Nifty pedalboard tip

[Mark Hammer]

I had forgotten this one, but was reminded of it this morning on the busride in.  This one is courtesy of one Doug Young of Barberton, Ohio.  Since it dates from autumn 1982, I can't say whether he can still be found there, or even still be found.

The tip concerned Doug's all-MXR pedalboard.  Since the jacks in his 1590B-side-by-side assembly were all in the same place, relative to the chassis and floor, he removed one of the jacks, ran the collet of the corresponding one through the neighbouring chassis and secured it with a nut on the inside.

For example, imagine a Dynacomp going into a Distortion+.  The output jack from the Dynacomp is unsoldered and removed, the input jack from the Dist+ pokes through the hole in the Dynacomp, and is secured from the inside of the Dynacomp box with a nut.  The wire from the switch on the Dynacomp that used to go to the output jack now goes directly to the switch on the Dist+.  Voila!  One secure connection, flawlessly shielded from input to final output with no need for patch cords, their cost or space.

Very clever idea.  I'm not as familiar with chassis thickness on Boss and DOD pedals as I ought to be, but it strikes me that this idea may be generalizable to the Boss/DOD context.  Alternatively, if you make your own pedals with a single standard-sized chassis like a 1590B or BB, you could do the same thing yourself.  Since the jack parameters would be of your own choosing, there is no reason you couldn't use a jack type that permitted this physical coupling of adjacent pedals into one heavy, but secure, pedal assembly.

Thanks, Doug, wherever you are.

[petemoore]

  Raco's could do that, but you'd need to fashion a new bottom unless they make 'double box' bottoms. The holes are already drilled for 2 screws to attach near the bottom, leave the jacks in the 'toe side' mix and match and re-route as necessary, buy some punchout covers, eliminate some of the jacks and plug/cables when you know they'd just stay there, replaced with hardwiring. Use the jacks/plug/cables to figure out the next 'row'.
  I would think that where the lids meet, because there is a small 'ridge' [IIRC] there, they would begin to form a slight curve when bolted flat sides together, not bad as long as it's slight, and the ends of the box-chain were able to be pulled down to the PB.

[vanessa]

Hey Mark, Very cool idea!

I came up with another way you can do it and still be able to unplug them a while ago and forgot to post it to the group:

If they are all the same pedal height (or about) you can solder two old fashioned (screw type) male Switchcraft right angle phone plugs together (using both male ends facing opposite of each other). These give a really tight fit over the more modern straight dual male phone plugs (which usually have a good inch (2.5 cm) between the two plugs).
This takes care of many of the same things the above method does as well (ground, cables), but can be unplugged for easy change out.

Van

[David]

Hey Mark, Very cool idea!

I came up with another way you can do it and still be able to unplug them a while ago and forgot to post it to the group:

If they are all the same pedal height (or about) you can solder two old fashioned (screw type) male Switchcraft right angle phone plugs together (using both male ends facing opposite of each other). These give a really tight fit over the more modern straight dual male phone plugs (which usually have a good inch (2.5 cm) between the two plugs).
This takes care of many of the same things the above method does as well (ground, cables), but can be unplugged for easy change out.

Van

Vanessa:

Sorry to dredge up an old topic, but since I'm in the middle of a pedalboard refit, it caught my interest.  Do you have some pictures of how this is done?  That would be much appreciated.  Thanks!

[Mark Hammer]

Here is another approach.  I imagine you can still get hold of them, though more likely through surplus places than distributors like Mouser et al.  These are the plugs one used to find on things like the old Dan Armstrong effect modules and the original E-H LPB-1, Muff Fuzz, and similar small-box units that had one male plug attached to the chassis (for plugging into the guitar) and one phone jack for plugging an output cable into. 

As you might expect, these result in the box with the plug sticking out being brought into VERY close proximity of whatever they are plugged into.  There is a small bit of the plug on the outside of the chassis to keep it from screwing so far into the chassis that it falls inside, but we are talking about something on the order of less than the thickness of the white plastic washers that come with stompswitches.  So, the portion of the jack's collet that sticks out of the next pedal in line will be roughly the distance separating the two pedals, plus the thickness of the base on the screw-in plug.

The arrangement suggested by Doug Young actually brings the two pedals flush with each other, however one has to modify the boxes enough that they can't be interchanged very easily, nor can they be plugged into anything else in an adhoc fashion.  Vanessa's solution (which I use myself, given that a pair of right-angled plugs can often be purchased for much less than the cost of a prefabricated adaptor) takes up a little more room, adds a little more cost, but provides a little more flexibility. 

Nice to have the options.

[frankclarke]

I could bolt all my Hammond boxes with the jacks at the front together, alternating sizes to keep the jacks apart. I think of Rick Nielson's 7-neck for some reason .

[tranceracer]

WOW an original MUFF FUZZ!  That was my FIRST effect box when I started playing electric back in the 70s!  The guy told my mom at the store that it will be the first of many... I didn't know what he ment.  At the time, I thought why would I need anyting else?  Needless to say 30+ years and 17 stompboxes later that music guy was a prophet!

I don't know what happened to mine, being an army brat, it must have gotten lost / thrown out on one of our moves.

Thanks for sharing the pic, brings back some fond memories! *sniff* *sniff*  (;

-tR

[Mark Hammer]

The picture is courtesy of Disco Freq's site ( http://filters.muziq.be/model/eh/mufffuzz ) and not any personal collection on my part.  Give him the credit.
I used to own one of these:

...but now the refinished box has an AMZ Mosfet booster built into it, the button-type 2N5133 transistors are somewhere else in my parts bin, and the slide switch is also in a parts drawer.
I was never quite that fond of the Muff Fuzz, but I recall one gig my old band played in at a school gym where I had somehow been loaned a pair of them and plugged them in series into a nice SF Super (played a borrowed Rosewood Tele).  The first Double Muff in history?  Maybe.  I do know that it probably took about a week for the searing reverberations in that cinder-block gym to get emptied out of all the closets and lockers in that school.  About 2 weeks to get them out of my head.

[Processaurus]

I missed this the first time around, it's a neat idea, and an easy way to cornish something together, but bolting the chassis together won't work that great with multiples, because the sides aren't vertical.  They have a couple degrees of draft angle on them so they will pop out of the mold.  With their trapazoidal cross section, if you stick the sides of many of them together so they are flush, it will make an arc, and not sit flat on the ground.  To get it to sit flat you'd have to make a wedge or something to shim the 1/8" gap at the top, or just leave the nuts on the connecting jacks loose, maybe use airplane nuts if there is enough thread, so they don't come loose over time. 

[Mark Hammer]

One of the reasons why those offset right-angle plugs are often a godsend.