Feral Feline
Well-known member
THIS THREAD IS FOR ASKING/ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT SWITCH-JACKS, please contribute tips, tricks, explanations and diagrams if you can.
I was just looking online for a diagram of a switched-jack FX loop, and found bugger-all.
After a few hours of trying various search criteria, I found but a couple of examples of switched jacks as it relates to our hobby, most illustrations were for stereos with a few amp-FX-loops thrown in.
So I made my own damned diagram:
You could wire those jacks between two circuits in a dual-circuit build, you could wire it before or after the dual-circuit build — hell, you could wire it before or after a single circuit so long as you've enough room in your enclosure for the extra jackage.
In between two circs in a dual build, if nothing is in the FX loop your dual-circuit works normally, and you have a nice insert point — stick a pedal in the loop and using the inserted pedals bypass... well, you get the idea.
You could stick a whole chain of pedals in the loop, and if that's your intent I'd suggest adding a BYPASS to the INSERT LOOP. Nothing plugged in to the loop, then it doesn't matter if the bypass is engaged by accident or forgotten about and left "on" — nothing's in the loop so the signal goes right through.
ANUTTERIDEAR, M'DEARIES
For you big-bad perdalboarders, build a few of these switched loops into 1590A (4 jacks — in, out, send, return) and scatter them throughout your pedalboard:
Put one between dirt and modulation, another between your boosts and time-based pedals...
If you're on a gig and a pedal goes down you can patch past the problem pedal, or at least find/diagnose it more easily later.
Need a specific pedal for one gig but not the next, doing that for a lot of different gigs? That 1590A insertion point could even be hidden under your board, out of the way not taking up valuable pedalboard real-estate.
At home/rehearsal/studio you can try different pedals without having to tear apart your whole board.
Bottom line is that switched-jacks don't have to be intimidating, shouldn't be...
So bust out a breadboard and play around with some different types of switched jacks.
What other ways could you, would you, do you use a switched-jack FX loop?
What else you got for switched-jacks in general?
I was just looking online for a diagram of a switched-jack FX loop, and found bugger-all.
After a few hours of trying various search criteria, I found but a couple of examples of switched jacks as it relates to our hobby, most illustrations were for stereos with a few amp-FX-loops thrown in.
So I made my own damned diagram:
EDIT: cleaned up the diagram's tip-of-the-switch 'cause it was sloppy.
Anything in the above diagram needing clarification, correction?You could wire those jacks between two circuits in a dual-circuit build, you could wire it before or after the dual-circuit build — hell, you could wire it before or after a single circuit so long as you've enough room in your enclosure for the extra jackage.
In between two circs in a dual build, if nothing is in the FX loop your dual-circuit works normally, and you have a nice insert point — stick a pedal in the loop and using the inserted pedals bypass... well, you get the idea.
You could stick a whole chain of pedals in the loop, and if that's your intent I'd suggest adding a BYPASS to the INSERT LOOP. Nothing plugged in to the loop, then it doesn't matter if the bypass is engaged by accident or forgotten about and left "on" — nothing's in the loop so the signal goes right through.
ANUTTERIDEAR, M'DEARIES
For you big-bad perdalboarders, build a few of these switched loops into 1590A (4 jacks — in, out, send, return) and scatter them throughout your pedalboard:
Put one between dirt and modulation, another between your boosts and time-based pedals...
If you're on a gig and a pedal goes down you can patch past the problem pedal, or at least find/diagnose it more easily later.
Need a specific pedal for one gig but not the next, doing that for a lot of different gigs? That 1590A insertion point could even be hidden under your board, out of the way not taking up valuable pedalboard real-estate.
At home/rehearsal/studio you can try different pedals without having to tear apart your whole board.
Bottom line is that switched-jacks don't have to be intimidating, shouldn't be...
So bust out a breadboard and play around with some different types of switched jacks.
What other ways could you, would you, do you use a switched-jack FX loop?
What else you got for switched-jacks in general?
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