DREAM SWITCHBOX

[intocarsoncity]

hey everyone.  new to the board, and surprise, i have a question.  im thinking about building a complicated signal switching system for my live setup.  what i need is essentially a switching box that allows me to switch between 3 inputs and 2 outputs, and also includes an efx send/receive (which i want everything to run through, no need for a bypass).  i attached a crude drawing to make more sense of it.

a) is there anyone who could help me draw up a schematic for this?

b) are there any serious pitfalls to this idea that make it a bad DIY project...like i definitely don't want something thats gonna create crazy hum, signal degradation, or just be too complicated.  i've seen similar complicated switchers online that are crazy expensive with preamps and stuff built in to combat those sorts of things, and if thats necessary prob i shouldn't attempt it.  i've built pedals from kits before, but in a paint by numbers way...i'm pretty new to electronics, as you can probably tell.  be gentle with my ignorance   

thanks people, any and all insights appreciated.

[R.G.]

A lot depends on what you have in the way of electronics skills. I would use a $2.00 programmable microcontroller and CMOS switches, and get it all done in about three ICs. But I program uCs for fun, have the programmer, language/compiler tools, etc. and the experience of lots of different kinds of hardware/software. At the other end of the spectrum, if you can stand using them, there is a huge amount to be said for rotary switches. One $4.00 three-position rotary switch and one $4.00 two-position rotary switch would do all that you're wanting to do, possibly more. The trick there is all in the wiring, and it's lengths of physical wires, no PCBs involved. Between those two are a myriad of approaches, the primary advantage of which is a single foot press for the input selector and another foot press for the output, etc.

[Top Top]

It seems like buying a mixer with an FX send might be the best route, then maybe followed by an a/b/y or individual on/off switches for the outputs.

It will do the job better than anything passive (lots of room for weird problems to happen there), and just adding up the price of enclosure, jacks, switches (stomp switches are expensive), might not even be more expensive (you can probably get a mixer with enough inputs and an FX send for less than $100 US).

You should figure out first what really NEEDS to be footswitchable - for example, do the inputs really NEED to be switchable, or do you just want to be able to route them all to the same place (output/fx loop)? If you just need to route them, then having switches on all of them is just an added complication and expense.

[intocarsoncity]

Thanks to both of you, that's already super helpful...for teh sake of argument, lets assume i have no electronic skills.  rotary switches and wire sounds doable to me, ICs does not. 

and Top Top, Now that you mention it, i don't really think the inputs need to be switchable at all.  Would that simplify it enough to make it worthwhile?  I have definitely thought about a mixer which seems like an easy solution, just as a guitar guy for some reason that seemed to worry me more on a tone degradation level.  prob just b/c like lots of guitar-minded people, i have an irrational fear of such things and an irrational trust in stompboxes.   

[jkokura]

It could work. Some of us (like myself) are both (amateur) guitarists and sound engineers - ask away! Post links to products you find that might help you out.

I think you could either do the switching in a box or do a mixer. However, I think you need to be sure that you want the effects to affect your organ and drumpad before you put them through that circuitry. If you ran a small 4 channel mixer you would be able to control what channel gets the effects and which doesn't. You could do the same with a switcher, but then I ask why you need the switcher at all?

Jacob

[Top Top]

Thanks to both of you, that's already super helpful...for teh sake of argument, lets assume i have no electronic skills.  rotary switches and wire sounds doable to me, ICs does not. 

and Top Top, Now that you mention it, i don't really think the inputs need to be switchable at all.  Would that simplify it enough to make it worthwhile?  I have definitely thought about a mixer which seems like an easy solution, just as a guitar guy for some reason that seemed to worry me more on a tone degradation level.  prob just b/c like lots of guitar-minded people, i have an irrational fear of such things and an irrational trust in stompboxes.   

The thing is that if you are doing it passive, with an organ and a drum pad and a guitar, those instruments probably have different output levels and different impedance. The impedance might or might not be an issue, but the differences in levels might be annoying, and therefore a gain/volume control on each input would help make the whole thing more useful.

If you have a passive splitter type thing, then what can happen is that the tone or the volume of one instrument can be affected by others because they have a sort of "drag" on the signal. This is the impedance issues that I said may or may not be an issue.

Personally, to me the whole thing would be so complicated and a mixer would probably just do it better and with more flexibility, and probably not much more money, if any at all. It is pretty much what a mixer is designed to do already.

[intocarsoncity]

Thanks guys, I think you've convinced me a mixer is a better way to go.  I was only interested in the switching system b/c i thoguht it might be cheaper/smaller/easier, but i think you're right, there's too many variables.