1/4"/6mm phone jacks are a pain in the rear

[R.G.]

Copyright 2005 R.G. Keen. Permission given to display from http://www.diystompboxes.com. All other rights reserved.

... so why do we use them???

It's because we have become conditioned by history.

Historically, the US telephone company, Bell, developed the 1/4" phone jack for reliability back when the only way to get connected to another phone was to have a human operator hear you ask for a number and physically plug you into a jack that connected to that person. As such, they are **tough** and reliable if built well at first, as none of us ever gives that much wear and tear to one. However, we effects guys pay a price in difficulties in mounting and boxing them. They're big, and box space for effects is always tight. With the exception of some big stomp switches, the two jacks can in some instances eat up more internal space than any other parts.

In the beginning a guitarist had an amp and nothing else. Then he got one stompbox, and it made sense to use the cords he already had to plug in the effect. Then he got a second one...

In the New Golden Age we're currently enjoying (don't get me started - it's true!) it's quite common for every guitarist to have more than one pedal. All those 1/4" jacks, plugs and the cords that go in them have become a pain to place, hook up and use. They're big, expensive, and hard to route around.

So - start the revolution  :roll:

With many short patch cords between pedals, it makes a lot of sense to use 1/8"/3.5mm jacks and matching plugs. Same technology, just smaller and easier to make, cheaper to buy, and easier to put in the box.

"...butbutbutbutbutbutbutbutbutbut..." I hear you say " the amps and guitars still have 1/4" phone jacks. How will we ever hook up to them???"

No problem. You need exactly two 1/4" ports to hook up to - one from the guitar and one from the amp. Look at 35-549 on http://www.oselectronics.com/ose_p108.htm, which looks like this
fits a 1/4" plug to a 1/8" one, and costs US$0.90 in ones.

So for US$1.80, you can build stompboxes with 1/8"/3.5mm jacks and small, flexible patch cords between pedals on your pedalboard.

Next.

[dpresley58]

It'll never work, R.G... It makes -way- too much sense. :wink:

Good tip. Thanks. I have one of those older model plastic cases Boss made for holding 5 pedals and a power supply. Inevitably, the In-Out jacks line up with each other, making it hard to find a small patch cord with a head flat enough not to get in each other's way when the effects are in the case - they just didn't leave enough side-to-side room to hook them together.

[maximee]

R.G., you are right as always good idea, BUT most people (including me) tend to break those small connectors, because they are not very strong...
and that's a serious issue, especially when you are playing live...

but... for patch cables on your pedal board it's not a bad idea at all....

[Dirk_Hendrik]

R.G,
Ik dont know how it used to be at your side of the ocean but over here the 5 pin DIN plugs we now refer to as MIDI pplugs used to be a standard for years. The advantage of these plugs is that they can have their in and out on the same plug and are smaller than 2 6.3 mm jacks. Having said that that remains to be their only advantage. They are hard(er) to solder and less solid etc etc. The same applies to the mini jacks you propose which I personally always considered a pain in the behind for beiing so weak.

When you start using PCB mounted  jack connectors the jacks immediately can function as a way to mount the PCB in its enclosure, help you to get rid of some wires (I hate the wiring mess in a pedal) and therefore, left alone their size, give some advantages.

[bwanasonic]

R.G., you are right as always good idea, BUT most people (including me) tend to break those small connectors, because they are not very strong...
and that's a serious issue, especially when you are playing live...

but... for patch cables on your pedal board it's not a bad idea at all....

Yes, I agree that those mini-jacks would not inspire me with confidence when faced with the rigors of a night at a local biker bar. More often I've cursed some consumer electronics device I was trying to interface with for not having proper (.25") jacks! I have used 1/8" minis for things like battery boxes for mini disc mics, and they seem to work well enough. Just not for stuff that gets stomped on a lot.

Kerry M

[Samuel]

Man you guys are just playin'. Start the real revolution and use balanced ins and outs using ethernet cable!

[onboard]

I say scrap patch chords altogether and throw some Blue Tooth technology at the stompbox arena. Probably beyond the DIY realm, however...

[Marek]

I think it's more likely that they'll  start driving on the 'right' side in the UK, than change those connectors in the music industry.  :-)

Its got something to do with "Pfadabhängigkeiten" (no clue how to translate this to english, I hardly understand it in German :-) ), but it tells us something about why the keyboard has a QWERTY layout and not ABCDEF...

Once some *event* or whatever takes a "Pfad" (engl.: path) throughout the years it tends to stay on that  "Pfad" and it is unlikely that it will change the course ( Abhängigkeit - engl. : dependancy)

Greetings,
Marek

p.s. that's what they teach us here @ Humboldt :-)

[Hal]

funny, I was thikning of the same thing the other day, except in teh opposite direction.  I wanted something stronger, that wouldn't yank out if you pulled - sometihng like bnc connectors or something...

[LP Hovercraft]

I know a guy who is an AT&T tech who has boxes of BNC connectors and has used them with his DIY audio gear (synths, guitars, amps, studio effects)  they are quite rugged and work great.  Pricey, though.

[Peter Snowberg]

1/4" jacks have bothered me for a long time too. Incidentally, the 1/4" plugs that we use are a cheapened version of the original Bell plug. The original has a more spherical tip and really locks into place hard. It's still a great connector if you have unlimited space.

I thought about 1/8" jacks & plugs a while back, but I've seen too many failures from sideways bumps and the raw options at RadioShack don't compare to Switchcraft. Once you get a 1/4" plug into an adapter into a 1/8" jack you have a lot of potential problem where the 1/8" plug goes into jack. Some kind of pigtail would be required for safety. Perhaps two panel mounted 1/4" and two 1/8" jacks connected together for the guitar and amp connections. All the rest of the patching would then be cheap and tiny! If you wanted to add a 1/4" pedal to the setup, you could do it using a 1/8" to 1/4" adapter (like for new headphones into old headphone jacks), or you could just make a couple of 1/8" to 1/4" patch cords with RG-174.

I've never liked RCA connectors for some reason. The just seem "cheap".

Same for DIN. Maybe it's from connector assembly? Or is it replacing board mounted jacks?

BNC is bulky & rigid, but with all kinds of 50 ohm hardware like right angles and nicely crimped BNC patch cords, you can have a sweet looking installation if you're into that sort of thing. BNC couplers also allow you to have nice junctions without a patch cord for pedals that are alike. Now bend them the wrong way and they don't like that.


What does that leave? Well.... lots.

We need something with the following specs:
- solid connection
- should detach easily if yanked to avoid damage
- shielded
- at least one conductor other than the shield
- ability to support balanced signals would be nice
- able to be soldered by DIYers
- able to get parts from Mouser or Digikey at least
- small footprint inside the box
- small footprint outside the box
- inexpensive
- strong
- ideally patch cords should be available off the shelf
- something that's going to be around for a long time

I know of two connectors that fit all these specs...

The first one is less available. It was originally the Nintendo Gameboy controller connector and it worked so well that Apple decided to use it for FireWire / IEEE-1394. It is a good connector, but there's a better one...



USB-A connectors are cheap, plentiful, and available in dual units with small footprints that can even be mounted in pad-per hole perf (with plated throughs). They disconnect easily when needed, they can carry balanced signals, shielded twisted pair patch cords are available from 1,000s of places. They can even supply power for effects with the absolute minimum of ground loop noise if multiple pedals are being powered from one source.

Something to think about.

[Samuel]

yeah shielding is definitely the weak link in using ethernet - but man those would be some cheap patch cords. but hey you could just build a small coupler that plugs directly into the guitar (and the amp) with a couple opamps running off a watch battery to buffer/convert to a balanced signal...could even carry power on the spare pairs...

edit: Plus! locking jacks!

[NaBo]

I had actually had the same idea as RG a while ago to save enclosure space... ( :shock: !!! I had the same idea as RG!!!!!!!!!!!!   )...  I was thinking of using 1/8" jacks and plugs on the floor and making a couple cords with an 1/8" on one end and a 1/4" on the other for the guitar and amp (though I did have two 1/4-1/8" adaptors, i wouldn't trust them)...  Ultimately I decided against it, because I thought back over the years all the plugs or jacks that i've had problems with:  Headphone jack on Digitech RP300, 1/8" jack.  2 or 3 pairs of headphones, 1/8" plugs.  Computer mic, 1/8" plug.  Walkman (remember those things???), 1/8" jack.  So basically, every plug or jack that's either fallen apart or stopped making good connections has been an 1/8".  So I guess I'm kinda statisfied with the KERCHUNK-y reliability of a fat 1/4" connection... and those cramped-enclosure builds are always the funnest

[object88]

1/4" jacks don't have to be crap.  I've got a (Neutrik?) patchbay at home that gets a vice-grip on inserted jacks.  I'd love to know what kind of jacks it uses... it's meant to be pulled apart, so perhaps I'll dive into it tonight.

[dr]

.....I wired up a pedal board for a guy and he wanted me to mount power jacks (like the metal ones ones Rat Shack has-heavy duty panel mount ones) retrofitted in place of the 1/4" ones...made cables to go between all six pedals, worked fine; gave him a bit more real estate to mount more pedals......now if I could find right angle barrel plugs, I'd do the same to mine......

[El Caballo]

1/8" jacks pull out too easily and don't make very good contact.  They will get noisy and crackly much more quickly than 1/4" jacks.

I would rather see grounding go through the power supply daisy-chain and run audio on banana jacks through all the effects.  This takes away all the ground loops you normally get, banana plugs are really hard to pull out by accident, and they make much better contact than even 1/4" jacks.

Several modular synths use them.  Another advantage is you can stack, making it easy to fan out a single effect into two or more other effects.

[Mark Hammer]

Cripes, why not go all the way.

Anyone here remember the Korg PME-40 modules?

These were essentially "switchless" boxes that had a 9-pin socket in the front carrying in, out, power, and ground lines.  Switching was done electronically on the main chassis.  The user simply slid the sub-chassis for the specific effect into the slot.

Given that only 4 of the 9 pins were used on the Korg modules, this is easily possible with a standard 5-pin DIN jack, mounted on either the rear or front skirt of the chassis.  If you wanted to get really ritzy, use 5 pins for bipolar power access (also suitable for pos ground and neg ground using a basic bipolar supply).  Stick the female side in the chassis, obliterate the input and output jacks and switch, AND the battery, and you could even rival Zach for title of most-things-stuffed-into-a-1590B without going SMT.  Bear in mind as well, that not having to allow space for your foot to flawlessly hit the stompswitch without destroying or disturbing other things leaves room for tons of bells and whistles that you might otherwise be obliged to choose *between*.

As for switching, consult RG's Geofex article on using that cheap electrical channeling for pedals.  Stick a hunk of that stuff in front.  Mount your stompswitches in there, along with the indicator LEDs, and away you go.  The other nice thing is that you don't have separate signal and power cables running everywhere.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Having seen a lot of analog synth modular gear over the years (mostly used very heavily by previous owners) I can say, the 1/8 sockets were VERY much more f8cked up. MUCH more.
Every connector is good when it is new, but...!!
and as for soldering 1/8 and (lord help me) DIN cables, life is too short. (if you do it for a job, life is too LONG!)
Incidentally havign cables that can pull out has to be a plus, compared  to the alternative (pulling everythign off the rack when you trip on it).
Oh, and it is MUCH easier to get a 'quality' 1/4 jack than a 1/8 jack.

[Narcosynthesis]

i am happy with the 1/4 jacks we use now, 1/8 jakcs just dont seem sturdy enough to me, the power jack on my proco rat is that type and it dosent seem anywhere near as solid as a 1/4

somehting like a 2.1mm power jack may work quite well though, it has a shield and ground, and are small footprint and fairly solid in use

I think it's more likely that they'll  start driving on the 'right' side in the UK, than change those connectors in the music industry.  :-)

Its got something to do with "Pfadabhängigkeiten" (no clue how to translate this to english, I hardly understand it in German :-) ), but it tells us something about why the keyboard has a QWERTY layout and not ABCDEF...

Once some *event* or whatever takes a "Pfad" (engl.: path) throughout the years it tends to stay on that  "Pfad" and it is unlikely that it will change the course ( Abhängigkeit - engl. : dependancy)

Greetings,
Marek

p.s. that's what they teach us here @ Humboldt :-)

keyboard layouts are designed as a more efficient way of typing, ideally the keys you would use most would be in the middg ewhere you want them, with the lesser used ones on the edge, so it takes less effort to type (with the most used keys being central)

QWERTY on the other hand is designed as an inefficient way or typing, origonally on typewriters, if they had the most used keys together, a fast typist could end up jamming the keys, so QWERTY was designed as a semi efficient way of keeping the most used keys separate so they dont jam, they did design a more efficient keyboard (DVORAK if i remember correctly) due to the computer age and the fact a fast typist wont be able to jam keyboard buttons like on a typewriter, unfortunately then QWERTY was te standard so it bever really took off (i would love to get a keybaord like that though, mostly out of amusement, but it would be better to use once you got used to it)

David

[Ge_Whiz]

R.G., please go ahead and make 1/8" jacks the standard. Then in five years' time I shall start selling 1/4" jacks and sockets on e-Bay for their improved reliability, historical grooviness, and general extra mojo.  :lol: