OFF-BOARD WIRING: Dual Effect Pedals, FX Insert Wiring

I have a couple of dual pedals planned, so time to jot down some off-board wiring plans.  

SWITCHED JACKS

First off, I probably should touch on switched jacks - I'll stick to the Cliff style, as these are the most common type used for guitar pedals.   

Switched jacks are great, as much as I like a solid metal Switchcraft input jack, the Cliff style switched jack is very reliable and has additional benefits.   Apart from the switching, I find them much easier to work on in an enclosure compared to a regular jack.  The jack is also completely isolated from the enclosure, so you can choose how and where to shield the enclosure (or not).

As the diagram below shows, one side of the terminals is switched - the switching is activated by plugging a jack in.  It's very simple really, when the jack is plugged in, it physically forces the connection between the two sets of terminals to lift, breaking the connection between the two sides.  Unplug the jack, and the terminals go back to their original position and reconnect.

DUAL PEDAL OFF-BOARD WIRING - THE MOST BASIC OPTION

The most basic option involving more than one switch - fixed order, in one side, out the other.  Works well if you know that there will never be any need for more change, or maybe you just don't have room in the enclosure. 

Same again, with a master on/off switch - which is quite a useful addition in many cases.

DUAL PEDAL,  SIMPLE ROUTING (NORMALLING)

Each pedal is individually switched on and off, without a master switch.  Effect 1 routed directly into effect 2 by default.  Effect 2 input breaks the link from effect 1 out (by plugging a jack in), allowing full use of each circuits input and out jacks - basically two separate pedals in one box.  This method is the same as patch bay normalling.

DUAL PEDAL,  CIRCUIT ROUTING SWITCH

This is a little more interesting - dual pedal with a switch to change the order.  This could be done with a standard 3DPT stomp switch or a 3DPT toggle.  I can't really see myself swapping the order of the circuits on the fly, so personally I'd use a toggle.  The toggle can also be labelled, so it's clear what the routing is - a 4PDT is required if you wanted an LED, which starts getting a bit much in my book.

I think something like this allows a decent amount of flexibility without too much trouble.

FX SEND

Something Marshall was using at one stage, but it never really caught on.   It works the same way as an insert on a mixing console, using a switched stereo jack (example here)  It's a handy way to switch two or more pedals on and off that you always want to stack, but you don't have one of those fancy switchers with loops.  

Naturally, the insert can be placed before or after the circuit, and if you wanted to get really carried away, you could have two insert jacks for pre and post.

SWITCHED PRE/POST FX INSERT

More switches... same as above, but now with a switch to swap the insert between pre or post.  If I was using this, I'd use a toggle switch as it can be labelled.  Not sure that a stomp switch makes sense for a pre/post switch - that being said, it may make total sense to you.

EARTHQUAKER DEVICES: Hoof Reaper

I know one could make the three different effects and box them together, but I thought I might do a layout with them all on one board.  

EARTHQUAKER DEVICES HOOF REAPER - VERO LAYOUT

REAPER VIDEO DEMO

EARTHQUAKER DEVICES v SUNN O))): Life

Given I've done a few Sunn Model T layouts recently, I thought the next obvious step would be an Earthquaker Devices Life pedal layout.  This is from the PedalPCB Parentheses Fuzz schematic, which has an additional clipping mode on a rotary switch.  I'm sure you can work out how to drop it back to a standard ON-OFF-ON switch if you prefer something simpler, and this will take up much less space than a rotary in an enclosure.  

It is of course a Blue Ringer with a buffered blend > Rat > Mosfet booster (Magnitude).  I did a layout for just the octaver section a while back if you just wanted to build this on its own and drop it in front of your favourite fuzz / distortion.

EARTHQUAKER DEVICES LIFE PEDAL - VERO LAYOUT

EARTHQUAKER DEVICES LIFE - SUGGESTED MODS

I read this in the comments section of the Life Pedal layout over on the very fine Effects Layouts site.  Both mods attributed to Mark Hammer in the comments - so they may be worth some thought.

Direct quotes below;

The basic Green Ringer circuit works better with a little more "push" as the front end. That can be provided by running a resistor/cap combination in parallel with the 2k2 resistor labelled R8. Consider use of a 1k resistor and 10uf electrolytic cap, negative side going to ground.

I'll also add that, since the octaver input stage doubles the frequency of everything, it's not clear why the Rat section really needs the R18/C12 network to goose the gain of content above 1500hz. Users may find less need to be brutal with the Filter control if they either omitted that RC network or perhaps replaced it with 330R and 1uf. That would provide proportionately more gain for content above around 500hz instead of the searing gain for higher-frequency content that a stock Rat provides.