Keeley 4 Knob Hum

[nastyapparatus]

Hey folks, I'm doing some preliminary fault finding on a compressor I built, and I wanted to ask a couple questions before I find the time to check voltages, reflow all the solder, or scrap the whole damn thing and rebuild it.

This build has an unacceptable amount of hum; at first I thought it was because I used the plastic isolated jacks, but I went back through the grounding and switching scheme just to make sure and its all up to code so to speak. I know that hiss is typical with compressors because they raise the noise floor, but I'm picking up radio stations, and the pedal is basically unplayable (this was mentioned in the comments of the build page, but unresolved). The one thing that I haven't seen before is that the "clip" pot makes the hum exponentially louder when I touch it...I guess I just don't have an explanation for that, and its confusing me; why is there interactivity between me and one pot, but none of the other three? I swapped the pot, no change, so I'm wondering where I should focus my attention from here. Thanks for any feedback.

[Travis]

Did you ground the enclosure? With isolated jacks the ground does not connect from the sleeve to the enclosure, and you need to ground it in another way

The Keeley compressor is said to be low noise for some reason but is obviously not even in YouTube video demos

[nastyapparatus]

I've got a loop of bare wire between the input jack and the enclosure that I soldered the input jack sleeve to, as well as the output jack (essentially a star ground). That should suffice correct? I'm considering pilfering some of the metal jacks in another project to see if that solves my problem.

[Travis]

If you post pictures of the build it would be easier to see what's going on. There could also be a mistake elsewhere in the build, it happens to all of us. Pics of the front and back of the board as well as wiring are essential for us to help you

[nastyapparatus]

Sure thing, I was just wondering if anyone had similar issues with this build. I'll get some photos going at some point and report back. Much appreciated.