Hi all, can any midi murf users tell me if they get hiss with their fooger?
as soon as i take it out of bypass there is a hiss which happens irrespective of the drive and output knob positions, even if they are both all the way down.Its pretty noticeable.
I have 6 foogers and the only other one that hisses like this is the low pass.Is it just part of it or could be faulty.The effect itself sounds amazing.
I bought it as new off ebay and it seems mint, im really not sure if its faukty or not so any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
patrick
I have 3 Murfs and none of them hiss.
Stephen
.
Same problem here. My MIDI Murf is hissing excessively when taken out of standby. The hiss is loud enough to make it basically useless for any type of music. I know that hum usually results from problems outside a pedal like power supply, cable or guitar but I ruled out all that and the problem is hiss, not hum. Is there a quality control problem at Moog with those foogers? I never had a problem with any other pedal hissing and god knows I owned and used A LOT of pedals.
I bought it here in Germany from a big retailer for below the regular price because it has been returned before. I normally never think twice about those deals cause I don’t mind tiny signs of wear and I assume it has been checked again by the retailer.
I have urgent work to do and I only hope they won’t tell me it has to go back to the states for repair.
There are two MIDI Murf’s out there with hiss and you ask if Moog has a quality control problem?
That’s rich… 
Stephen
.
My regular MF-10 MURF sounds noisy if I don’t adjust the Gain, Output, and each individual resonator/fader level.
Each of the faders will produce a slight resonating frequency if they are set above 50% I’ve noticed. The effects are pretty subtle in the lower range and doesn’t overwhelm the original signal.
The Output cranked all the way to right will produce alot of resonating high frequency noise. I try to not to set this over 50% unless noise or drum machine sounds are what I am actually going for. Gain is obvious.
At first, I used to just crank this thing all out 100%, but I’ve learned to be subtler with my level settings to get clearer sounds that are truer to the original signal.
Thanks Croyote, that was helpful. But I was getting a constant white noisy hiss on my unit even with all frequency faders to zero and gain level at medium. There is definitely something faulty there.
The store was nice enough to refund me though, so I could get me a new unit.
Today my new Midi Murf pedal arrived and to my shocking surprise it had exactly the same problem. I was trying to figure out where the problem comes from and I unraveled the mystery pretty soon: The pedal sounds rubbish and noisy, without clarity and without dynamic range and it hisses unbearably when I put it in front of my guitar amp. But when I tried putting it into my FX loop insert jacks in between pre and power amp the pedal was dead quiet and sounded perfectly clear and fine. It is not a subtle difference noticeable only for people that hear the grass grow. It is a day and night difference! The pedal is basically useless in front of a guitar amp. So if you don’t have an FX loop on your amp, this pedal is not for you. I also tried it in front of the amp with my Lehle Parallel L loop pedal which can push the input level almost to line level. It made a huge difference but it still didn’t come close to the FX loop solution. Also the idea of using another 200€ pedal just to get my 500€ pedal to work seems a bit absurd to me.
The problem is very clear: Contrary to Moogs advertising this pedal is NOT SUITED FOR INSTRUMENT LEVELS. The hiss has nothing to do with bad electrical shielding or bad electricity as suggested before when the hiss issue was brought up. Also it is not a problem with bad units but with the general design of this thing.
Claiming that these pedals were suitable for instrument levels is just an attempt to broaden the target market towards the guitar players. It is not true and Moog should make that clear!!!
Given that you have only tried to band-aid the problem by changing the location of the pedal, you certainly have not found the root cause of the issue. Likely the MuRF is amplifying noise that is present in front of your amplifier, and to come here and make all sorts of claims against Moog is ridiculous. If you are an electrical talented individual you would know this.
Dig deeper, apologize and welcome to analog gear. I run a MuRF in front of amps all the time - different ones from different eras too. The only two times I had any undesirable noise was when I had a ground loop due to poor house wiring, and when the amp had a sketchy ground connection. The MuRF did not cause it, but it sure made it apparent, when nothing else did.
Hi All,
Moogerfoogers are in fact designed to handle any instrument to line level signals.
This sounds like an RFI related issue, which would explain why it would manifest itself in front of a high impedance amp input, but not in the effects loop.
If you determine the MuRF is the cause of the issue, it is not common.
Please contact our support department and we will get this taken care of immediately for you.
techsupport@moogmusic.com
828-251-0090
-Your Friends at Moog
Hello fanboys and defenders of the true analog. Please calm down. I am sorry I have to pee in your temple but I won’t apologise. Moog should apologise for stealing my time and keeping me from working on music. Here’s the facts again:
Any other guitar pedal from my setup and about a handful of other bands in that same room works perfectly fine in front of any amp. Only the Moogerfooger doesn’t. I tested it extensively. There’s no noise present in front of my amp. As I said I tested the Midi Murf with other pedals and by it’s own and with several of my amps. Of course I tested my direct guitar signal as well. The Midi Murf clearly is the source of the noise and it is not a ground loop. A web search shows that I am definitely not the only one experiencing this.
In my FX loop it works perfectly fine, which shows that it is not an electrical issue, so please quit making any incompetent claims from a distance. I am not an electrical genius and I never claimed to be one but working with guitar gear and repairing it is my job, and I sure know something that works from something that doesn’t.
When I pay 500€ for a guitar pedal I expect it to work regardless of bad vibes in the electrical system, especially when any other chinese cheapo pedal is dead quiet when connected to the same system.
Well we have an experienced electronic technically minded person here so what he says must be true. And if that doesn’t convince you, I read it here on the Internets! 
Return your MIDI Murf if it’s not working for you. If indeed there’s something wrong with it (always a possibility), Moog will either fix it or encourage you to return it to the store where you bought it. If that’s not good enough for you, then I’m at a loss.
Perhaps you might also rethink your presence here on this gentle forum. You come in here bashing Moog, calling the rest of us fanbois, and making a general arse of yourself. How’s that working out for you when you act that way in the real world?
A lot of experienced users hang out here on this forum. You’ll find people (not just Moog employees) willing to bend over backwards to help each other. Though I must say, it’s difficult to find in myself a place to want to help you from.
Breathe. Untwist your panties. Use SpellCheck. Remember yourself. Go make some good music. Do whatever you need to do to kick that ugly monster off your back when you’re feeling upset.
Otherwise, there’s always Harmony Central…
Stephen
.
Please read my post. That’s what i did. I am experiencing the problem with the second brand new unit again.
Basic internet rule: If you don’t care and have nothing productive to say, don’t post. Making fun of other peoples problems is pointless and poor behaviour. Please go troll around somewhere else. Get a life and quit taking criticism for Moog products as personal insult. Quit making an arse of yourself. I really couldn’t care less about your petty little internet conflict about which forum is the bad one and which one is the cool one. I have better things to do like playing music, etc.
i am still very open to HELPFUL ideas, even if they seem hard to get on this board. if this is house electricity related I would expect an expensive moogerfooger pedal to be less sensitive to it than any cheap pedal, not more sensitive. and still it doesn’t explain why it works perfectly in the FX loop. I still haven’t read any competent, convincing or sober minded answer about this yet, so so far I can only warn guitar players from buying this pedal. I will get in touch with tech support as well.
Take your own basic internet rule to heart; five posts from some people is enough to last a lifetime. If you can’t figure out how to get enough signal out of your guitar pickups to feed an analog pedal, you need to buy some mass-produced digital POS and make the most of your precious musical time that Moog has wasted so much of. Buh bye.
Hi Alfonso,
RFI injects into a high impedance signal easier than line-level, which is why the issue is not present in your FX loop.
The input/output design of the MIDI MuRF is identical to Bob’s original MuRF design for sonic reasons, so this means no filters to remove RFI or hiss like you would find in our newer designs.
Please do contact our tech support so we can assist you further.
As mentioned in my previous post, this could very well be jack board related.
techsupport@moogmusic.com
828-251-0090
-Your friends at Moog
so finally technical support got back to me after i send some sound files of the problem. the engineers confirmed that the problem is exactly what I said it was: the midi murfs design is inherently noisy when used with high impedance devices (guitars/guitar amps) because it is an old design from the days of bob moog. it is an impedance matching problem not a problem with interference or house wiring. it is the pedals design which can’t handle guitars very well which is quite a disappointment at that price point.
Thanks for sharing. MuRF is a great experience, especially with / because of it’s analog oddities.
the Midi murf is great and very unique. if you are a guitarist though be prepared you will need an impedance matching device like a reamp box or the Pigtronix keymaster or the Lehle Parallel L (mono only). otherwise the performance will be very poor like many people have mentioned many times on this board.
currently i am using the lehle parallel L but it has the mono restriction. I will try reamp boxes after the murf once I get my hands on some. I have good hope that this might cure the hiss because from all the testing I have done I could conclude that the problem is in the murfs output stage and what it is connected to. but pushing the input into the murf helps as well. at some point you’ll run into distortion though.
productive ideas on this problem are very welcome.
… starting by yours: using an impedance swiss knife and pushing as far as bearable the input signal. This could be valuable to anyone experiencing the same problem as you.
You might want to edit your first post to indicate that you have a partial solution, available in page 2. I know some people may be discouraged by the sarcasms and higher voices of the first page: I was
In all case, if you experience any problem with Moog products, you can contact their tech support meanwhile posting here as they are generally quite responsive.
Hope you’ll find a way to use your MurF a 100%. I have to say I’m still not decided whether I should keep mine or not…
Thank-YOU for finally following your own advice of offering something useful to this thread!!
If the problem is specifically that the MuRF needs to see a high impedance input signal, then a decent & simple buffer will do the trick.
A DIY Buffer can cost a few dollars to make: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.ca/2014/08/buffers.html. These are so small you could mount it inside the MuRF, your guitar or some other sneaky place like a really large enclosure so everyone thinks that there’s magic inside.
It would be interesting to hear if you experience the same issue with a BOSS or other non true bypass pedal running in front - one that isn’t geared specifically for splitting signals, just another pedal. It shouldn’t matter really, just might be interesting for others who also wish to remedy what you experience.
I’ll definitely keep it because there’s really no alternative on the market. there’s midi synced and sequenced filters for guitar like the zvex seek wah, but that’s just one filter, not 8 like in the murf. it rather sweeps the cutoff points unlike the murf which fades the 8 filter bands up and down. the result is quite different and I like it much better than the lame old wahwah-like filter sweeps. I do wish though that some other company would do a it’s own take on the murf that works well with guitar. or that moog updates the murf.
so far i haven’t been 100% successful figuring out a way to make it work. especially finding a solution that is within reason both financially and considering space on my pedal board which is a stereo setup.
a buffer upfront to bring the impedance down alone won’t cure it. the problem also seems to be about how the murfs output interacts with the amps input. i tried buffers in every combination with the murf with no success. dedicated buffer boxes as well as non-true bypass pedals. i hope a reamp box after the murf will help but that’s just a guess.
so far the best but most expense partial solution is the rare breed of active line level true bypass loopers like the lehle parallel or the pigtronix keymaster which I have yet to try.