We live in an electrically noisy place.  Phantom hums and radio stations and static are commonplace when I plug in my guitars to my amps and begin to wail.  I’ve tried noise decimators in the past, but they sucked tone out of the chain, and so I’ve just had to live with turning down the Gain and putting up with that humming and noise.

Then, the other day, a friend of mine recommended the Hum Debugger from Electro-Harmonix.  The purpose of the pedal is dead nut simple:

Every musician battles hum in their signal chain. The Hum Debugger turns it into dead silence, courtesy of a little EHX magic. Not a noise gate, and not a noise suppressor — but a real hum extractor. Silence is golden.

I ordered a Hum Debugger and I plugged it in the day it arrived.  This pedal is magical.  If there’s any noise in my chain, I just turn it on and the noise goes away without adversely affecting the tone of my guitar.  There are no complicated steps  for setup:

NORMAL/STRONG TOGGLE SWITCH – Sets the amount of Hum Elimination. In NORMAL mode the Hum Debugger removes only the odd harmonics from the hum present in your signal. In STRONG mode the Hum Debugger removes both odd and even harmonics from your signal’s hum content.

STATUS LED – When the LED is lit the Hum Debugger is active. When the LED is off the Hum Debugger is in True Bypass mode.

FOOTSWITCH – Toggles the Hum Debugger between active and True Bypass modes.

CONNECTIONS – Connect your instrument to the INPUT Jack. Connect your amplifier or the rest of your effects chain to the AMP Jack.

Here’s a great real-life review of the pedal:

It feels powerful to finally be able to just click a switch and have all that noise and gunk go away as if you were waving a magic wand.  If you have a guitar hum problem — coming from your guitar or amp or some other electrical bugaboo — in my experience, the Electro-Harmonix Hum Debugger is the perfect pedal solution for you and worth every penny you spend to buy one.

8 Comments

    1. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
      David W. Boles says:

      Yes, it’s a precise tool with one purpose and it works extremely well.

      1. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
        David W. Boles says:

        What’s the difference between “pastor” and “assembly leader?”

        1. It’s one of my ‘word police’ things. I always have to use the right WORD to convey a thought. I belong to a non-denominational setting – and to put Pastor as the leader (in my mind) denotes a ‘denomination’ of sorts.

          1. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
            David W. Boles says:

            Love that! The right word is important!

    2. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
      David W. Boles says:

      Cool! I know he’ll love it. The pedal not only gets rid of guitar hum — but more general static and hum, too! SMILE!

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