Interesting Pedalboard Project. Switcher

[hendrix2489]

I was wondering, Yesterday  my friend Brian asked me if something was possible to build, and i was perfectly honest and said i have no idea.  Now his idea is that he hates running up to his board and having to hit two or so pedals to get the sound change and what if there was a pedal switcher that had presets of some sort and turned on two different pedals at once.

He has a wah, 808, blues driver, boost,ad-9 delay,boss flange,dd3 delay.  It would be a switcher kinda like the gilmour/cornish rack pedal controller, but one switch turn on 808 and bd-2 at once, another switch turn on bd-2 and boost, another to turn on boost and dd3, another to turn on his 808 and delay, and so on. 

i personally think that if it was possible it would cost to much or be rediculously hard to build.  It would be an add-on to his pedal board, and he wants me to build it.  I think that the wiring would be out of control but i have no idea. I'd like as much input as possible.

[MartyMart]

Go to gigrig.com and have a look at their system, a mate has just bought one and it's quite incredible
just how many options it gives you.
DIY'able ... probably, but something as nice would be hard to make much cheaper ( £600 )

[R.G.]

You folks ever read GEO? http://www.geofex.com

[Mandrake754]

someone else on the forum posted this a while back. It'll do what you want, and is easily expandable, and pretty darn easy to make:

[QSQCaito]

For some reason I don't understand that schematic Your effects are supposed to be in the LOAD box, right?

With the program, you select which pedals to activate when you press the 1 2 3 4 buttons I believe.

The only thing I could dislike is that it seems to me that pedals are ran in parallel. Anyway, that would be an easy fix i guess. Instead of having the program switches, you leave it fixed in the order you like the most. But you would need fixed positions and leave it that way.


Bye bye


DAC

PS As for the one who posted that, don't precisely know, but the author, at least of that drawing is Soul Sonic.

[oldrocker]

Go to Geofex and read how to set this up.  It's actually pretty easy.  R.G. has a nice article about changing the order of the pedals too.

[makenxero]

Care to post a link to the article in question?

[Dean Hazelwanter]

what if there was a pedal switcher that had presets of some sort and turned on two different pedals at once.

Like this? 
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=56264.0

Here's another (DIY) option:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=65&Itemid=26

[MartyMart]

what if there was a pedal switcher that had presets of some sort and turned on two different pedals at once.

Like this? 
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=56264.0

Here's another (DIY) option:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=65&Itemid=26

That's a beautiful build Dean ... I'm blown away, very PRO indeed !!
I wasn't meaning to be "anti DIY" with my "thegigrig" recommendation, it's just a gorgeous system for the money and
not something that I would have the time to develop or build.
It's an "allways on" solution with infinate switching possibilities and buffered with high quality volume boosts available
on every switch.
Not bad for a 10 way system at the price either.
MM.

[Dean Hazelwanter]

That's a beautiful build Dean ... I'm blown away, very PRO indeed !!

Thanks Marty, much appreciated! There is something to be said about the non-DIY approach in some cases, like maybe this one. I spent a lot of time on this project. Of course you don't need to go to the lengths that I did - as RG said, there are a bunch of much more reasonable ideas (depending on your needs) on GEO.

Also, don't discount the SSS at GGG, it's quite useful and scalable.

[soulsonic]

Yes QSC, that is my Quad Switcher circuit. It appears to be programmable in much the same manner (banks of DIP switches) as the one Dean has on GGG. My switcher circuit is a very simple way of using a basic logic system to choose between four different patches. The Q outputs of the the quad latch turn on the different MOSFET gates, which in turn, can then be used to switch on relays or something else. That's what the "LOAD" symbol represents; a relay, or opto switcher, or whatever else you'd want to have turn on. The relays can then be used for switching the various effects in and out - you could easily have them switch amp channels too. The switcher can be expanded to include more "presets" or more "possibilities" pretty easily. If anyone here wants something more specific for a given setup, just let me know and I can whip up the design.

[R.G.]

Yep. The quad switcher is a four-way version of what I originally did as an eight way. I'll go see if I can find the thing in the boxes and take a picture or two.

I used the 74C373 one-of-eight selector from GEO, which does the same job logically as the logic on the quad switcher's four bit latch, selecting one output to be on and resetting all the rest. I then ran each output into an eight-position dip switch. The dip switch set up which of eight effects would be set on by each stomp switch.

It works fine, got some stage use. It was retired because the guy who was using it got tired of diddling with dip switches. He's a player, not a programmer 

The next generation includes on-the-fly programming and is more complicated internally but simpler externally.

I'll see if I can take some pictures and post.