Electro-Harmonix Hum Debugger

On/Off footswitch and a mini switch for Normal or Heavy Hum-Debugging. Really simple.

It's okay. It seems to work best first in line of all or effects or after a buffer (like a Boss tuner). It does effect you tone,the HEAVY setting effects tone a lot.

It seems to add some sort of digital artifact, especially if it's placed AFTER distortion pedals. Again the HEAVY setting accentuates this sound.

I can live with the sound and tone change. Some places I play the electricity is so band even with a power conditioner there is still a large amount of hum. This pedal gets ride of it.

Does what it's supposed to.

It seems well built. I haven't had any problems with it.

I have dealt with Gary at New Sensor (the parent company) serveral times. I really like the guy.

I play a lot of different guitars but all of my Strats and Teles have single coil, non-noiseless pick-ups. I wish there was a better solution that didn't color the tone and didn't need a special power supply (can't daisy chain the thing, HAS to use it's own provided supply). The good news is this pedal works and works better than anything I have tried.

One switch, two settings, simple

I notice a slight change in tone when its on, but I was expecting this. It kills hum, and the hum is part of your sound, so it changes your sound. This being said I prefer the mild tone shift to the wailing hum. I keep mine in a true bypass loop so that its always there if need be but it isnt in the chain at all the rest of the time. Seems to work well with most pedals, except octavers. I get a little white noise sound when I use it with an octaver, but I get alot of sounds when I use an octaver so who cares.

Hasn't failed yet. It comes with a very specific adapter which would probably go before the pedal if not taken care of.

I have had it for a while just as a safe guard. 90% of the time the hum doesn't really get to me, but when it does I am prepared. Treat this pedal as an option, not as a "part of your tone" because yeah, it colors your tone a bit, just like nasty 60 cycle hum + two overdrive pedals. Choice is yours. Oh yeah and you can get the same effect with allllll your various guitars with no modification. I almost forgot that, 140? dollars to rid the hum from all your single coils. Not bad.

Pretty simple - a metal box with one on/off switch and a power supply, normal/strong switch for choosing the "debugging" level

What does it perfectly? It kills hum, as promised. But the rest is not so good. I??m not a tech, but what I guess is that to build a perfect hum-killing device with no influence on tone is something like to build a perpetual motion machine - it??s impossible. Actually, there is a lot of things happening to your tone, when this box is engaged. Not good things at all. First, it DOES alter your tone - it becomes a bit muddy. Further, when you hit a very short note or play slow palm-muted notes/chords, you can clearly hear something I would describe as very bad spring reverb w/ short tail, but insane intensity. This problem goes even worse, when you use distortion (this is sad, as w/ the dist. box engaged, there is the strongest need for hum to be debugged :-( ). Even further, when you play vibrated or bend notes w/ distortion, there is very unpleasant sound effect to it - some kind of fuzzy mess. This disappears immediatelly, when you switch the box off. The above mentioned "reverb" also makes you sound like you were inside a huge brass can. Unfortunately these things make this box nearly impossible to use in professional situations. I would call it a "first aid kit" when the hum is overpowering your tone in venues w/ very bad el. conditions, but you have to live w/ the above mentioned problems. I tested this box with my Fender 52 Vintage Hot Rod Tele??s bridge single coil and a VOX AC30 amp. Long powerchords or sustained leads = so so, clean reggae comping or compressed funky stuff = complete disaster. So, it is a nice try from EHX, and sometimes it can save you (the only reason I??m keeping it on my pedalboard), but generally, this is far away from perfection.

do not know, looks sturdy

I play nearly every kind of music, beeing a session player for a long time. Most at home I feel when it comes to smooth jazz, blues and reggae. I wanted to be even more "pro" by not disturbing my bandmates or studio engineers w/ hum, but this is not the way to go. It certainly does not help you make music - it forces you not to play short notes, which is kind of unacceptable for me. But as I stated before, sometimes, under fluorescent lights, it can save you. Anyway, try before buy - I did not and I am not completely satisfied w/ this box, maybe there is something out there, what does similar job better, but the ad and some reviewers sounded so good I bought it. My mistake :-)

Trivial. Plug in the power adapter, plug guitar into this thing,
and plug this thing into your amp. One stomp switch engages/bypasses it, and one toggle selects how strong the hum removal effect is.

People wish it had an on/off switch, but pulling the wall-wart plug out of the back really may be just as good.

Vox AC-15 Heritage Hand-Wired all-tube amp.
Rickenbacker 360 guitar.

So I play loud clean jangly rhythm. I don't think this thing bothers the tone even the slightest. It is very transparent, and the amp still sounds to me just like it did with no pedal in there (except the hum is gone!).

Can't say. Only had it a little while. But it's a very sturdy heavy-gauge metal box. The only weak point I see is the thin wire from the wall-wart. I think it would do well to mount it in a case or your rack if you are going to gig with it.

Haven't needed it.

It's not dirt cheap, but for $100, it is quite a box.
It really does get rid of all the 60hz hum, and it gets rid of all the higher-harmonic RF hum (i.e. like when it hums like mad unless you turn your body in a different direction toward the amp, or put your hand over the strings).

I am playing a Ric with single-coil pickups, so I am wary of playing a bar where the electrical system is noisy. The hum can be unbearable.
This thing could be a life-saver. All the hum vanishes, leaving just a faint whiff of hiss. VERY impressive.

Nothing to know, nothing to do----put it in the signal path and toggle your choice of normal or strong. True bypass is cool because it allows you to A/B the unit in & out of the path to effectively assess its tonal (and hum-al) impact.

This does what it promises. I expected to try it and send it back but unfortunately ($$$) I have to keep it because it works and is therefore an essential tool in the tool bag for sessions and gigs where single coil noise just can't be lived with (and as we all know, sometimes it can be lived with ok but there are those barrooms from hell or those quiet singer-songwriter sessions....)
I have a number of pedal steel guitars, one with great Bill Lawrence humbuckers, another with a great Tone Aligner HB but there's this Shobud with an original SC pup that sounds so good that it would just be a shame to change it for an HB.
This is absolutely the first solution for 60 cycle hum that doesn't totally ruin your sound. The comments about tone alteration? Well only an idiot would get into an argument on the subject. The question is how much alteration can you live with? My evaluation of the tonal affect-----on a scale of 1-10, maybe a 1 or 2. The affect on hum? 10. For me this is a keeper. The only reservation---although I've got a couple of hours on it at home I have only gigged it once. Not enough of a shake-down to really see if there is anything that might change my opinion. So the book stays open.....

Although I've had quality control issues with E-H stuff, nothing about this worries me. Worst case scenario of a breakdown---well so what. I've lived without one 'til now. No big deal. But it seems solid.

I've heard good things about them. Never tested it.

This totally delivers what it promises. If not 100% transparent, to my ears the affect on tone is not nearly enough of a negative to downrate it. If 60 cycle hum does not bother you then there's no reason you would want this pedal but if it does, this is the first and only device I know of that kills the hum without killing the music.

Could not be simpler to operate. Foot switch for on or off, toggle for strong or regular. That's it. Just plugs straight into effects line-up.

Astounding, to be honest. Totally kills circuit noise, be it generated from single coils, or from a less than perfect power supply. I find its impact on tone depends on the pick-ups. On one guitar the volume goes down slightly with a little less treble - which of course you can dial back in - and on another it hardly had any effect on the tone at all.

Works fine so far. Not a lot to go wrong.

Not had to deal with them on this.

A superb piece of kit. if you like to play single coils, use vintage or vintage style amps and effects, and play in places given to hums and buzzes, this is truly invaluable. In 30 years of playing and buying kit this one of the few things i have bought which I know i will always hold onto.

As easy as it gets. Plug it in and turn it on.....

The room in my house that I use to practice/record in has a vicious hum. I've tried tracing it down but can't find the source. My single coil setups hum like crazy, and I even get some light hum through my humbuckers.

This unit does what it says. It has stopped most all of the hum, but with some minor changes to tone. As others have said, there is a tiny reverb/phasing effect that is most noticeable on dampened strings or staccato runs. However, that said, I'd much rather deal with the slight change in tone than to put up with the hum.

My setup is the Hum Debugger, Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic, Digitech GNX3, into a '79 Crate 50 watt or direct line in. Guitars are Kramer DMZ3000, DMZ3000 with Lace Alumitones, DMZ5000B, DMZ6000G, G&L Comanche, custom Tele with P90s, Custom LPS with GFS pickups, Fender Tele Thinline '72 reissue.

Strong metal case, and decent footswitch. Should hold up pretty good. I've had other EH products before, (long ago) and they were pretty reliable. Only exception was an Electric Mistress that shorted out and made a cool noise like the on in Heart's Baracuda.

I would gig without a backup, since it's really just killing the hum.

Never had to deal with them.

I mostly play rock, from Hendrix to Green Day, with a little blues and jazz stuck in there. I've been playing for 32 years, pro at one time, but mostly for myself now with an occasional jam session.
If I lost it, I would replace it because the hum really bugs me.
There's not much out there for choices to compare to this product. Plenty of noise gates, but that's not what this thing does.

Simple as can be.

I am blown away by this pedal. I have had to sacrifice recording with my Tele because of the bad hum I get (playing through a Tube Works Real Tube Driver and Fender Twin Reverb.) We all know those single coils hum like there's no end in sight. I bought this pedal, plugged it in, turned it on, and boom...all hum and buzz gone! I am very picky about my tone, and I did not want to lose any of it. I listened as close as I could, and I heard no loss at all. My notes were clear, and I did not lose sustain or warmth.

If Electro-Harmonix asked for my hand in marriage, I would say yes.

Haven't had to deal with them yet, but I know they're quality.

Great for those who wanna play single coils and not have their playing get swallowed up by nasty hum. I love Fender gear, and this pedal really compliments them well.

It's a pedal with no knobs, just plug and play.

Some people say that it taints their sound, but I didn't find that to be true at all; although, their setups may be completely different than mine. I play a Strat with Custom Shop '69 pickups, known for being noisy, and a '99 Clapton Signature Strat with Lace Golds. I use this pedal with the switch set to "strong", rather than "normal". I notice no coloration of my sound. No gain. No drop. Nothing, except for no hum. And believe me, I'm anal about my tone! I can't even begin to tell you how many pedals I've bought and then sold due to some flaw I can't stand, even slight white noise that no one else hears.

What you should know is that this is not a noise gate, which only engages when you are playing below the threshold. It is not a noise suppressor. This pedal removes AC hum, and very well. I have a Build Your Own Clone Large Beaver (Big Muff copy) and a B.Y.O.C. Ultimate Fuzz (Fuzz Face copy), both of these pedals were almost useless due to noise, but this Debugger as completely cleaned them up. No joke here, this thing works!

I will say this, I use about 12 pedals altogether in my chain at a given time, and I never really had a noise problem, except with distortion/fuzz/overdrive pedals. I used a Line 6 Tone Core, which has a built-in noise gate for playing live, but I really hated the tone. Now, I can use any pedal I like, because this Hum Debugger cleans the signal right up.

I use a Monster Clean Power Supply for my pedals. I use two '65 Fender Twin Reverbs for amps. I still use a MXR Smart Gate before my signal splits to stereo, because it mutes my distortion/fuzz pedals. BUT, before I had this Hum Debugger, my distortion/fuzz pedals were still too noisy to let the gate enable, without having to set the level so high as to kill my soft clean playing, or roll my gain back, which isn't desirable either. The combination of a noise gate and this Debugger is absolutely perfect!!! I would recommend using both, one will help the other. This Debugger won't solve every problem, but with a noise gate, you can pretty much knock anything out and still maintain your pristine signal!

What I'm getting at is this, noise gates only silence when you're not playing, but the Debugger silences the noise period, whether you're playing or not!

Don't know about reliability, but it is a pedal you pretty much leave on, not a lot of on/off with this unit; there is no reason to turn it off. I have owned a Black Finger, Russian Big Muff, Poly Chorus and a few others, never had a problem with any of them, except my Muff has a problem with the switch, but it is 10 years old, so I can't really say that is Electro-Harmonix's fault.

No idea, never tried it.

I give it a 10 solely because I can use my pedals that used to be too noisy live. I can use any of my distortion/fuzz boxes at any volume, something I could never do before due to excessive noise. If it was lost/stolen, I sure as hell would buy another one. No other company makes a pedal that does this, but you can bet there will be a lot over the coming years. I bought a MXR Smart Gate ($100) and a Monster Clean Power Supply ($210) hoping to achieve what this one pedal does, though I still will keep them around for added protection against unwanted noise.

In case it matters to you, I play music that is somewhere between Pink Floyd and Tool, so needless to say, I use a ton of effects. I have a Fulltone '70 Fuzz Face, B.Y.O.C. Ultimate Fuzz, Boss MD-2, B.Y.O.C. Large Beaver, and a BK Butler Tube Driver as my main distortion/fuzz/overdrive pedals; this quiets them all right up!!! I also use two Boss GE-7 EQs, Digitech Whammy Pedal, Vox Reissue Wah, Fulltone ((Stereo)) Deja-Vibe, MXR Smart Gate, Line 6 DL4 Delay Module w/Expression Pedal, Russian Big Muff, Line 6 Tone Core (??ber Metal & Dr. Distorto), vintage MXR Distortion+, Line 6 Verbzilla and a Line 6 Echo Park.

Just plug your guitar cord into the device, and a cord from the output to the amp, the power cord to an AC power source, and press the footswitch to activate it.

Here is the trick for testing sound quality with the unit I have: you have to compare without the unit plugged in verses having it plugged in and the footswitch engaged.

I can tell no sound difference this way. But when switching it off via the footswitch, the highs are slightly less. Don't know why, but the end result is that the hum is drastically reduced from my single-coil Strat pickups in any pickup position and any guitar position.

For direct in recording in my Tascam us428 it lowers the hum as well without changing the sound quality. I think it adds some gain though, and strangely it hums when touched with this setup.

No problems so far, having bought it used and only having it a short time. It appears to be very solidly built.

For my purposes, it does what it was designed for.