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I’m a new Volca Keys user, but I made the mistake of hooking my Volca up to a guitar pedal using a 3.5mm TRS out of the headphone input to a 1/4” TRS adapter in the pedal.

I not only got a weak signal (phase cancellation?), but now the poor signal persists WITHOUT the aforementioned cable or pedal. It’s barely audible on the internal speaker and with headphones I can hear a little signal, but mostly noise. Both the speaker and the headphones sounded fine before I hooked up the pedal. Why is this and how can I fix it?

Thanks for any advice on this.

Hi,

Sounds like that the hooking up on the pedal has damaged your unit somehow.
I would think it is protected vs. wiring mistakes, but not sure on that.
Get it to a repair center. Not sure they are gonna fix it though...

Good luck

Thanks, yes. That's what I feared. The only problem is finding a repair center that would even look at it. I've struck out with all the local shops in my area.

Cardindex wrote:I’m a new Volca Keys user, but I made the mistake of hooking my Volca up to a guitar pedal using a 3.5mm TRS out of the headphone input to a 1/4” TRS adapter in the pedal.

I not only got a weak signal (phase cancellation?), but now the poor signal persists WITHOUT the aforementioned cable or pedal. It’s barely audible on the internal speaker and with headphones I can hear a little signal, but mostly noise. Both the speaker and the headphones sounded fine before I hooked up the pedal. Why is this and how can I fix it?

Thanks for any advice on this.

I can't think of any way connecting the Volca output to an input could harm anything in the Volca. May be a fault unrelated to what you were doing, or it is the output jack itself broken when using it. They are only tacked onto the board so definitely a weak point.

i accidentally ran my Keys on 19v for about half an hour, and it didn't mind at all

although i wouldn't recommend trying to reproduce that (it was a power supply with same yellow tip, accidently connected to the wrong one).
(mind you it was a supply that came to me with a 2nd hand Kick, was a bit shocked when i looked at the rating, but the Kick is fine too.)

i think if you run that stereo output into a balanced input you're going to have the cancellation issue. try connecting just one side by splitting it out with one of those 1/8" stereo-to-2x RCA cables.

Note that the problem is not only on the headphone output, but also on the internal speaker.