Sounds good - will do. Thanks Dan!
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Hi again Dan. I think I was having a brain-dead moment there, as I have indeed been using the Dwarf in standalone mode for about a week now, and as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, a lot of my noise/distortion/levels issue is resolved by using the box that way. I’m still having difficulties in terms of clipping when my attack on the lower register of my bass (E and B strings in particular) gets a bit aggressive, but that seems to be shared among all of the key parts of my chain (happens in Ableton too, without the Dwarf). I have to figure out a way to get an active circuit electric bass line signal tamed down for all this processing gear. I don’t know if I would be on the right path, but I’m going to look at whether a DI might help in that context. Anyways, like you suggested, in standalone mode with the Dwarf, I’m getting far more pleasing audio quality as compared to going into the interface into the PC via physical cables. So hopefully the dongle option will replicate that.
Cheers
/fp
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I have the Presonus AudioBox 1818VSL. I connect it to the computer via USB and I’m connecting the Dwarf using two of Mic/Line inputs (so from 3 to 8). When I say that I’m not connecting on the instrument inputs I mean on the input 1 and 2, those inputs basically have a DI built-in.
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Thanks for sharing that info Jon, good to know!
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Happy to help 
Well, next to final update on this issue.
It’s not the dwarf causing the hiss, but @ianr I did actually swap the power supply out with one that you recommended, after I worked extremely hard on my gain staging within my mixer. Messing with the mixer did allow me to isolate that warbling sound you had mentioned, and the new power supply did solve that added noise issue.
I adopted the “perceived loudness” approach to mixing rather than running hot lines.
On my mixer I’m running -15 to -20 dB input gain on my synths with +2 to +6 dB volume, and Master output is at -12 dB gain.
The dwarf I’m still dialing in, but I’m super close. I’m using internal gain plug-ins at the end of my chains, both are negative dB but settings vary. Hardware settings I am still dialing in, input gain is high I think 80-90% gain, and output is sub 50% gain.
So far this configuration has solved a lot of my problems.
I had a big write up about this issue where I was about to call it good and move on. However, as I was getting all buttmad and about to shut everything down; I pulled a passive DI box out from the dwarf input, left the stagebug on the output of the dwarf with ground lift on the L/R channels, and experimented one more time to great success.
I’m so close to victory I can taste it. Guess I’ll tinker some more tomorrow and Sunday, and see if I can get perfect silence.
I’m now down to a few more settings tweaks and gain staging tuning and I may have everything recording the way I want.
Once I feel satisfied, I’m going to re-record a project I shared not too long ago so I can provide a comparison between the two.
So far the dynamic range on my recordings has skyrocketed, no longer need to normalize my tracks, everything is mixed down before it ever hits my audio interface.
I am also no longer struggling with volume issues using this approach, and now I can make slight bumps to my track volume to control my mix.
The hiss is only barely noticeable if I crank my gain settings and volume to max on my headphone amp.
If I am successful this weekend, I’ll do a full write up of the things I addressed with regards to the dwarf and mixer.
I did a bunch of other stuff in my studio that did help a lot with noise, but that needed to be done anyway and is not relevant to the noise issue for the dwarf itself.
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I think you have the solution here, I just got my Dwarf yesterday and I’m having exactly the same problem with this background hum, but it is not plugged into a mixer just going straight into my amp, and I’ve not had ground noise issues with any of my other gear, I even have a Blue Box mixer and even that is powered off a USB plug and that has never had a ground noise issue.
I’ve ordered the same 12V power supply and will see if that makes a difference - strange that these units have this issue - my Duo has always been very quiet and never had a hum issue - let’s see what happens - the Dwarf is very nice overall though!
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Guys!!!
I used my Duo 12V power supply cable that has a three pin UK plug with a plastic Earth pin on it and the noise is pretty much 100% gone….
I suspected that was the fix and it works simple as that - no need for isolated power supplies or DI boxes - just get a plug with a plastic Earth pin and I reckon you’ll be fine 
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Super glad that worked for you in your situation! It did end up helping me in the long run.
My set up is pretty large, and I’ve destroyed about 95% of my noise with a few changes. I’m working on pure silence in a studio environment and I’m still tweaking. Unfortunately in my scenario, I do indeed both isolators and a DI to get acceptable volume out of my dwarf, but my set up is all powered synths rather than a guitar. I imagine my needs are vastly different than the majority of users.
I’m gonna link your comment on another thread I’m working in, as your success is now starting the snowball down the hill for solving the noise issue!
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Hi MikeFlynnBass, glad this worked for you.
Having spent the last hour or so ploughing through what seems like hundreds of posts I’d like to make a few points to (hopefully!) clarify things for people. I’m not a certified electrician but I have a degree in electrical and electronic engineering and I was a BBC engineer for a few years. Some of that knowledge is a bit rusty and I’d wouldn’t dare to say I know everything about this topic but I hope I can clear up a few misconceptions.
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PLEASE People - before you go throwing loads of money and gear at other solutions, if you’re having problems with a high-pitched warble (not hiss or 50/60Hz mains hum) I’d really suggest using a double-insulated (i.e. perfectly safe!) power supply instead of the standard MOD one. Chances are it’ll fix your problem. Do make sure it’s 12v DC and at least 2A with the positive polarity on the inside of the plug. I suppose I should make the disclaimer that I take no liability etc etc but it should be fine.
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Quick primer on double insulated power supplies:
Earth pins are a very important safety feature, but they were designed primarily to protect gear housed in metal boxes, such as rack-mount equipment, so that if you touched the metal box and it had a wiring fault you wouldn’t get a shock. Many modern devices (power supplies in particular) have plastic cases and they’re specifically designed to put two layers of insulation between you and the dangerous bits of metal. That’s where we get the term “double insulated” - signified by the box-within-a-box symbol.
I’m in the UK and UK plugs still need an earth pin to force open the little gates on the socket to let the other pins in, but because the earth pin has no electrical use on a double insulated device, they often make the pin plastic (presumaby to save money). If you look at various power supplies around your house you’ll see that many of them have plastic earth pins. This doesn’t make them any less safe because they’ve been intentionally designed this way.
On a few plastic-cased power supplies though (such as the Dwarf and many laptop supplies) the designers choose to still have a connection to earth. I’m not sure why - maybe it’s to protect against damage from static electricity or interference. These are the ones that can cause trouble for musicians because, although the currents flowing to earth are miniscule, they can still be picked up by sensitive audio devices with unbalanced inputs, such as valve amps. Swapping to a power supply with no earth connection guarantees that the power supply can’t create this current and so reduces a source of unwanted noise.
Of course you could also achieve the same effect by swapping the power lead to your Dwarf power supply with one that has no earth wire. That also cures the problem but I can’t recommend it because it’s tampering with the safety design of that device.
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This is not an Earth Loop/Ground Loop issue!
Ground loops are a completely different problem that occurs when you plug multiple devices into different sockets in the building. Please see the Sound-On-Sound article for more info: https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-what-ground-earth-loop. Just because the issue may be cured by switching the “Ground-lift” switch on your DI box it doesn’t mean the problem was caused by a ground loop; it may be a design flaw in the power supply that’s causing a current to flow to ground in a way that’s unsuitable for powering an audio device, but it’s not a ground loop - sorry to sound like such a pedant but it’s a different thing
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None of the above will help if you’re having problems with hiss. That’s likely to be a “gain staging” issue. You could start by making sure that the inputs and outputs of the Dwarf are peaking green with occasional amber (not red) and set the output setting to full - you may need to then wind down the input level of the next device in the chain - even if you end up setting it to “zero” that’s fine.
Hard to believe but every time current flows through an electrical component hiss (well, electrical noise) is added. The formula for this is the only one I can remember from my degree! So it can never be totally eliminated but we can take steps to reduce it as much as possible compared to the signal.
Hope that’s of help and didn’t sound to “ranty”!
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Tbh Ian,
It sounds like the last bit of hiss I’m fighting is just an inherent part of working with electricity.
I’m gonna try this hum destroyer, and if it doesn’t quiet anything at all, I’ll just send it back and accept that there is nothing I can do to achieve total resting silence.
However, I can achieve that total silence in my set up if I mute the dwarf inputs on my mixer for some reason.
Maybe it’s a gain staging issue, but if that is the problem, then my problem shifts from “too much noise” to “not getting enough volume from the dwarf” to hear it in a mix with the equipment that I’m using. My dwarf has to have the highest gain in my set up to get a proper signal into my mixer, that existed before any adjustments to my set up were made.
Maybe it’s just the nature of working with synths as an instrument.
Both inputs and outputs are solid green when in use and if they peak at all, I make the necessary adjustments.
So I’m feeling a bit stuck in how to get this handled.
Edit: to follow up on this, hum destroyer did nothing, and seeing as I’m chasing a sound that requires max gain to on devices to follow, guess I’ll have to chalk it up to “it is what it is”
Pretty sure I’ve been following a ghost noise that doesn’t exist except to my ears that are tuned to it.
I will now begin systematically removing hardware and testing since I’m within return windows lmao
Does sound like you’re very close Elk_wrath, and that’s great news!
In an earlier message you said “Output is sub 50% gain” - if that’s still the case I’d suggest setting it to 100%. Your mixer input gain setting for the Dwarf shouldn’t need to be high at all.
Have you tried all this with the inputs on the Dwarf going straight through to the outputs with no effects in-between - just to make sure there’s nothing weird going on with the plugins (apologies if you’ve mentioned this before - I’ve read so many messages that I’ve lost track!)
Anyway I dare say we were both supposed to be doing something else tonight - good luck with your final tweaks!
Ian
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I for sure have maxed both gain input and output for the dwarf while experimenting this go round, and I’m at the point where I have to set my headphone amp to gain stage 3 at max to hear the sounds. However, the noise still shows in my recordings, which is why I’m super vexed.
I took a moment to record the noise I have after checking the hum destroyer for improvements.
Here is the audio clip at max level with no normalization. This will crackle and pop because my dwarf was max gain on I/O I begin to have crackle and pops if I gain over 60% on the input, and in fact, as I rotate the encoder, from 60% to roughly 67% I get steady stream of crackles and pops from the unit as I turn the encoder, and then random pops that occur while nothing is running.
This is just a clip of what should be silence.
Now here it is normalized, please turn down your volume and adjust as the normalization really amped the clip.
When you hear the dip in noise, it’s when I muted the dwarf input in my mixer.
The base noise I don’t think I’ll ever shake. My audio interface is set to my normal recording levels, just enough for solid green indicators on my signal input with minor flickering.
The dwarf is at -6dB at the mixer with a +6dB gain on volume, everything else is -20dB on gain with -97dB on volume. So theoretically those should be silent and shouldn’t cause an issue.
I also unplugged every synth, one at a time and used the hum destroyer on each synth in the set up as well as the dwarf. Nothing changed at all. So maybe this is just the base noise I am dealing with?
Maybe you can identify this sound?
I will load up an empty pedal board tomorrow and retest, but most of my testing has been done with a non connected board.
I think a part of my issue is that I’ve become hyper focused on achieving an unrealistic goal that can really only be accomplished with track mastering.
I know for a fact I need the DI and stagebug, without them the dwarf is too noisy to work with in a recording set up, and those 2 items and the new power supply is a huge part of my success.
I attempted to remove the stagebug and DI after messing with my mixer for a bit, and that’s when I heard the warble sound with an extreme level of noise. New PSU solved the warble, and the isolator and DI handled the majority of the noise.
I’ve thrown every solution I can think of at the problem, I’m hesitant to return my isolation transformer as it gives me peace of mind knowing it will protect my gear as well as mitigate any grounding issue, but in the same breath I have 4 power conditioners that seem to be just as functional.
In case those links don’t work (they don’t play on my end in my browser) here is a link to the files Dropbox - Mod Noise - Simplify your life
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Hey Ian
Thanks for the super informative - not at all ranty - post - it’s extremely useful to have this information explained so clearly. And I hear exactly what you’re saying - I agree that using a plug with a plastic earth pin is probably not the silver bullet for this issue - but just for the record I used my Dwarf power supply on my Duo just now and while there was some mild hiss audible there was no high pitched whine - so my purely instinctive conclusion would be that there’s some strange interaction going on between the Dwarf and its current power supply - I hope someone much more qualified than I will be able to do some proper testing on this to find the cause but I can honestly say just by switching to a different appropriate power supply the whining noise has gone…
I hope that clarifies things and thanks again for the detailed response
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Thanks for the recordings - very helpful.
It’s odd that you’re having to set your mixer to only -6 on its gain control. That doesn’t seem right - I’d have thought you should be able to put it to -20 like your other devices. Wonder if your dwarf unit is faulty. What happens if you try using the headphone output instead of the normal outputs (you’ll need a splitter cable)? Do you get a higher level into the desk then?
Does the hissing go away if you set the input level to zero? If so that indicates the issue is somewhere around the input preamps. Can’t remember what you said you’re plugging into the Dwarf - was it a synth?
In terms of the input/output lights on the Dwarf; I think green just indicates the presence of a signal but it might still be too small. I’d suggest turning up the gain so they’re flashing red when you’re playing your loudest, then backing off by 10% to give a bit of headroom.
Don’t suppose you’re in London (UK)? If so we could get together to compare Dwarfs!
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Hey Ian,
I don’t know why the dwarf needs to be gained so high on my mixer.
I use the dwarf as an effects box in my set up. So all synths go into the mixer, then I can direct whatever synth I want to main out 2 which feeds into the dwarf. The dwarf returns to the mixer on input 5.
I’ve decided to pull out the dwarf and make a small testing set up without my mixer and just focus on the dwarf with a synth direct into the input.
Here is my focused testing set up.
I’m running my 0-coast direct into the dwarf, and out of the dwarf into my steinberg audio interface. I’m recording from there and into my phone. Everything is connected to a power conditioner from one outlet.
If there is no noise on my recordings, then that will imply that there is something failing in my set up, which I’m suspecting my bluebox mixer power supply.
If it’s also silent, then that means I can send back this isolation transformer most likely, as I have 2 independent set ups with 2 mixers, and I can run each off of a single outlet.
I’m going to begin testing shortly and begin recording.
And no, I’m in the US on the west coast 
would be cool to meet some people here one day
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looking forward to these new test results!
i’ve been following all these Dwarf-related noise reports with interest… i was an early reporter of noise issues on the Duo, and have been quite pleased with what’s become possible on that unit as well as the DuoX.
i’m still pretty old-school, though; haven’t yet received my Dwarf! 
…so, we’ll see, won’t we!..
(i’m also sufficiently old-school to be enamoured of semi-colons; i’ll use them at every possible opportunity! lol)
cheers!
.pltk.
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Hey Plutek!
So I’m recording currently, taking a minor break.
Be very careful with the normalized one, it’s a very boosted version of the silent recording and gives a better detail of what sort of noise that is being generated. Turn the volume down.
The track with audio is just to prove that the audio comes through nice and clear at the gain settings I have set. Any effects are actually coming from the Strega as I patched my 0-coast into the external input.
So far I have discovered 2 things
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The dwarf is 100% noise free in this signal path using the original power supply. Input gain at 37% with no ability to gain higher without peaking the inputs and outputs of the dwarf. Output at 75%. Board is completely empty with inputs patched directly to output.
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There is something failing in my big set up. My guess is the power surge I experienced before I was able to surge protect has damaged my mixer power supply.
I will be providing just the silent output recordings for this configuration, and then with the new PSU. I will also load my shimmer board and test with that.
Here is the folder that contains the first recording tests with supplied PSU: Dropbox - Mod Test 2 supplied PSU - Simplify your life
Second test with double insulated after market PSU:
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beauty; that’s great news!
well, booh; that’s significantly less great. 
power to you! pun intended, of course.
onwards!
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To be honest, I’m actually really relieved, that means the issue isn’t with my unit; it’s with my mixer (only PSU I haven’t replaced in my set up yet due to them not selling replacements)
I’ll verify with my big Yamaha mixer. If that has similar results, then I’ll be finding a proper PSU for my bluebox.
I’ve replaced all other PSU’s for my gear after that surge and kitted out my electrical with power conditioners.
I’m gotta run some errands real quick and I’ll get back at it.
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