The Simplest Pedal EVER!!

[MikeH]

years ago i released a pedal called the "Earth Saver Boost" which consisted of one component (excluding jacks and the switch).  a transformer.  it had no batteries, no pots, and was sealed shut with epoxy.  it boosted the signal about 3 times... the auto-transformer was a custom model that filled about 1/2 of the enclosure.

i sold 3 of them.  8^)

I'm sure they'll be worth a mint someday.

[puretube]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=19937.msg122248#msg122248

[JimRayden]

years ago i released a pedal called the "Earth Saver Boost" which consisted of one component (excluding jacks and the switch).  a transformer.  it had no batteries, no pots, and was sealed shut with epoxy.  it boosted the signal about 3 times... the auto-transformer was a custom model that filled about 1/2 of the enclosure.

i sold 3 of them.  8^)

I've been thinking of that method also but haven't really got my hands on this project. Do you know any current production transformers that would yield a satisfactory freq. response?

-----------
Jimbo

[KerryF]

Thanks.  I tried it, and it didnt work...  I decided to not do that, and put a different circuit in the guitar.

you need to use low voltage schottky diodes, regular diodes wont do much unless you have pickups with insane output and you hit the strings pretty hard.

...They were low voltage schottkys...  Dont know what happened but i have a better idea anyway.

[shoegazed]

i like the idea of the "placebo pedal"...

two jacks wired together, a knob and a switch not wired to anything.

"sounds best when the knob is at 1 o'clock"...

[JimRayden]

I think it ran by the mojo thread but here it goes.

A 3PDT switch which switches between 1cm of copper wire and 1cm of silver wire. Call it a Purifier pedal, one of the pedals from Mojo series.

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Jimbo

[zachary vex]

I've been thinking of that method also but haven't really got my hands on this project. Do you know any current production transformers that would yield a satisfactory freq. response?

-----------
Jimbo

even my custom transformers didn't yield a satisfactory frequency response unless driven by another pedal.  by putting them after a non-true-bypass (buffered) pedal, they sounded quite sweet, but driven by the guitar's pickup alone, they sounded pretty dull.  the low end was fine, but the high-frequency content would literally disappear.  think about it... you take a guitar pickup with impedance near 250k or 500k at high frequencies and put it into a transformer... now the output of the transformer is up in the several megohm range and is being loaded horribly by the 1M input impedance of the amplifier!

[birt]

I think it ran by the mojo thread but here it goes.

A 3PDT switch which switches between 1cm of copper wire and 1cm of silver wire. Call it a Purifier pedal, one of the pedals from Mojo series.

---------
Jimbo

you need gold plated jacks, a led and a wooden knob!