Hi all, I’ve been building a stereo pedalboard, and have come to love having an always on boost at the end of the chain. What I want to build is a 2-channel boost with no footswitch, and preferably a single volume control (although a seperate vol per channel would also be fine). Kind of like a master volume for the pedalboard. I’m thinking of the Clandestine preamp, or Episode booster.
Not using a footswitch will obviously help, and I’d love to know how to have a single volume control. Has anyone else done this kind of thing? I couldn’t find anything searching the forum.
You can get them at Tayda, BLMS, Mouser, Digikey, etc — all the use-you-well outlets.
If you use a board-mount pinned-style dual-gang, you'll have to bend the upper set of pins...
OR, if you choose a different circuit, a small boost board (Amentum, Black Tiger, Enchanted, definitely the Microboost) you could stack the PCBs, using lowprofile caps and with the PCBs slightly offset, bend and manipulate the pins so they hold both PCBs, then you don't have to worry about fixating on floating PCBs (double-sided sticky tape? PCB-"standoffs"? Wrapped in foam and electrical tape?) in a relatively small enclosure such as 1590N1 or 1590BB...
BONUS: Since there's no stomper — If you use a single small knob off the side*, you can use the MASTER-VOLUME PEDAL as a pedal-riser for other pedals!
SIDE* LEFT: Knob on the left, you'll need to reverse the outer lugs' wiring if you want the knob to increase in volume turning it away from you.
RIGHT side, no need to reverse the wiring, volume will increase turning knob away from you.
(personally I'd go with the back of the enclosure, if not using the MASTER VOLUME pedal as riser. Off the back, make sure to wire it backwards so that turning the top of the knob to the right with a toe increases the volume).
However, both circuits you've chosen don't lend themselves to stacking the boards... in fact, you'll need a 1590XX-sized enclosure to have two boards of either circuit side-by-side. However, an advantage to the Clandestine and Episode boards is they have switches, which will hold the boards in place while you dual-gang up the VOLUMEs.
If you offboard wire the toggle-switches to the front side of the pedal, that would free up the top again for being a Pedal Riser — the 1590XX has plenty of room for the KNOB & jacks — DC IN-L IN-R OUT-L OUT-R — on the back, and all the Episode's 2x4 switches on the front.
You'll want to get a few pots to find the one with the closest mathing wafers
16mm pots have a tolerance of 10-20%. That's a lot when dealing with stereo image.
My current thinking is that this will be a pedalboard utility box that will sit at the back of the board, in the middle, making use of the hardest to read real estate. Either where the little 1590a boost (Judge) is in the pic, or above the two ODs on the right. I’m inclined to just have the controls on the front for this reason (too hard to operate with my foot anyway).
The OD pedals are a PedalPCB Son of Ben (blue) and a Guardian (orange- haven’t got round to labelling that one).
