will it work? pedal order switch

[nepalnt21]

hello, first time poster here.

i'm fairly wet behind the ears to this whole building pedals thing (so far i've just breadboarded a  crappy sounding fuzz face and an awesome clyde mccoy schematic wah)

i thought of an idea the other day, and wanted to run it by you guys to see if it will work. i searched around, and haven't found this EXACT design, but don't have a 4pDt switch to play with.

its for switching the order of two back-to-back pedals

will it work??

[thermionix]

Thinking about switch logic makes my brain hurt, but what you've drawn can be done with 3 poles, you've got the middle two redundant.

[nepalnt21]

wouldnt a 3p switch only have 9 lugs? i needed the ten. i racked my brain for 2 days trying to figure it out on a 3pDt, to no avail.

[thermionix]

You're really only using 8 in the drawing.

[Josh?]

This will work better than what you've got, with a 3pdt. Because there only 3 "links" (in-a-b-out or in-b-a-out), you only have to switch three times, so you can totally use a 3pdt.

[GGBB]

That won't work. IN-A is permanently wired to OUT-B (yellow), and IN-B is permanently wired to OUT-A (green).



This is a very common thing - don't reinvent the wheel unless you have a good reason. Obviously you could use a 3PDT if you don't need the LEDs:

[nepalnt21]

ah, well... thats great cause i have a 3pdt... somewhere around here.

anyway, thanks for the help everyone. quite the responsive forum!

[Mark Hammer]

Though the inclination is to use a stompswitch, consider a toggle.  I've made a handful of dual loop-selectors with an order-flipper switch (A->B, B->A), using a 3PDT toggle and the John Lyons' wiring diagram that Gord showed.

There are a few reasons why I use a toggle:
1) They're cheap.
2) They take less space than a stompswitch.
3) It is rare that one would want to change the order of pedals in the middle of playing something.  Stompability seems pointless.
4) The position of the toggle bat-handle can show you what comes "first", sidestepping the need for a status LED with a stompswitch (i.e., one can need a 4PDT with a stomp but only need a 3PDT with a toggle).

[Ben N]

Stompability seems pointless.

This. I think this about 90% of the second stompswitches I see.

[Mark Hammer]

I don't want it to sound critical, and can fully understand the fairly normal impulse to want to assign things to stompswitches.  In the "ecology" of pedals, though, one always has to think about how much real-estate will be taken up by the controls one ponders including, where that real-estate will need to be located in order to be usable, and any associated risks with situating it there.  For instance, to be usable as a stompswitch one can hit accurately, on demand, it needs to be situated far enough away from other things you wouldn't want to hit accidentally.  Because of the depth of stompswitches, they can preclude installing jacks or pots in locations that would otherwise be useful.  Etc.

So I always ask myself "What's the least I need to have, in order to provide a certain function?".  And sometimes, that means opting for a toggle instead of a pot or footswitch.

[Danich_ivanov]

Fuzz face and Vox wah were my firsts also.

I may go a little to far with this suggestion, but have you thought about going with relay switching? I just think that this is an awesome thing to figure out in the beginning, and you'r "device" is a perfect candidate for it.

[nepalnt21]

oops, just saw that this had responses i hadnt seen yet.

well, thanks for all who gave input. definitely helps to have when im so new to this. still excited to read and learn everyday!

as for toggle vs. stompswitch... im still in the breadboarding and trying everything phase, so im using toggles for everything, anyway, honestly.

i'll have to look into relay switches. for now, i dont have a need for this type of switch just yet, but it is good to have ideas in my pocket.

thanks again everyone!