Positive ground pedals on the same board as neg ground

[gutsofgold]

Assuming you are grounding the chassis, the PNP pedal's enclosure is sitting at +9V while the NPN/Neg ground pedals have their enclosure sitting at GND or 0V.

If you are using a non-isolated multioutput power supply, you are essentially shorting your positive supply with your ground thus potentially killing your supply. I get that.

Now, let's say you are using two separate power supplies one for the PNP Posi ground pedals and one for the normal Neg ground pedals. None of the pedals have isolated input or output jacks. Wouldn't the patch cables that are carrying both your signal and your "ground" essentially be carrying both +9VDC and 0VDC Because you have enclosures that are not isolate from the in/out jacks... right? Am I missing something there or can you use separate supplies and still "ground" to your enclosure whether it be a +9VDC ground or 0VDC ground  and still be ok?

[jacobyjd]

Haha

I think the difference here (someone please slap me if I'm wrong) is that we're talking DC power. When properly decoupled, your patch cables don't see any DC power.

[earthtonesaudio]

The problem I have with the commonly used term "positive ground" is that it implies that ground is something other than zero volts, which it isn't.

A typical PNP pedal has zero volts for ground and Negative 9V for its supply.  Ground connections are typically made through cable shields.  If you hook it up wrong, the cable shield is sufficiently low resistance that your power supply will die a quick and painful death.

If you hook it up with separate power supplies, consider them as batteries.  If you hook the (-) terminal to ground, the other is +9, but if you hook the (+) terminal to ground, the other is -9.

[R.G.]

The problem I have with the commonly used term "positive ground" is that it implies that ground is something other than zero volts, which it isn't.

Isn't semantics a funny game?

If you insert the word "side" between either positive or negative in the terms "positive ground" and "negative ground", you get what's actually meant, and get it very clearly: "positive side ground" and "negative side ground" which is unambiguously how the power supplies are hooked up.