Re: jack(s)-in-a-box

Post by **mynameisjonas** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 3:34 pm

i don´t know if this question belongs here, but since it involves pedals i might as well post it here..
so.. i built this little box with four jacks in it (all connected to eachother) with the intention of using it to split the signal from the guitar into three. but whn it was finished i started thinking, what would happen if i connected both the in and out signal of a pedal to it? so i did, and it works like a feedback loop. lots of fun.
my question is:
would it be damaging to connect the guitar to this circuit? since every signal going in through one of the jacks goes out the other three, i´m wondering if the feedback signal from the pedal might harm the pickups or something...

burker · Post by **burker** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 7:10 pm

I wouldnt think that a guitars signal has enough power to damage the pickups or anything.... then again I dont know much at all about electroncs.......

Nice big muff by the way, I gotta get one of those grreen ones, Ive heard good things about em....

aen · Post by **aen** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 8:38 pm

I'm pretty sure effector 13 owuld charge you like $500 dollars for that pedal you made, so no, I don't think anything bad will happen.

Post by **mynameisjonas** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 2:32 am

i guess if you feed current into guitar pickups, they work as electro-magnets

i´m still a bit reluctant to try it... wouldn´t want to fry the pickups, if there was a possibility of that happening.
anyway, here´s how i connected the jacks

burker wrote: Nice big muff by the way, I gotta get one of those grreen ones, Ive heard good things about em....

yeah they are pretty good. crappy bypass though.

pullover · Post by **pullover** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 5:08 am

I don't think it would hurt anything. If you are worried about it though, plug a cable in the empty outlet and then hook your multi meter up to the cable with everything on and see what the current is.

evoluzione · Post by **evoluzione** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 5:57 am

There is no risk of you frying the pickups.
Nothing, not a thing, no risk, no problems.
The voltages are soooooo minimal.

Again, no risk

Post by **mynameisjonas** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 6:17 am

allrighty then. i guess i´ll give it a try

Post by **mynameisjonas** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 4:14 am

i tried it... it was very cool. i found myself playing melodies with the guitar´s volume control, and changing octave with the pickup selector (middle position for octave up). with some settings on big murph i got a 2 octave down synth sound (but only on the bridge pickup!) while playing, and an insane kidney-squashing sub note when not playing, and when i lowered the volume on the guitar i got a great velcro-fuzz. i haven´t tried hooking up my fuzzfactory yet, but i imagine i will be able to get even more insane results with it. i wonder what kind of weirdness a phaser would produce...

Post by **mezcalhead** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:15 pm

That sounds like a lot of fun for the price of a box, four jacks and a bit of wire!

aen · Post by **aen** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:47 pm

If you have a wah pedal you can do similar things by plugging the guita into the output and the output into everything else. That's a david gilmour trick.

Stereordinary · Post by **Stereordinary** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 8:45 pm

Congatulations Jonas! You made yerself a DIY Death By Audio Total Sonic Annihilation!

http://www.killerrockandroll.com/deathb ... ation.html

I only say it's a DBA pedal/design because he was the first one to produce that design as a production pedal. People have been doing that sort of thing with mixers for years, but Oliver Ackermann at Death By Audio made it a compact pedal before anyone else did. When you buy one of his TSAs you're paying for the innovation of it, because it's way easy to build one yourself.

That's seriously cool, what you've done, by the way!

Post by **mezcalhead** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 3:04 am

aen wrote: If you have a wah pedal you can do similar things by plugging the guita into the output and the output into everything else.

That seems like it would sound very cool, and I'll have to try it later .. but I don't see where the loop comes in?

Superfuzz · Post by **Superfuzz** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 3:49 am

uhm
That's great now i know how to use that..

This Ring Modulator design is very old and unique.
It requires no external power.
Parts needed:
Two (2) Stancor A-4713 driver transformer
Four (4) diodes GE45A or equivalent
Three (3) suitable jacks
One (1) mounting box

I want to send the signal of the feedback loop in one of its input and in the other input the guitar signal will go straight...with a footswitch the feedback loop will be a normal permanent loop, so i can use my pedals normally and the ring mod will be disactivated..

Post by **mezcalhead** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 4:44 am

I just realized something .. you don't need a box, or jacks, or even soldering, to make this feedback loop. Here's the same circuit done with just two pieces of wire stripped at each end and wrapped around the guitar/amp/patch leads:

I got the same result as Jonas using a Muff clone .. a pure tone varying in pitch with adjustment of the tone or gain pots. Playing guitar just caused the note to tremble and fuzz a little. The phaser was disappointing - it did nothing except emit a quiet tone on one of the stereo outs and no sound at all on the other. Tremolo, however, is really cool .. I expected nothing or maybe a tremoloed pure tone .. I got two alternating notes, one varying in pitch as I adjusted the depth knob .. and with a sine rather than a square trem, the pitch varied as it came in so it sounded like it was "wah"-ing or bubbling like some crazy analog synth .. Jonas, if you have a trem, try it!

I'm going to try two or more effects in the feedback loop this afternoon .. should be interesting.

Superfuzz · Post by **Superfuzz** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 6:48 am

Ok, this is the alpha version of my idea:

The 2PDT footswitch (blue) turns the FX loop in a feedback loop and disconnect the guitar input from that. The signal of the feedback loop goes to one input of the ring modulator and acts like a sort of "carrier signal". The guitar signal goes to the other input and interacts with the feedback loop as in a normal ring modulator.
The other switch (red) turns the standard "Jonas' mod" with fx feedback and guitar all wired togheter and ring moduation off.

I've never studyed electronic so I've probabily made something that doesn't work... some suggestions and corrections , so, will be very useful and helpful..

The other question is if I could use one of the transformers listed here:
http://www.musikding.de/index.php?cPath ... 0f2afcf595
And one of the diodes listed here:
http://www.musikding.de/index.php?cPath ... 0f2afcf595
Instead of the parts listed in the original project that are quite unfindable.

Thanks!