next projest the S.A.K. or Swiss Army Knife, comments please

[solderman]

Hi
Have some of you ever got annoyed about how to route your effects on your pedal board? I have. Some times I want to distort the signal coming from a chorus, next time I want to send a distorted signal in to the same chorus. That means re connecting and re routing cables.

To take care of that, this is my next projest the S.A.K. or Swiss Army Knife. The idee is not unike att all. It's a standard routable send return in. I allso intend to insert a switchable line buffer in the front so I can have a non true bypass pedal that keeps the tone or a true by bass if I so desire. All in a 1590A box of cause 

Some one who have done this befor and have "do not jump in the... "experiens or simply other thought on what line buffer circuit to use, shuld I put it on the IN ocr OUT or both?? or what ever, pleas comment.

A schematic picture

Eg.  Green A is sendt on one side the orher green A is return and vise versa with red B then you can flip the routing the other way meaning that IN can shift to be routed to out red  och Green and that the in signal can be sent first to ether the fitsst or secont pair connected to IN on that pedal. This got messy but I hope you can understand it any way





//Solderman

[MarcoMike]

actually a cool idea... one of those boxes I've always desired, but never built because then I think: I'm not that professional... I should just move them...

anyway, I think you should take a look to my one and only FX-X monthly submission, the switch-a-roo!! it can be used as normal looper or as order switcher... even to drive two loops in parallel if I remember correctly... here's the link to the submission page:

Switch-a-roo

the day  I'm building a looper, it's gonna be it!

EDIT: I was wrong about the parallel thing... must have been a different project... but it should fit easilly just by using another switch...

[Andi]

That should be dead easy. Ideally I think you'd want a 4PDT for the order footswitch - you've got to switch both sends and the output.

[MikeH]

Hi
Have some of you ever got annoyed about how to route your effects on your pedal board? I have. Some times I want to distort the signal coming from a chorus, next time I want to send a distorted signal in to the same chorus. That means re connecting and re routing cables.

Yeah, I know what you mean.  I use the juggler from GEO (Has anyone noticed how much I LOVE the juggler?  I won't shut up about it).  2 fx loops that you can change the order of.  Pretty cool.

[iaresee]

You guys who can get this stuff into 1509A's -- you're my heros.

I'm struggling with two LEDs, one 2PDT, two 1/4" jacks and a power jack right now. My fat little fingers just can work the space.

[solderman]

Anybody tried a 4 pole mickro relay??

[MarcoMike]

never heard of...

[solderman]

Hi
I have been thinking a bit on how to solve this. This is the easiest way I have com up with yet. I want to keep it as simple as possible and with as five odd or costly components as possible. So I have rolled out 4 way stomp switches and electrically controlled relays. This is how I thought;

Switch 1A-B is a normal hand controlled double 2 way switch. It switches the line buffer in or out. I have put the line buffer at the front/IN so I can use the box as a line buffer independently from the rest of the switching stuff. I have decided to use the same kind of connection to the external loop as is used on the "insert" on a mixer. That I one stereo jack that is auto switched if not used. And a stereo plug that splits up in two signals, one to each IN on the external boxes in the loop. I have also placed one 100KA pot on each IN connection that are connected at to each other at lug 1-3 this way the IN can be blended between the two external effects.

Switch 2 is a 3PDT connected as a normal true by pass. With the 3rd part of the switch as a LED on/off

Switch 3 is a 3PDT used to switch between the two loop directions. Because all tree parts of the switch is used for the loop I plan to use two millennium by pass to control the two LED on/off functions. The connections for the millennium by pass are marked X1 and X2.

Unfortunately I have realised that a 1590A box is out of the question for this one so I have to use a normal size box.

Comments any one am I missing something???



//Solderman

Ps. Sorry for the sloppy drawing. I wish I could draw schems by hand as well as John Hollis. His schems are easer to read then mine made in Eagel CAD are

[MarcoMike]

the idea is pretty cool... but I can see some problems with it...

first of all it's not very flexible... basically with the footswitch you can just chose from bypass to loop combination, but not loop1/loop2, which is sometimes what you need a line selector for... like changing from distortion to, say, clean+phaser+delay...

second: the 100k pots for blend are arranged in a very niuce way, but:
at certain settings the output may be connected directly or close enough to the input, might be good for "total sonic annihilation" sounds... but also limiting for blending... and...
100k pot wired that way probably won't do much on hi impedence inputs... well, I can't really predict how it's gonna work... just wanted to share my doubts...

[solderman]

the idea is pretty cool... but I can see some problems with it...

first of all it's not very flexible... basically with the footswitch you can just chose from bypass to loop combination, but not loop1/loop2, which is sometimes what you need a line selector for... like changing from distortion to, say, clean+phaser+delay...

second: the 100k pots for blend are arranged in a very niuce way, but:
at certain settings the output may be connected directly or close enough to the input, might be good for "total sonic annihilation" sounds... but also limiting for blending... and...
100k pot wired that way probably won't do much on hi impedence inputs... well, I can't really predict how it's gonna work... just wanted to share my doubts...

Thanks for the feed back. I have discovered that if you only use The fist part it will work as an A-B line switch. If you connect the second TO to the second FROM you will have a SEND-RETURN loop and a by pass . about the pots it might be safest to add a R10K or some thing like that between lug 1 and 3 to avoid direct routing.

About the loop1/loop 2. Good thinking from you.  I'll add another hand controlled switch between the out of 3B-C  to brake the feedback and wire it as un A-B loop shifter.
Rigth now I'll have to get the switching LED:s to work without baying a 4 way switch.


//Solderman