Help me figure this switching out....

[irmcdermott]

OK, so I'll admit I haven't done much searching, but today has been a little crazy, my brain is a little fried, so I figured I'd ask you guys....

Had someone ask me if it would be possible to put two effects in one box (in this case, a boost, and a comp). He asked if it would be possible to have two footswitches and a toggle. Essentially, the idea he has is that one side of the toggle allows for independent switching of the effects via the footswitches, and then when you flip the toggle, one footswitch essentially turns them both on. Not sure if that makes sense, but that's the basic idea.

Thoughts?

[jkokura]

What he could do is have 3 footswitches - Effect one, Effect two, and Master.

When he wants both on and off he uses the master while effect one and two are both on. When he wants one or the other, he leaves the master on and just switches the two effects in and out as needed.

Jacob

[RobA]

I'm not so clear headed myself right now, but I think you can do this with a 3PDT toggle. I don't have a quick way to get a diagram up, but hopefully this will make sense. I'll describe the connections to the rows and columns of the 3PDT

Top Row:  S2 input    |   out to eff from S2   |   out of PCB 1
Middle   :  Input jack  |  input of PCB 1         |  input of PCB 2
Bottom  : S1 input     |  out to eff from S1    |  out to eff from S2

S1 = Stomp One, S2 = Stomp Two
PCB 1 has to have its output wired to both the effect in of S1 and the connection point on the 3PDT.

This was quick, so I could easily have something wrong, but I think it's close at least.

Edit: You would also have to have the input to S2 connected to both the output of S1 and the point on the master toggle described above. If effect 1 output noise even with the input to the PCB grounded, that would be bad and make the method useless.

[rumbletone]

would this work?

[mgwhit]

This is something I was thinking about all Summer.  I sketched out a few diagrams (which I now can't find  ) that used standard footswitches and toggles, but I was never 100% happy with them.  My current thinking is that if you use the Voodoo Labs-style optocoupler true bypass, this becomes much, much simpler.  I haven't drawn a schematic yet, but I'm pretty sure you can do exactly what you need (including LEDs and input grounding) with two 2PDT footswitches and a 2PDT toggle.

(I might be wrong about the 2PDT toggle -- I'll see if I have time to figure it out today.)

[midwayfair]

This needs a microcontroller, unless he's okay with only one footswitch doing the "both on" and the other being a dud.

This is the least brain-bendy way I can think of to do it:

Use a 2PDT for the toggle, and a 4PDT for footswitch #1 -- that's the one that's going to do "both." Footswitch #2 is going to be a DPDT. You'll need two optotrons -- don't solder them directly to the switches.

The 2PDT toggle simple migrates the optotron connections from footswitch #2 to footswitch #1. Footswitch #2 does nothing when the toggle is thrown.

Slightly more clever:
Technically, in the "both" mode, you don't need to fully bypass both effects, so there's probably some way to simply switch them in series and disconnect/optoblock only the input of effect 1 and the output of effect 2. In that case, you might have some more flexibility and may be able to use only 3PDTs. You still need just as many poles, but you can use 3PDT footswitches and a 3PDT toggle.

I really don't feel like drawing it out, because figuring out switching schemes makes me violent and ruins my whole day, but essentially you're using the toggle to move the output of effect 2 to be switched by the third pole on a 3PDT (Footswitch 1). Pole 2 of the toggle simply moves the effect 1 output connection from the footswitch to the input of effect 2. You need Pole 3 of the toggle to disconnect the input jack connection from the footswitch 2.

Footswitch 2 is still a dud in this case.

Jacob's method is still the cleanest way of doing this without using a microcontroller or active elements, though.

[RobA]

If you are willing to use a 4PDT toggle, then it's easy to fix the last thing I had in my edit.

If you are willing to go to using an MCU, then you can do it easily. If you wanted, you could even do it with one footswitch and a toggle or even just one footswitch if you didn't mind doing a tap dance on the footswitch to get which one you wanted.

If you have space on the pedal, I agree that Jacob's way is the most sensible.

[m-Kresol]

would this work?

it took me some time to think the signals path through, but this is pretty genius. I'm really impressed. The only flaw is the following: when the toggle is up and the 4PDT is the "universal" switch, the 3PDT has to be in the on-position. Otherwise, you'll ground the signal right there

[rumbletone]

would this work?

it took me some time to think the signals path through, but this is pretty genius. I'm really impressed. The only flaw is the following: when the toggle is up and the 4PDT is the "universal" switch, the 3PDT has to be in the on-position. Otherwise, you'll ground the signal right there

You're right - good catch! What if the toggle dpdt was a 3pdt and the third pole disconnects the fx1 groundout on the 3pdt footswitch when in 'universal mode', and add a connection to ground from the toggle 3pdt to the 4pdt (i.e., and input to fx1 goes to ground, together with input to fx2, only when the 4pdt is bypassed AND the toggle is in the 'universal mode')?

Can't draw it out right now but will try later.... there's got to be a way to make it work!!

[irmcdermott]

You guys are great. I need to dig more into this this evening when I get home from work.

[rumbletone]

Did you get a chance to try it? Now I'm thinking this would be a good switching setup for my trem/spring reverb combo pedal...