or make sure it is off.
I can't explain your situation.

Billy, I get what your describing if I use the the wall wort. But with just the batteries, I hear no difference. Mine is quiet, until it times out, and I too, hear the little pop when it shuts off, but my signal stays the same--clean.

Mine distorts the steel signal no matter if I run it in line or run it off the auxillary output of the volume pedal. I keep it away from the signal. It's a great tuner but this distortion thing is a major hassle. My V-sam didn't do this.

I've never had this problem but then again I don't actually run it 'in line'; my volume pedal has two outputs and while one goes to the amp, the other one goes to the tuner. Maybe you could solve your problem that way too, Billy?
Regards to you and Ann from me, Jane and Louise (who is here with us through New Years)!
Jim

I just mentioned that I do the pedal output thing and it still distorts my signal.

Peterson make great stuff. Very helpful and handy for a guy like me who has psg, non psgs, dobros, guitars, etc. I can change root notes, change offsets, use it as a metronome, and as a tone generator

My VSAM distorts my signal. I wish it did not, but it does.

Usually I unplug it from my Volume Pedal. Then plug it back in to check the tuning.

Ron

Billy I run mine out of the tuner input on the back of my Revelation Preamp -- I use the power supply rather than the batteries, and of course it is totally silent in this setup, and has no effect on your tone. I know you are thinking about Brad's new Preamp so keep this great feature in mind!!

The problem has nothing to do with your batteries. It is caused by the protection diode in the StroboFlip and the output level of your pickups. For pickups of sufficient output level the protection diode clips the signal causing the distortion you hear. There are a few methods of solution:

1) Return your StroboFlip to Peterson and ask them to fix the problem. They will do this for free. (It took a couple of weeks to get mine back.)

2) Isolate your tuner from the rest of your signal by placing a buffer amplifier between your signal and the input of the Peterson. In this case forget about sending the output of the Peterson to your amp since it will still be distorted.

3) Only put your Peterson in the signal chain when you need it.

4) Reduce the volume of the signal going into the Peterson until it doesn't distort and make up the volume at your amp. [Not a great solution in terms of signal-to-noise ratios.]

Peterson didn't do their homework on this, and it's not just the StroboFlip. The VSAM has the same problem. They were probably tested with standard electric guitar pickups and not the higher output pedal steel pickups. Also, the StroboFlip power supply puts too much noise into the StroboFlip to use the StroboFlip output for recording purposes. Aside from the noise issues the tuner is nice.