Will this work?

[Radio Ventriloquist]

Hey, everyone!

I've decided to try to get my hands on some DIY regarding pedals. I thought that it would be wise to start with something that would be a) easy and b) usefull for me.

I've figured that a patch bay would simplify things on the pedalboard I'm reconfiguring. I also thought an ABY pedal would be useful. So I figured why not have them both in the same enclosure?

I followed a simple layout for each of those and tried to merge them together. I have no knowledge in electronics, I've soldered some pickups and pots, but that's pretty much it...

This is what I tried to 2merge"...
https://generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_sw_ab_lo.pdf
https://www.vertexeffects.com/diy-interface
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NEGzA2iKGU

So do you guys think this might work? Or am I getting it all wrong?




Sorry for the noobness...
Thanks for whatever help you can give me, guys!

[ElectricDruid]

Welcome Ventriloquist!

Sorry, but I think you should back up a bit and explain what you're trying to do from the beginning. I'm feeling very much thrown in the deep end here!

I can't tell if your diagram will do what you want unless I can understand clearly what you want it to do (outside of the diagram). So give us a description of what options you're wanting and how you see it working.

Thus far, I don't get it. A patch bay is simply a load of connections that you have somewhere else, all taken to one place for convenience. An ABY pedal lets you switch your signal to either to path A or path B. What you have seems more complicated than either of those.

[Radio Ventriloquist]

Thanks for the reply, Druid!

Yeah, I'm so ignorant regarding electronics that I though "Those guys will figure this out because they are a whole different level"... Of course it didn't occur to me that my ignorance could be so astronomical that my layout could end up being an unintelligible mess!

Ok, so I basically imagined a box (pedal) with two floors.
The first floor would be a junction box: guitar signal goes in, goes out to tuner and distortion pedals, back in the box and out to the front of the amp.
There is also an FX loop to be used, although that is for "just in case" situations - I'm more used to put effects in front of the amp.
Then I imagined a second floor with an ABY pedal. My first idea was to use the signal coming from the first floor's "out to amp" into the ABY input. But then I figured "couldn't the input from the distortion pedals be used as the ABY input?" So that is what I tried to express on the layout...

Am I making any sense? I'm Portuguese and sometimes I worry that I can't transmit the right idea.

[Radio Ventriloquist]

Can anyone help?

[GibsonGM]

Well, bud (and welcome!) - if you're that new, why not keep it simple?  The fastest way to lose interest in something new is to jump in too far too fast, and overwhelm yourself. Then you probably dont finish the thing, and don't want to continue in the hobby.   This is way too fun and useful, as well as money-saving on buying pedals, to have that happen!

I suggest you tackle a basic A/B/Y box.  Standalone.  I have one, and use it for a bunch of things...extra 'features' wouldn't be used and might get in the way.  Designs already exist. You can get a BB box for it from Smallbear. 

Doing a quickie like this will familiarize yourself with basics like grounding and signal path.  You can then move on to a bit more complicated project   

[Radio Ventriloquist]

Thanks for the reply! I totally get what you're saying and I agree. But in this particular case there is also pedalboard real estate to consider and my idea was to stack both units in a single enclosure.

[Matthew Sanford]

Is it that you want the option to choose the clean/distortion (non-time based effects) at the first floor, then choose straight to amp/through time effects to amp/both going to amp? Essentially to set all effects on but only have 2 stomp switches to control it?

On that end, Gibson is right. Find an A/B/Y circuit and breadboard it to check it's right, then work one of many "True Bypass" circuits to go in front of the A/B/Y. The way you drew your circuit isn't making sense to, it looks like the tip of the first floor return goes to 9v... I understand being new to it and diving super deep! This is doable though, just try it on a breadboard to make it work. You may need to consider switching inputs to ground on not used effects, possibly keeping outputs from effects (especially time based) tied to the output to allow tails to make it through.

Breadboard it, see if what you are thinking works ONE SECTION AT A TIME, if not if you can figure out why, if not then bring back just that piece to advise on what you are seeing happen and the good people here will help you through.

On that end it is good to learn more standard circui notation for switches and jacks, will make it easier to read, like these ways