Relay based looper? product suggestion for Brian.

[thorpy6]

Any chance you could offer something like this Brian. essentially it'd be great if you could offer a board that could act as a relay based switching looper for use with momentary switches. The idea i have is the board would be modular so that the builder could add as many as they want into a strip 1-8 etc. There could be a built in buffer on the board that was switchable via toggles or a flat response clean boost to give low volume pedals (vintage chorus/fuzz etc) some oomph after the loop. When the boards are added to the enclosure/strip itd be nice if there was an ability to use the same sort of centre conductor found in good quality guitar cables to hook the boards together in the looper, i.e. a bigger hole in the board for better internal wiring. essentially this would mean that the looper wouldn't add or take anything away form a straight through cable to amp setup becoming almost invisible/ correcting the errors of long cable runs?

I suppose essentially what I'm trying to ask is, can you offer this sort of thing so that as diy enthusiasts we could build our own transparent highly efficient loopers that when disengaged make the effects loops invisible to the amp.

[madbean]

I'm not against the idea, I'll say that. Ideally, it would be nice to have such a thing be portable to single effects, too (relay based switching). I'm not terribly educated on the advantages of using a relay/trigger vs. some kind of PIC control, though. Obviously the former has the advantage of being a lot easier to implement as a project here.

One thing, you kind of lost me here:

When the boards are added to the enclosure/strip itd be nice if there was an ability to use the same sort of centre conductor found in good quality guitar cables to hook the boards together in the looper, i.e. a bigger hole in the board for better internal wiring.

Can you show an example of what you are talking about?

[thorpy6]

One thing, you kind of lost me here:

When the boards are added to the enclosure/strip itd be nice if there was an ability to use the same sort of centre conductor found in good quality guitar cables to hook the boards together in the looper, i.e. a bigger hole in the board for better internal wiring.

Can you show an example of what you are talking about?

Sorry i wasn't too clear, what i meant was this: the wire we build our pedals with (even the good stuff) is thin and of a quality below the same stuff found in guitar cables (which is thicker, OFC high purity  etc etc) so when you daisy chain pedals the wire within the pedals and switches negatively adds to the tone suck on the signal.

It'd be nice to upgrade the wire within a looper so that in bypass the signal goes in from your cable passes through a similar type of wire (id strip a centre conductor from a high quality guitar lead but you could buy this wire I'm sure)  connected to the relay board then to the input and output jacks before going to the amp through the guitar cable. Not sure if any of that would be necessary but it'd be a nice option to have. The reason i mentioned it separately is because a wire of this type would be significantly thicker than the 24AWG wire i usually use and as such would need a bigger solder pad/hole.

[jkokura]

Sorry i wasn't too clear, what i meant was this: the wire we build our pedals with (even the good stuff) is thin and of a quality below the same stuff found in guitar cables (which is thicker, OFC high purity  etc etc) so when you daisy chain pedals the wire within the pedals and switches negatively adds to the tone suck on the signal.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and call this a bit of marketing that you've bought that you didn't need to. Honestly, the amount of wire, the type, or quality, or thickness, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't lead to 'tone suck'. That's a misnomer, and I don't think you need to worry about it at all.

The cable selling companies are making mega bucks off of this idea that there is such a thing as better copper. The copper that's in some wires is quite poor, I'll admit that, but almost none of us are using such a thing. We're all using wire that's just fine for audio applications.

So called "tone suck" is actually a misnomer. What it often describes is a 'darkening' of the guitar's signal, and it's not due to the quality of the cable, but rather the capacitance. Sometimes effects can add to the 'tone suck' effect, and often specific brands get labled as 'tone suckers' like Boss, Digitech, etc. I've had a culprit or two, like the Digitech Whammy. Those pedals get called 'tone suckers' because of their switching systems usually, and not because of their wire.

Anyway, back to the wire thing. Capacitance of cable only matters when you're traveling distance under a high load/impedance. So for instance, if you feed your high impedance guitar through 50 feet of high capacitance cable, you'll get that darkening effect, because the cable then forms a low pass filter, cutting out some of the highs. We have these filters in many of our effects. However, almost all effects apply a buffering situation on our guitar signal, so once you hit an effect, or a buffer, your signal will change from a high impedance to a low impedance signal. Under a low impedance signal, cable length matters much, much less.

In these filters, the capacitance of the wire is what really effects this. If you use a 50 foot high capacitance cable, and a low capacitance cable of the same length, you may hear that the low cap cable retains some of the high end that's lost when using the high cap cable. A reasonable quality cable is the Canare GS-6, and I believe it's rated at 47pF per foot. there's a mogami version that's just a little less I think. Some cable out there boasts as low as 22pF per foot. The super cheap bulk cables you buy from some retailers can be as high as about 75pF per foot.

Inside our pedals, we're almost always using less than 1 foot of wire. If you want to, take out a capacitance meter and measure your wire. I'll bet you it's capacitance is less than you're expecting.

The end result is, rather than worry about the cable inside your pedal, the best thing to do is to have some sort of buffer early on in the chain, and run the right length of cable to that buffer. So basically, the best route is to use a length of cable you like the sound of straight into your amp. I tried 10, 12, 15, 20 and 25 into my amp. I like 12 or 15 best. 10 was too bright. When my cable hits my board, I use a compressor as an always on buffer/evener. At that point, I'd added at most 6" of cable to my 12 or 15 foot cable. After that comp, the quality of wire and cable only matters in a very small way. Nothing is adding to a 'tone suck' in the literal sense.

Moral of the long post is, don't worry about the quality of wire inside a buffered looper. After the buffer, use what's reasonable and cost effective. You don't need to spend extra money or make extra accomodation to the expensive guitar stuff, and I doubt it's even really that much higher quality (if at all) than the wire we use everyday.

Jacob

[wgc]

+1 Don't drink the cable manufacturers kool aid and swallow their marketing hype.  24 or even 30 gauge should be plenty of copper to things efficiently.  The thick metal boxes most of us use offers a lot of shielding too.  There may be a need for some internal isolation in some cases but even then.

[thorpy6]

I wondered whether this was necessary, i suppose i was trying to apply some (albeit limited) knowledge i have of capacitance in cable and just wanted to suggest the 'BEST' options, i.e. a luxury pedal switcher/looper.

I think the relay switching adds masses of value, i say this because although i have great quality cables (lava soar) and patch leads the combined effect is still a low pass filter as you put it. Guitar____> amp is always better for my ears but i love pedals so what do you do?

I love the things brian has offered, the road rage is an amazingly versatile piece of kit and it has been used in lots of my builds for voltage inverting, power doubling etc id see a relay pcb/boost/buffer board as another versatile tone tool.

I just thought a modular relay switching thingymabob with a clean boost option in it to level volume outputs would add something to most players boards that they don't already have. I certainly know that i'd buy some and considering the success of people like voodoo labs, the gigrig etc it seems that many others do to.

[madbean]

Jacob hit most of the marks so I don't have much to add. Personally, I use Bill L's for my cables and I can tell you there is very little or no benefit to running a buffer with them. The loading just isn't there. How much of that is due to "low capacitance cable" versus simply not enough linear cable length across my pedalboard I don't know. It's not a solution looking for a problem in my case.

But, there can be arguments made for at least one good buffer in a looper and maybe in each loop for some people. Options are never a bad thing and a simple op-amp buffer is easy to build, cost-effective and very low part count. Nice thing about it is you can turn a buffer into an awesome (mild) clean boost with one added pot and a switch...that's all there is to it!

[thorpy6]

But, there can be arguments made for at least one good buffer in a looper and maybe in each loop for some people. Options are never a bad thing and a simple op-amp buffer is easy to build, cost-effective and very low part count. Nice thing about it is you can turn a buffer into an awesome (mild) clean boost with one added pot and a switch...that's all there is to it!

SO do you think there could be the opportunity to build a relay based switching buffer with boost? itd be cool to have it like the road rage so that you populate it based on your own personal needs ie if you need the buffer, add the parts, if you need the boost likewise.

Hey maybe you could call it the KOOL AID in honour of me drinking the beverage?

[jkokura]

I wondered whether this was necessary, i suppose i was trying to apply some (albeit limited) knowledge i have of capacitance in cable and just wanted to suggest the 'BEST' options, i.e. a luxury pedal switcher/looper.

You hit the nail on the head - "luxury pedal switcher/looper." The people who need or want to buy these kinds of things are the ones who buy into the marketing stuff.

Relays are simply mechanical switches that generally require voltage to switch their mechanical action. In other words, the only difference between a 3PDT stomp switch and a relay is that you have a plunger you can stomp on with a 3PDT stomp switch, and the relay requires extra circuitry to make it work. Namely, the relay requires some sort of voltage switching circuitry - press one changes voltage from 0 to 5V, throwing the switch, and press two switches the voltage feeding the relay back from 5V to GND, which throws the switch again.

There are ways to use CMOS switches that currently exist to do this. Many of the commercial units (Jack Deville, Cusack, Jack Orman) use a programmed PIC chip. Total cost to purchase is in the range or 10-20 dollars per switching unit.

A typical 3PDT is about $3.

There's one significant benefit to relay based switch, and this is where the value/luxury comes in - you can use a soft touch momentary switch to change the bypass mode. This is of large benefit when quiet switching is of value.

Aside from that sort of situation, relay bypass offers no real benefit over using typical Mechanical switching. If you want to eliminate popping and make the switch quieter, you can buy higher quality switches made by Cliff, or whoever Mammoth Electronics is using for the premium switches.

What I'm trying to say is that if you're going to spend the dollars to actually get a relay based switcher going, you may as well go full bore and get a programmable midi system going using the relays, because it will be just as cost effective and much more useful. A simple looper using 3PDTs is a better way to go than to do simple Relay based switching. (IMHO)

jacob

[thorpy6]

well i can't deny I'm a bit gutted, I've seen lots of these sort of strips lately and thought that the idea of silent switching was a good one. especially if you can boost the output of a loop to match volumes etc.

i saw a mooer one yesterday.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Loop-Guitar-Effects-Pedal-Switcher-Looper-Router-Looping-System-WAVE-X-PXL4-/280879155477

the gigrig do these: http://www.thegigrig.com/acatalog/SWS_QuarterMaster.html

Carl martin do these: http://www.carlmartin.com/product_octaswitch_MK_2.htm

Voodoo labs do this : http://www.voodoolab.com/switcher.htm

I suppose my point is that quite a few companies are selling things like this (gigrig and voodoo labs are closest to my thoughts) so why would they do so if there is literally no need or customer demand/requirement?

I'm not a total sucker as far as gear goes, i know what sounds good and have tried many many things. I still cant get away from the fact that guitar into amp is better than guitar into TB looper (i HAD a road rage 4 channel looper) or guitar through a string of pedals into my amp (Mesa Boogie Mark V) its not just the brightness either, the amp responds differently to the guitar than it does to guitar with pedals between it and the amp- this is probably an impedance thing.

I was hoping that this would be something useful to other people to as i cant be the only one who has this realisation. I also wasn't suggesting that a programmed pic chip was the way to go, relays are fairly easy to get hold of and certainly don't cost 10-$20.

[jkokura]

Ah, see that's something different than a simple looper. I'm sorry if I misunderstood you on what you were going for, but i thought you simply meant a bypass looper, a strip.

Those are programmable units, and they all feature various technologies to get there.

In all of them (except the Carl Martin) the requirement is a brain - some sort of programmed computer chip that acts as an interface. That's where the trick comes in. Either you need that skill to create something for yourself, or you need to buy the chip. I know there's one guy on this forum selling boards with the programmed brain for about $50. Check this thread out and contact Thomas_H: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=8130.0

If you want something customizable, the Pedal Sync stuff is available from Molten Voltage. Basically, you can recreate your own Voodoo Lab Ground Control unit along with the midi programmable relay looper.

All of these are expensive to get off the ground, but the benefit of DIY is that your only limit is your own limitations. If you can figure out how to get what you want, you can do it.

Again, my apologies. I thought you were simply talking about relay based bypass switchers, which is different than a programmable loop switcher.

Jacob

[jkokura]

Edit... the gig rig unit is actually what I was describing. Thing is, it's like $200 for 4 loops... That's expensive. You can do your own unit using the cusack or jack deville switches for about $100 if you buy them. Or you can do the true DIY route - look into this website for more info: http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/relays/relays_for_switching_audio_signa.htm

Jacob

[jkokura]

And this one: http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/cd4053/cd4053.htm

Jacob

[thorpy6]

i dont have the skills at the moment to design a relay switching system and get the boards fabbed etc and although that AMZ true bypass relay board looks good it doest have the optional buffer or optional clean boost/cut volume control i mentioned.

I suppose if its not something anyone would be interested in (and thats the feeling I'm getting) then thats all she wrote.

[jkokura]

i dont have the skills at the moment to design a relay switching system and get the boards fabbed etc and although that AMZ true bypass relay board looks good it doest have the optional buffer or optional clean boost/cut volume control i mentioned.

I suppose if its not something anyone would be interested in (and thats the feeling I'm getting) then thats all she wrote.

You shouldn't get that feeling. It's a good idea, it's just that it needs to be worked out.

The thing is, you don't need to design anything. The pieces are out there. Check out Pedal Sync for two different bypass boards plus programmable chips: http://www.pedalsync.com/chips_index.html

Also, there's a good buffer/splitter board available from Austin at Coldcraft: http://depot.coldcrafteffects.net/blog/?page_id=12

Jacob