Build Your Own Effect Pedal

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By the mid-1960s, guitarists had a choice of three or four pedals, and players connected them simultaneously with three-foot cables, using 20 feet of twisted cables on either side of the pedal. circuit to go between guitar and amp. From a modern perspective, this was not an ideal setup, as the cable runs caused all kinds of noise and tone-pumping. But it also gave some players the “classic rock” sounds that guitarists crave all these years later.

Build Your Own Effect Pedal

Fast forward five decades, and pedal chains have become much more sophisticated than a few boxes on the stage floor. Many players build their own pedalboards, and manufacturers cater to a wide variety of needs with simple carrying cases (sometimes with Velcro to secure your pedals to the floor), prefabricated boards with stepped shelves, and rugged touring monsters with power controls, tuner jacks, and more. – in headphone amplifiers and other goodies. And if you’re not a do-it-yourselfer and have the cash, you’ve got a custom pedal board and effects system built by the pros.

Guitar Effects Pedalboard (build Your Own) By Stuckpixel

However, if you go the D.I.Y route, the road can be dangerous. First, you’re dealing with a lot of pedals, including multi-effects units that offer dozens of effects and modern modeling units that mimic vintage pedals. That’s not all. In addition to literally hundreds of pedals to choose from, there are dozens of different types of cables and tons of products like pedalboard power supplies and buffering devices. If you do something wrong, you can succeed and it will still sound great to you. On the other hand, your efforts to build the perfect pedal board can be marred by noise, annoying level discrepancies between pedals, distracting tonal anomalies, and other issues.

So, to unravel the mysteries facing potential pedalboard builders and buyers, we consulted renowned system designers on nearly every aspect of their craft – from power to wiring to buffers and more. You’ll find advice from pedalboard inventor Pete Cornish (Pete Cornish, Ltd.), as well as Bob Bradshaw (Custom Audio Electronics), Dave Friedman (Rack System, Ltd.), and Michael Piera (AnalogMan.com). , and James Santiago and Josh Fiden (Vodoo Lab).

Hopefully, once you’ve mastered this easy-to-use structure of pedalboard science, you’ll know everything you need to troubleshoot your current rig or create a system for your playing style, technical needs, and effects. creative approach.

Unless all of your pedals are battery operated – and you want to replace them – you need some sort of power source. It would be nice to just attach your outlet to your board and plug in the wall warts, but luckily there are more elegant and efficient options. First, you need to determine what current each of your pedals requires: the voltage, whether that voltage is DC or AC, and what current the pedal draws (most pedals draw between 3mA and 60mA, but digital pedals draw 150mA or more. ).

Build Your Own

Dave Friedman says, “There are many different voltage pedals available, including nine, 12, 18 and 24 volts. “And guitarists often have trouble with AC and DC, too. They say, “I put this 12-volt adapter on this pedal and it should work.” No, you plug a 12 volt AC adapter into a DC pedal and poof!”

Once you’ve solved these problems, you can start looking for a power supply that meets your specific needs (if you have special power requirements, including pedals that use 120-volt AC, you may just need to plug in or plug into an external outlet).

“In addition to having a regulated power supply that can drive all your pedals, it’s a good idea to have isolated power outlets to avoid ground loops,” says Bob Bradshaw, “because you’ll have fewer problems connecting a wide variety of pedals from different manufacturers.” – especially old and old-fashioned fuzz box ICs that use discrete transistors instead of integrated circuits are relatively forgiving because they already have chips to help stabilize the various power supplies of the ICs, analog delays and choruses, and are especially sensitive to coupling noise.

“Power supplies like Vodoo Lab’s Pedal Power have isolated taps with no common ground, so it’s like having multiple individual power supplies,” Friedman adds. “The problem with power supplies that tie all the pedals together is that they tie all the audio and all the power together, leading to loops to the ground between the pedals. This can cause noise and noise, or even a short circuit between the positive and negative pedals. I’m not saying you have to have completely isolated power all the time, but it’s the best way to make sure everything works perfectly.

Why You Should Build Your Own Guitar Effects Pedals

“I always test on a really high-end amp that lets me hear every little sound imaginable,” he says. “It makes it easier to track problems.”

Finally, routing from the power supply to the pedals is also an issue, as not only are the different connectors – Boss pedals have 2.1mm barrel connectors, while older Electro-Harmonix pedals often have 3.5mm. mini-phone connectors. – but some pedals have the polarity reversed (like Moogerfoogers with tip-right barrel connectors, as opposed to the more common tip-reverse). Most power supplies come with a variety of connection cables, including 9-volt battery clips for pedals without a power connection. And speaking of 9-volt batteries, Pete Cornish has this to say about sound issues: “Batteries are the best because they can’t hum!”

The topics of buffers and true bypass are often mentioned in the same breath, but only when considered in the context of either/or preserving the integrity of the guitar signal when using multiple effects pedals. Simply put, a buffer is a device that converts a high-impedance signal to a low-impedance signal, such as a signal from a guitar output. The reason you want to use a buffer is because different cable lengths and different devices connected between the guitar and the amp will introduce additional capacitance, which will affect the sound in different ways, especially by reducing the high frequencies.

Passive guitar pickups produce relatively weak voltages as well as high impedance levels that can greatly affect capacitance. Low impedance levels, on the other hand, are less affected by capacitance and can easily maintain signal integrity when longer cables are used and the signal is routed through multiple effects pedals. The resulting sound should more closely resemble what you hear when you plug your guitar directly into an amp.

Setting Up Your Effect Signal Chain

True bypass switches are designed to completely bypass the pedal circuit, eliminating extra capacitance, resulting in a sound similar to plugging a guitar directly into an amp. So what is it all about?

Thomas Nordegg (guitar tech from Frank Zappa, Steve Vai) and Pete Thorne (guitarist from Chris Cornell, Melissa Etheridge, and more) discuss true bypass and buffer guitar effects pedals, cable lengths, and how they all affect your sound.

“I don’t care if the pedals are 100 percent looped or not, going through long rows of pedals and trailing cables will degrade your signal,” says Bradshaw. “You still have connection issues from one pedal to the next, and even the highest quality cables and plugs cause some distortion in the sound. If you want to keep your tone, a high-quality buffer is essential, and there are plenty of them. In a pinch, you can use a Boss pedal as a buffer – or even the company’s TU-12 tuner. That said, there are issues with buffers, specifically how they affect the response of some fuzz and distortion boxes, so you may want to put those pedals in a different type of buffer in your signal chain.

“A buffer is often used as the first device on a board to fine-tune a guitar signal,” says Michael Piera. “But that’s a problem with a vintage pedal like the German Fuzz Face, which has to work directly with your pickups for that magical sweep effect when you turn the guitar’s volume knob down, because the pickup and volume knob are one piece. becomes a fuzz circuit. Similarly, germanium treble amplifiers such as Rangemaster-type instruments tend to sound too bright and unpleasant when buffers or buffer pedals are placed in front of them.

Essential Guitar Effects Pedals

Exceptions to the rule are clocks, which are usually placed before the ambiguities in the signal chain. A vintage watch should have a buffer when placed in front of the sweeper to prevent discolouration.