noise so loud I cant use the pedal

Hi,

BTW, I also have the jump pin in place – cant imagine that has any bearing either.

do you mean the JP1? It should not be placed.

Try loading the sinusoidal sketch, and see if it has any noise. This sketch only uses the output stage so it it nice to identify if the noise is comming from the input or output stage.

I also remember a guy with similar problem and it was a bad connection:
"I remove those two TL072 : no problem of pin... and put it back in the board and, fantastic, now it works...
I believe there were a contact problem with one TL072."

The noise level is not high, if you hear the sound samples we have online and in sound cloud I never use any noise removal software.

Hi, yes the jumper jp1 is not needed for a normal operation. Make sure that your pcb looks the same as the one shown in the step 5 of the guide "How to Build Pedalshield in 5 Steps".
Make sure that the polarity of the electrolytic caps is the right one and also is good if you could check the voltage of the test points +5v and -5v (usually you get +4.75 and -4.75v).

With the sinusoidal sketch loaded you should not get noise at all. By experiencie the noise is introduced in the input stage, so with the sinewave the noise is zero.

The cracks close to the legs in ceramic caps is something normal, you never know but it should not be the root cause of the problem.

Look in the forum for the guide to troubleshoot pedalshield, do it step by step and it might help you.

Hi Sammy, I am sorry for your experience and I understand your frustration. In the Arduino Board the ADCs/DACs always introduce a small level of noise, there are several threads in the Arduino forums talking about it.
In my experience, the power supply makes a big difference in the background hiss, some USB chargers have a nice sound (old iPod models), and some others are a bit more noisy. But you write before that you did not find a big difference between your models.
There is a topic about it for more details:
electrosmash.com/forum/hardware-pedalshield/26-powering-arduino-due

I always use original Arduino boards, I use some cheap clones in the past and I did not have a good experiences with them so I stop using them (I teared away the connectors after few uses). It might be some differences in the decoupling that can affect the sound.

The best practice to minimize the output hiss is to keep the output level always to the maximum (or almost maximum volume). Doing that the signal to noise ratio improves a lot.

Arduino is a great platform to learn about digital signal processing, and it intuitive because you can code all in C, but it has some limitations.4

With the sinusoidal sketch if you keep the output level maxed, the hiss should be inaudible, I am trying to think what other things you can try:
- Try to keep the amplifier gain not very high, amps are prone to emphasize oscillations.
- Check the connection between the shield and arduino, some people cut the pin headers using a wire cutter 2 or 3mm, reducing the path of the signal between boards, but the improvement is very light.
- Try to see if you can find a better mini usb power supply.
- Some Arduino boards sound better if they are in a certain position or location, over the carpet, on your hand, on a table... some areas are better for elector-magnetic interference.

If you have any tweak to improve the design or you have some idea let us know, this is an open source project and we always look for improvement.

I hope this helps.