Can't get rid of Distortion

[Paul Fry]

I need help! I can't for the life of me get rid of this constant distortion. I want a clean sound & have lowered the pickup, tried to eq it using my Line6 Pod with no luck. Is it possible my pickup is bad?

[Howard Parker]

Take everything out of the signal path except guitar and amp (no vol. pedal...nothing). Still distort? If it does, swap amps. Swap instruments.

If no distortion with psg/amp alone, add one device at a time until you find the culprit.

Distortion is not typically not an eq issue. You may be over driving a component.

Process of elimination.

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[Donny Hinson]

You're using a powered volume pedal, and the gain is probably set too high. One thing you have to remember, that if you put too much signal into the amp, there is no amp setting that will take away the distortion. All an amp does is make what goes in come out louder.

(When I first got a Hilton pedal, the gain on it was set so high it was unusable.)

[David Wren]

Now it's been a while since I had my Session 500, but it seems I remember 2 inputs for the instrument. Might try the lower volume input and see if that makes a difference.

[Paul Fry]

Thank you guys. I will try those things.

[Chao Kang Lee]

I’m struggling with the exact same issue. I own three different pedal steels, but I always get some distortion when recording, regardless of what gear I swap out. I’m starting to think pedal steel pickups just have a tiny bit of inherent distortion. I’ve tried going straight into the interface via a DI box with no other gear in the chain, but the distortion is still there.

[Brian Lee]

In addition to Donny’s comment on potential excessive gain from the active volume pedal, another concern is whether the input stage of the Pod has enough headroom to handle the pickup output level. (same potential concern on some DI boxes, recording interfaces, pedals, and amps). Steel guitar pick ups are pretty high output compared to most standard guitar pickups. Even without potential additional gain from the active volume pedal setting the pick up may be overdriving the input stage of the POD, DI, and/or recording interface. Are you hearing distortion at all volume levels or just when you have the volume pedal up?

[Dave Grafe]

I have never achieved a satisfactory sound with pedal steel guitar from any version of the Line 6 Pod, although dirty tone choices abound there doesn't seem to be a clean analog preamp among the voicing options. Much better IMHO is the Quilter SuperBlock US, it's got clean if you want it, Fender-esque breakup if that's your jolly. XLR line out too, altogether a generally superior product.

[Dave Mudgett]

Others have hit many of the potential issues - hot pickups, additionaI gain from an active volume pedal, and so on. You can lower gain of Hilton, correct? Also try going into the 2nd input of your Session 500 - I believe it has less gain going into the first preamp section.

On the Pod - I used a Pod 20 years ago, both the original Pod 2.0 and XT. I needed to go into the deep editing mode to cut the gain back. It's been a long time since I looked at the editing screens, but I believe there are two issues:

1. The gain itself, which I think is called "Drive". This can be accessed externally or in deep edit mode.

2. The 'Boost' button. I believe that was accessible only via deep edit. It was on for most of the presets I was interested in. It helped significantly to switch it off.

I personally had better luck with the Deluxe Reverb models than the Twin Reverb models, but definitely had to play with them to keep them from distorting. And note that I was using a strictly passive volume pedal. Most of these with a 500K potentiometer do cut the signal somewhat. As stated earlier, active pedals like the Hilton need to be handled more carefully. At full gain, they not only don't cut the signal, but can give greater than unity gain. With the Pods, I had to be careful even with my passive volume pedals. I can't imagine hitting the front end of a Pod with a fully cranked active pedal.

This is an electronics issue. I tend to doubt that the signal coming out of a passive pickup resembles anything like a square wave. I guess it's not impossible, but I've never seen that on an oscilloscope. But lots of electronic devices saturate - um, let me rephrase - all electronic devices will saturate if you push them hard enough. And pickups are electronic devices, although most (but not all) are passive. So let me move this to Electronics, where more people may see it.