Effects Bay

Things are hectic around here. My son is having his 11th birthday party and scrambling to get things all dialed in. Time sure flies. Pretty crazy. In the midst of the craziness, I came across this interesting video of a person playing a Fender ’66 Reissue Jaguar into a Zvex Lo-Fi Loop Junky and playing a lead on top of that with a ZVex Fuzz Factory and using a Ebow. I thought it was pretty cool. It fit my mood today perfectly.

This video was posted by PanaceaTheCure:

Enjoy!

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As I’ve mentioned in the past, I really do enjoy meeting new people through this blog. I get excited when people are making things happen and pursuing their dreams – be it as a musician or as a builder. I came across New Signal Process, and these guys are definitely putting something together that got me excited. It’s a pedal they’re calling the BreakOut Stomp.

At first glance it almost appears to be a simple true bypass single loop pedal, but after looking a little closer, I was pretty excited. It is a loop pedal, but what it loops in is a iPad or iPod for effecting your guitar signal. So now you can use some of the emulators and apps that alter signal run IN your chain and is foot switchable! This is pretty cool. You can safely locate your iPad/iPod away from the pedals though with a long 12′ cable.

The options for this are quite amazing. If you’re already into iPad/iPods this could be quite cool to include some great effects. The BreakOut Stomp also has a Level Knob to adjust the output signal from the app.

Here is a video showing the BreakOut Stomp in action. The distortion/delay effect is coming from the iPod (designed by Signal and Stuff). If you like fire.. you’ll like this vid:

The BreakOut Stomp is available for $155 (includes cable) directly from their store.

I sent some questions to Seth at New Signal Process about the BreakOut Stomp and this is what he had to say:

- What inspired you to create the BreakOut Stomp?
The BreakOut Stomp was inspired by numerous requests by guitarists since day one. It integrates seamlessly into your pedal board and comes with a custom hand made, 12 foot, pro audio detachable cable so that you can place your iPad safely on your amp, a table, or a keyboard stand near you to interact with while you perform. It is built with audiophile grade components for the warmest possible sound and, housed in a rugged die cast aluminum case, it is designed to last on stage and on tour through many generations of iPads and iPhones.

- Can you describe the basic process of how to use the BreakOut?
Super simple. First there is you. Take your breakout and connect our 1/8″ TRRS cable to both your iPad headphone jack and then to the BreakOut pedal. Then plug into and out of the stomp just like any of your favorite fuzz pedals. Then just launch any of your favorite apps and then your off! Turn your iPhone into a new moog pedal!

- Do you need a special cable from the iPad/iPod to the BreakOut?
Yes. All of our BreakOuts ship with a special, handmade 1/8″ to 1/8″ TRRS cable made from Mogami cable. The Stomp ships with a 12′ cable.

- What app(s) work well with the BreakOut?
Here’s a short list of some of our favorite sounding and most creative apps:
Moog Filtatron! (perhaps the best sounding audio play-through quality of the apps so far!)
RjDj (this is insane psychedelic reality toy! can make and design your own effect scenes)
Glee Singers wanted (amazing harmonizer and voice pitch shifter)
Sampletoy
VoiceBand
PASY02 (amazing japanese grid stretch snap synth?!?!?)
Distort and Delay (awesome distortion, 8 bit, and delay!)
Funk BOX!
Sonic Vox
SrutiBox

Honorable Mention: Magic Piano ( so much fun and the duet function is mind blowing! )

- Is the BreakOut True Bypass?
Yes!

- Is there any latency when switching to the app’s interface?
This is a little different from app to app. With the pedal no, but depending on the program there can be just a little. Just like any effects pedal, it is best to experiment with each app and figure out its quirks and ins and outs and then figure out how to best use that. Sometimes, the way that the apps “don’t work” ends up being the best part of the sound. The app voice band for example – it is made to turn your voice into an instrument, like a flute or a saxophone. When you set it to saxophone on the guitar, sometimes it can’t track the notes correctly and it does these crazy arpeggiated runs. Sounds like a crazy Coltrane solo or something. Here is a link to us turning the Willow Smith song Whip my Hair into a free jazz jam by running the song through VoiceBand: http://www.newsignalprocess.com/site/2011/01/nsp-broken-mix-1/

- How long have you been building/selling the BreakOut?
We have been making and selling these for about 1 year.

- Where are you located?
For our first year we were based totally out of Portland, Or, although recently some of us have moved to Tucson, AZ. So we are operating out of Portland and Tucson now, though the pedals are all still being made in Portland.

- Where and How can I buy one?
We are in some stores in Japan and internationally, but in the states the best way is still to buy them through our online store here: http://newsignalprocess.bigcartel.com/

- How much is the BreakOut?
The BreakOut Stomp sells for $155 and comes with a 12 foot, TRRS mogami cable.

- Are you working on any other products that musician’s will be interested in?
Right now we have been spending our time experimenting and redesigning old fuzz pedals, and are working on developing a blown-speaker sounding Shin Ei FY-2 clone.

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Last week I had a request to build a tap tempo switch for a friend. He has a Boss RC-3 Loop Station and needed some external control that could be managed via the tap tempo switch. Figured it would be a quick and fun project and I just happened to have a small enclosure laying around. The only thing I needed to order was the momentary footswitch.

The concept is pretty simple. You basically wire tip to ring on the mono jack.. and that’s it. You could go a little fancier with a LED etc. Also apparently you can go with a stereo jack and use a TRS cable for additional control. Here is a shot of the finished tap tempo box:

When my friend came over he brought his Boss RC-3 Loop Station to test the tap tempo switch, I was blown away by this pedal. I’ve played with loopers in the past. They’re definitely useful, but really fall short for me. I guess I should clarify why/how I use a loop pedal first. I don’t really think of using them in performance.. well.. not now at least, but the reason why I get excited about loopers is for writing. I think it’s an incredible tool for writing parts or leads to songs and is super easy to get going vs. playing with a recording, etc. For a while now I’ve been using my Line 6 DL 4 to loop parts, but the downside is when the pedal is powered off, you lose the loop, so I would have to record the loop idea to wav via my Tascam so I don’t forget it. This is where the RC-3 Loop Station takes it to the next level. You can record up to 3 hours on it! You can have up to 99 memory slots (vs. the single loop with the Line 6). There are some handy drum loops and tempo adjustments there too, so to hear the idea sped up is not a problem at all. The other cool thing, there is a USB jack on the back where you can pull your loops or upload files to the pedal.

After checking this guy out, I pulled the trigger and it’s on the way as I write this post. You can pick up the Boss RC-3 Loop Station for $198.00 at Amazon.com.

If you’re interested in a tap tempo switch shown above, shoot me a email.

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I came across this pretty great video (posted by dreamsinpolaroid) of Zach Schimpf using a Electro-Harmonix Memory Man w/Hazarai. He’s looping his guitar and playing some tasty lines on top of it. He also lays down some vocals that compliment the atmosphere very nicely. I first saw this about a week ago, and have had that melody bouncing around in my brain for a few days, thought I’d repost!

For those of you not familiar with the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man w/Hazarai, here is the official description of that pedal:

Electro-Harmonix’ Stereo Memory Man Delay pedal is a multi-tap delay, it’s an echo, it’s a reverse echo, it’s a performance looper with tap tempo, and it’s programmable… it’s got all the Hazarai! Designed for the performing musician, the new Stereo Memory Man pedal is destined to be one of the most creative instruments on your pedalboard.

The Hazarai knob is a rotary encoder that allows the user to scroll through the 8 different Hazarai modes. The following is a list of the Hazarai modes that the Hazarai knob scrolls through:

3 Sec Echo
1 Sec Echo
300 mS Echo w/ Modulation
3 Sec Multi-Tap Echo
1 Sec Multi-Tap Echo
1 Sec Multi-Tap Echo w/ Reverse
3 Sec Reverse Echo
Loop

The Hazarai knob is also a push button. Push and release the Hazarai knob to load your preset for the presently selected mode. Push and hold to save your preset into the presently selected Hazarai mode.

Electro-Harmonix XO Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai Delay Guitar Effects Pedal Features:

* Controls: Blend, Decay, Filter, Repeats, Delay, Hazarai
* Mono/L ad R 1/4″ input, Mono/L and R 1/4″ outputs
* Bypass Footswitch with LED indicator
* Tap/Record Footswitch.
* DC power input for battery replacement
* 24DC-100 power supply included

You can pick up the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man w/Hazarai for $217.50 at Musician’s Friend.

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Today, I came across the BigShot MIX by Radial Engineering. I remember seeing this on at least one board for Pedal Line Friday in the past. It’s a smart buffered loop pedal.  Basically, you send a signal to the effects chain and have a return from it, but what separates it from standard loop pedals is that there is a ‘mix’ control where you can blend the effected signal with your straight signal. This can help with pedal noise and the preservation of your original signal/tone.

Here is the official description:

At last, a device that allows you to mix the direct sound of an instrument with effects the same way that a professional mixing console lets you add reverb to a dry vocal. The BigShot MIX is designed for the more demanding guitar or bass player that wants to introduce cool effects pedals to the signal path without the noise and artifacts usually caused by their ‘less than ideal’ circuitry and cheap buffers.

The Radial MIX pedal begins with 100% discreet, pure class-A circuitry to ensure the natural tone of the instrument is maintained. On the connector panel, a simple effects loop with send and return 1/4″ jacks make connecting easy. A recessed MIX control lets you adjust and set the exact balance between your dry sound and the effect. Best of all, the natural tone of the instrument is maintained.

Like all Radial pedals, the MIX is made road tough with 14 gauge steel construction, double-sided PC board and a heavy duty footswitch.

BigShot MIX Development
Necessity is and always will be the mother of invention! It’s actually quite funny and really frustrating… Guitarists listen to the tone of their guitars, and then connect through a pedal only to immediately notice that the tone has changed. It turns out that the offending pedal is in fact inadequately buffered and therefore quickly discarded. So the search begins to find a substitute. After a futile attempt, the guitarist goes back to the cemetery and digs out that old pedal, forcing himself to use it… even though it compromises his tone.

Because of this story and countless similar ones, all buffers get a bad rap and all true-bypass pedals tend to shine even though the vast majority are so poorly designed that they cause tremendous BANGS each and every time they are engaged.

Truth is — like everything — there are good widgets and many more less than good ones. So what has this got to do with the BigShot MIX?

The BigShot MIX actually solves the problem by allowing you to send your direct signal to your amp and mix in the desired amount of effect from your pedal. This way, the main guitar signal does not go through the pedal, only through the BigShot MIX. But here’s the kicker: The only way you can take two signals and mix them together is by creating a mixer and a mixer is in fact, made up of buffers. And Radial makes great sounding buffers!

The MIX pedal employs the same buffering circuit that is used in the Radial JD7 Injector that is used by artists as diverse as Buddy Guy, Nickelback, Tool and Billy Idol. As a unity gain buffer, whatever signal goes in will come out at the same level.

For guitarists, less than ideal effects pedals that can completely ruin your tone can now be mixed in, while the natural tone of the guitar in all its glory connects to the amp. For bassists, the natural low end that is often ruined when pedals are introduced is now restored and the effects can be mixed in to add color without taking away the fundamental.

With the MIX in your system, noisy tone robbing pedals can now be used without loosing your natural tone.

Right out of the box, the MIX an very easy guitar pedal to use!

* Note – always turn your amp down before making connections.

Connect a standard 9-volt Boss compatible power supply to the MIX to turn it on. Connect your guitar to the MIX’s input jack and your amp input to the MIX’s output jack. Now patch in those great sounding yet highly offensive (noise wise) effects pedals into the MIX by connecting them to the MIX’s ‘SEND’ jack and back in through the MIX’s ‘RETURN’ jack.

Turn the volume on your guitar up just a little bit to test. When the MIX’s LED is off, you should hear the guitar going straight through to the amp. When the MIX’s footswitch and LED are on, the signal is now routed to the connected pedal or effects and mixed in to your dry signal by adjusting the MIX’s ‘LEVEL’ control.

As many effects devices reverse the polarity (phase) when engaged, the MIX is equipped with a 180° polarity reverse switch. This lets you mix in your dry and wet signals ‘in phase’ (so they don’t cancel each other out). To use, just flip it in and out and listen.

For best results, begin by adjusting your effects pedal for 100% wet (effect full on) and set the MIX to 12 o’clock using a guitar pick as a screw driver. Then mess around till it sounds right to your ears. What could be easier?

I found this older video by premiereguitar where they interview Radial Engineering at NAMM:

The Radial BigShot MIX Effects Loop Mixer is available at Amazon for $114.95.

Remember, if you like reading about these pedals and seeing videos reviews from others, please subscribe to the RSS feed and get notified via email when there are new postings!

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Today, I saw mention of the Carl Martin Octa-switch Guitar Effects Switching System. I like switching systems, so I wanted to take a closer look. About a year ago, I created a true-bypass loop strip, but I’m starting to run into problems with how I want the loops and the ability to combine loops. I’ve looked at a few systems, but I’m always irritated by the complexity of the systems. I just want something simple (not programmable, etc).

Carl Martin Octa-switch Guitar Effects Switching System is something that is fitting my requirements. Here was have 8 switches. You can plug in 8 sets of true bypass loops (basically what I have but 8 vs 5). Where it gets cool… the DIP switches. Brilliant. Each footswitch has a DIP switch which you can select combination of loops. So switch 1 you can turn on loop 1, 4 and 5, etc. LEDs will light up accordingly showing what loops are activated.

The switch also has optional input buffer, and has has stereo out.

Here is the official description by Carl Martin:

The concept of the Carl Martin Octa-Switch Guitar Effects Switching System is simple: take your 8 favorite effects pedals, plug them into the 8 individual loops (all true-bypass gold relays) on the Octa-Switch, and then designate what effects you want connected to each of 8 banks via the world’s simplest and smallest DIP switches (located over the top of each of the 8 bank switches).

When Carl Martin decided to create a baby brother for his world famous Combinator, the details of simplifying an already simple effect controller made his head hurt. So Carl enlisted the help of Thomas Guldmann, and the Octa-Switch Switching System was born.

Thomas chose DIP switches because they are just 8 individual on-off switches in a tiny package. So if your guitar effects are plugged into Loops 1-8, you simply turn the DIP switch on for each of the effects you want in Bank 1, and then Bank 2 etc up to Bank 8. You can use one or all of the effects in each bank, and once you have designated a bank, do us both a favor and cover the DIP with a bit of tape to ensure nothing happens to the DIP switch when you are not looking… like an errant hand, or a flood of beer.

The Octa-Switch has a blue LED for every effects loop used and for each bank (so once you are programmed, when you step on Bank 6 you will see the lights of all the effects you have assigned to Bank 6 and the Bank 6 LED).

The Carl Martin Octa switch is mono-in and mono/stereo out, with a choice of a buffered signal or not. The effects unit is powered by dual 9v batteries, or a regulated power supply like the Carl Martin Big John Power Supply, and is housed in an all metal case with heart-stopping (ok, well almost) graphics. So, the same basic options found in the digitally controlled units the famous guys are using, at a fraction of the cost.

Please note, the DIP switches are slide type, NOT push down. They are easily operated with a small screwdriver, a pen, or a very small finger. On large stages when running long connected cables, there is a definite drop in the high end of your guitar sound (more or less depending on the input impedance of your amplifier). The solution according to Thomas was once again simple. He built in a buffer circuit at the input, so you can choose between 100% true bypass, or buffered bypass to beef up your signal

I found this video by DemoColorScheme:

You can pick up the Carl Martin Octa-switch Guitar Effects Switching System for $377.30 at Musician’s Friend.

I might have to save up some scratch and pick this up for myself!!!

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Over the weekend I found myself working on a fun project. I’ve been slowly chipping away on my pedal board and one item I wanted to introduce was a bypass loop strip.  I wanted this for several reasons.

- To isolate my pedals and remove them from the signal chain while not being used
- Create chained effects and activate those effects with one switch
- Create a loop for my delay

Now, I already use a Boss LS-2 for my primary lead loop which consists of Holy Fire Overdrive and Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer, but I really wanted a loop for my Line 6 DL 4. I’ve been working on a few songs where I want to turn the delay on and off, but I loose my tempo when I do so, with this in a loop I can maintain the tempo I set throughout the song and pull it in or out.

There are lots of loop strips out there, but I wanted to see if I could build one. It was somewhat challenging to understand how the 3PDT switches work in relationship to the signal paths, and there is a lot of soldering involved, but overall, it was a easy project.

For those of you that might be interested, I documented my steps, and I’ll supply my part list for building the 5 loop strip. First though, I have to thank SingleCoil.com for writing a great article on this very subject. I used their diagram for this project and is a great resource to understand how this all works. Please check out their website. I’d also like Matt from Cheese Blocks Effects for taking a look at my project (via email) and offering some suggestions for the next build.

Okay… now to the build. First off, let’s start with a part list. I ordered everything from PedalPartsPlus.com.

1 1411TU Looper Enclosure
1 Switchcraft 1/4″ Stereo Jack #12B (I would probably not order this again and just go with 12 monos)
11 Switchcraft 1/4″ Mono Jack #11
1 DC Power Jack
5 Red LEDs (5mm)
5 5mm LED Bezels
5 Xicon 1/4watt 1* Metal Film Resistors 470 ohms
5 (CLIFF) RoHS 3PDT True Bypass Switches
#24/7 Green Wire
#24/7 Red Wire
#24/7 White Wire
#24/7 Black Wire

Tools you’ll need: wrenches, screwdriver, soldering iron, wire strippers, wire cutters, solder (I used 60/40 rosin-core .032 dia) and needle nosed plyers. It’s incredibly nice to have the ’3rd set of hands’ alligator clips deal for soldering. Also a nice pair of wire strippers makes things easier.

This is what it looks like when I got the package. Note in this photo I have 5 560k resistors. I did not need to use those.

Next, I loosely inserted the jacks and switches. I locked in the LED bezels. I say loosely added them, because you’ll be pulling them out again. I basically put them into position so I could measure the wire lengths needed. I wanted to make sure I could open the enclosure if there was a problem. Also this enclosure is pretty tight for soldering.

Next, I thought I would work on the switches. In the diagram I was using you needed to make a ground jumper from bottom left to middle right.  I first soldered the resistors for the LEDs and clipped the remaining unused lead tail and used that as the jumper and soldered that in place. I was using this diagram from SingleCoil.com (http://www.singlecoil.com/tb-strip/dia3.html).

I then started on the ground connections. Linking all the mono jacks and linking the send/receive pairs back to the the switches, as well as linking those to the master input and output of the strip. It’s important to understand the jacks and what lugs are what. Mono jacks only have ‘tip’ and ‘sleeve’.  Stereo jacks have tip, ring and sleeve. The sleeve will be the ground and the tip will be your signal from the guitar. The lug (what you’re soldering to) is opposite of the tip or opposite of the sleeve. For this strip, you should be using all mono jacks since it’ll be DC powered and we don’t need to activate the current with the input jack like most pedals. For this project, I accidentally wired the signal to the sleeve of the stereo jack instead of the tip. Here is a good diagram that I was using illustrating a jack and it’s lugs: http://skyturtle.com/2009/02/17/stereo-phone-jack/

From here, I started to wire the send and returns of the effect loops as well as the DC jack.

All that is left is to connect the LEDs to the resistors and to chain the positives together. Matt from Cheese Blocks recommended that I should have used heat shrink tubing on those leads, and I definitely thought about it. In the future I’ll definitely add that to help prevent any shorts. For this project I made sure that the leads were bent up towards the lid and away from the switches as best as I could, but that little bit of shorting prevention could go a long way.

One thing that I would recommend is to make sure you clip any excess leads from wires and components, especially at the jack lugs. These jacks are very close together and could be another area of potential short circuits. Make sure you use a hot soldering iron and to focus on clean joints.

When she was all done (and after I fought the ‘sleeve’ issue with the master input) it was time to test it out. All the loops worked and everything sounded great. Here is shot of it on my board for initial testing:

Hope this comes in handy. I’ll be making another one here shortly, like to add a few more items in there.. master on/off switch, tuner out.. maybe even play with a buffered loop.

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So, poking around the web today, I found a really cool video by Matt Stevens using the loop capabilities of the Line 6 DL 4 delay pedal. I wrote a review about the Line 6 DL 4 a few days ago, please check it out!

Remember, if you like reading about these pedals and seeing videos reviews from others, please subscribe to the RSS feed and get notified via email when there are new postings!

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