The Mysterious Case of the Xtremely Inconsistent Llama

BintyTwanger77

Our story begins with me selling my Delay Llama Xtreme to a fellow Fretboarder, a decent, honest chap who I’ve sold gear to previously without issue. I did a cursory check that everything was as it was when I bought it, then sent it up to my homeland north of the border.

I received a WhatsApp message from the buyer the day after he’d received the pedal, he’d posted a video clip. The pedal was connected on his board, all powered up properly by the looks of things, he engaged the pedal… amd nothing. No repeats. He dialled the mix and repeats to full (with the time dial at 12 noon, roughly 400ms), and absolutely nothing still, just the dry signal. He switched the toggle to Kill Dry, and there was silence, not a peep. 

Obviously concerned, and not being a twat, I agreed to buy it back off him for what he paid me, and the pedal was sent back.

It arrived this morning, so connected it up on my board, switched it on, and it was working, exactly as well as it was working before I sent it to him, repeats were there on the core delay sound and all the Xtreme modes.

Why? I have no idea how this could happen… pedals aren’t sentient (yet), they don’t decide to work according to different players, power supplies… does anyone have any idea what the issue could be?

A further note: something I did notice with this pedal is that the tap tempo hold function (causing the repeats to oscillate) was only working when the delay dial time was set to 12 noon or further CCW, and the repeats dial was not as sensitive to oscillation as the previous time I had this pedal: you seem to get less repeats on this particular unit on the same R dial positions as the previous unit I had.

All a bit of a mystery really, and the buyer and myself are both a bit baffled. What do people think?

dano

Different power supplies ? 

If your buyer was using an under rated power supply which can't supply enough current (manual says 130mA recommended) then it may work in dry mode but the delay side could have problems, hence no sound.

BintyTwanger77

dano said:

Different power supplies ? 

If your buyer was using an under rated power supply which can't supply enough current (manual says 130mA recommended) then it may work in dry mode but the delay side could have problems, hence no sound.

He was using a Strymon Ojai and a PP2+ on different board, so current draw doesn’t look like it was the issue.

dano

dano said:

Different power supplies ? 

If your buyer was using an under rated power supply which can't supply enough current (manual says 130mA recommended) then it may work in dry mode but the delay side could have problems, hence no sound.

Which output on a PP2 ? From memory (without looking at mine) some outputs are limited to 100mA and some are higher output. 

BintyTwanger77

I’m not sure about that specific question, you’d have to ask the buyer, but it was doing the same thing with the Ojai and all outputs have 500mA available.

dano

BintyTwanger77 said:

I’m not sure about that specific question, you’d have to ask the buyer, but it was doing the same thing with the Ojai and all outputs have 500mA available.

Gotcha. I didnt realise the stymon thing was a psu ! I just had to google it. 

Johnnyseven

Does it have stereo outputs and he was connected to the wrong one for mono use?

BintyTwanger77

No, doesn’t have stereo ins or outs.

Moe_Zambeek

I’ve had similar weirdness with delays - Malekko ones anyway. I wondered if there was a dc leak somewhere in the chain or something. I have had germanium fuzzes that generated whine and clock noise in trems and other pedals further down the chain.

Did your buyer try it plugged in on its own?

BintyTwanger77

I’m not sure if he did. Suffice to say it has gone to Jam Pedals in Athens under warranty. 

Wazmeister

Does sound like power to me

BintyTwanger77

I really don’t think it was a power issue though, maybe @Kylef can chip in here?

TINMAN82

There seem to be quite a lot of QC threads relating to Jam pedals on forums. Was researching their retrovibe recently. 

jonnygreentrees

This isn't going to help but I have a Micro POG that for some unknown reason will sometimes not generate the octave effect, just passes the dry signal. If I disconnect the power and reconnect it the effect comes back.

This has occurred on every PSU I have tried it with. Baffling