Footswitchable Amp selector box

Started by synthetic76, September 08, 2011, 12:26:44 AM

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synthetic76

Hi guys this is probably one of the simplest ideas for a pedal around, but as I'm still new to all this I thought I'd get some advice so...
What I am trying to do is build a pedal which is essentially an A+B+C+D pedal (like a Passive ABY Box, but without the Y and a lot more outs) so I can send my guitar signal to all or any combination there-in of my amps and their individual signal chains.  I've been googling for hours and am now more confused than I was before I'm guessing something along the lines of the Millennium bypass will do the job (I want LED's so I know whats on and what isn't basically).  So can anyone suggest a way to do this that won't result in tone suckage, volume losses etc?

I've included a couple of shots of the case I have setup for this, just in case I haven't been clear with what I'm trying to do,





Thanks for your help with this,

Nate

Ben N

If you plan to have more than two of them on at a time, you should include some kind of buffer to avoid signal loss and/or tone suckage. Plenty of good choices to be had, but AMZ is a great place to start. But that is the easy part. More immediate issues with something like this are amp noise, ground loops and hum. Even if you are running only one amp at a time, you should ground any unused amp inputs (like what the switching jack on an amp does when nothing is plugged in), and isolate your signal grounds from chassis ground. If you may run more than one amp at a time, you have to isolate them from one another or you are likely to get annoying ground loops. 

Some resources for you to help you figure out what you need and how to do it:
http://www.fulltone.com/sites/default/files/manuals/fultone-a-b-switcher.pdf
http://www.fulltone.com/faq/why-doesnt-definitive-aby-box-exist
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=74688.0
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synthetic76

Thanks for the links Ben, that should get me started, will post the finished product when I get it sorted.

Nate