Anyone daisy-chaining high current draw effects?

[Winston Psmith]

That's the question: Is anyone running four or more high-powered pedals (150mA+) off of a daisy-chain, and how has that worked out?

 

I have a few different Delay pedals that draw anywhere from 150 to around 300mA, and I've wondered about daisy-chaining them with a 1 Spot or PA-9? In theory, I know there should be enough power to manage, but in practice, it seems sketchy? The pedalboard I use live for Novparolo only has three low current draw pedals on it, and even then, I notice that they sound better with separate power supplies than with a daisy-chain.

 

I have more than enough AC adapters to run each pedal off of its own adapter, but conversely, that uses up most of a power strip to handle all of them. Ideally, I'll get a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 3 at some point, but for now, I'm trying to make the most of the tools I have on hand.

[CEB]

You do the math and the total current draw is in limits you shouldn"t hurt anything. A One Spot I think puts out about 1700 I"ve ran some big boards off a daisy chain but I don't think I ever used any single stomp boxes with current draws that high. I think your biggest problem may be noise because the boxes I know that pull that hard are POGs, Verbs and delays. Also those EHX organ/synth/ fake keyboard pedals. These digital pedal types are more prone to noise from non-isolation. As long as the math works try it. If it"s quiet enough then you should be okay. If you have something like a 9v EXH Cathedral then you may get some noise.

 

FWIW. I run my Pedal Steel board off a One Spot with no problem but it"s modest. A Peterson tuner, 'Drive of the month, often an Earth Drive" , DD-7, RV-5, and a TR-2.... sometimes a Chorus. CH-1 usually.

[Caevan O’Shite]

Hmmm; I'm not sure off the top of my head just how many of the pedals that I had run on my (now "vintage"? ) 1 Spot were in that voltage range; compared to some of my stomps, that's not exactly "high current draw", though collectively, I guess several such would add-up to be.

 

I got a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power DIGITAL for higher current-draw pedals such as a couple of Strymons and such, largely because if I daisy-chained them they would make awful noises continuously deezleveezletheezledeezlingly percolating along in the background most annoyingly, no matter the current-draw capability of the 1 Spot.

 

I'll try to remember to look at the current-draw of those that I had been running in front of my amps input daisy-chained on that 1 Spot, and post back here about it...

[Larryz]

I haven't run a pedal board in quite a few years now but I remember running 5 pedals on the 1 Spot daisy chain without any problems. (delay, comp, dist, OD, reverb, etc.) Anything that runs on a 9 volt battery should work fine up to an 8 pedal daisy. I seldom run more than two or three pedals at the same time so there is rarely any tune that exceeded my power requirements. You can always run two 1 spots (pun intended) or extra warts...

[desertbluesman]

I use only a reverb pedal, and an overdrive pedal. On my pedal-boards, I have a tube overdrive, and a Boss Blues Driver (The Blues Driver is only for boost and EQ for my Strat Clone, I don't use that for my other guitars) I also have a Digitech Digiverb pedal in each pedal board. The road board has a tuner pedal in it. That is it. If I could find a nice little cheapo tube amp that has a overdrive channel and reverb on board I would not have any pedals at all.

[Winston Psmith]

Thanks everyone!

 

Pretty much confirms what I suspected. The math works out; I'd only be pulling down around 600-800mA off of a 1700mA power supply, but noise & aliasing will literally come back to haunt me, running a chain of Delays and Loopers.

[KuruPrionz]

Thanks everyone!

 

Pretty much confirms what I suspected. The math works out; I'd only be pulling down around 600-800mA off of a 1700mA power supply, but noise & aliasing will literally come back to haunt me, running a chain of Delays and Loopers.

 

I have a dual output isolated power supply for high current options and preventing hum. It's about the size of the smallest pedals and was made in somebody's garage. Nice work and finish, he was on eBay and I picked it up for about $40.

 

Then, I stopped using pedals almost entirely and now I really don't use any. I got an amp with distortion and reverb and a 2 button foot switch (I took the nut off the reverb switch and pushed it inside the foot switch housing since I never turn it off). I did run a TC Electronics Flashback X4, that gave me 2 flavors of modulation and a delay with tap tempo switch. A total of 5 switches on the floor and one power supply to one pedal.

 

If I use my Katana I have six switches in one foot switch with one cable to the amp. The Roland Cube has 2 switches with one cable to the amp. And I have both Peavey Sanpera pedals, for live I would go with the Sanpera 1, it has 4 foot switches for presets and a pedal that can be a volume pedal or a way pedal. Nearly impossible to switch the pedal on soft carpet, most stages have that dark blue, low pile industrial covering so that's OK.

 

Weird noise problems, tones of knobs, cords and power supplies are all part of my previous life and I do not miss them. At home I go direct into the DAW and have more plugins for effects than you would ever want to hook up for a gig. I've run as many as 9 duplicate tracks with different plugins and automated them so effects can change instantly or smoothly transition in an infinite variety of sounds. That's all after the fact, not real time.

[Winston Psmith]

Much of the time, I'm using my MFX pedalboards live, for many of the reasons you outline - fewer cables, fewer connections, less tap-dancing over controls, one power supply to worry about, quicker set-up and breakdown time, all fo which are very good things.

 

Still, the issue with even the best MFX, at least IME, is that there's a certain "sameness" to the sounds after a while, and no element of spontaneity, no surprises. I got into assembling my 21st Century Pedalboard after relying on MFX for a very long time, and getting tired of the sounds. FWIW, I design all my own FX & Synth Patches, so it's not like I just got bored with the Factory Patches and gave up.

 

Individual pedals can be highly idiosyncratic, which is both charm and curse, but they also often have features and functions you won't find in MFX. I also approach Delays as Compositional tools, which is why I have so many of them, and run them in chains.

 

The PP3 is going to have to go on the ever-lengthening list of "Useful Things I Need" as opposed to the list of "Fun Things I'd Like To Try".

[KuruPrionz]

Much of the time, I'm using my MFX pedalboards live, for many of the reasons you outline - fewer cables, fewer connections, less tap-dancing over controls, one power supply to worry about, quicker set-up and breakdown time, all fo which are very good things.

 

Still, the issue with even the best MFX, at least IME, is that there's a certain "sameness" to the sounds after a while, and no element of spontaneity, no surprises. I got into assembling my 21st Century Pedalboard after relying on MFX for a very long time, and getting tired of the sounds. FWIW, I design all my own FX & Synth Patches, so it's not like I just got bored with the Factory Patches and gave up.

 

Individual pedals can be highly idiosyncratic, which is both charm and curse, but they also often have features and functions you won't find in MFX. I also approach Delays as Compositional tools, which is why I have so many of them, and run them in chains.

 

The PP3 is going to have to go on the ever-lengthening list of "Useful Things I Need" as opposed to the list of "Fun Things I'd Like To Try".

 

I totally get it. I've simply moved my obsession over to my recording projects - where I can tweak tones in insane and absurd ways AFTER my performance.

Live and in person, I felt my attention was compromised by my toys. My joy when playing comes from a non-verbal, non-distracted place, the less I must deal with in the "real world", the more my spirit soars.

 

At our last live stream I set up a tone on the amp that was very touch sensitive. I could sound clean or dirty, full or bright, just by adjusting my pick. Turning the SPC in my guitar up or down a bit could bring a singing tone or a clear (with a touch of grit) tone for strumming and arpeggiating behind the vocals. I had nothing on the floor, one cord into the amp. I loved it! I did adjust the tap tempo and/or added some modulation on a couple of tunes but that was at the beginning of the song and I left it.

 

When gigs come back, I might just go with that. I'll need to get a tall, flat amp stand of some sort.

 

Back to the DAW, you'd need an insane floor rig to even come close to the sorts of sounds that can be made in the box. Recently I duplicated my guitar part to 8 additional tracks - 9 total. Then I started adding plugins, a couple of amp sims, a couple of detuning effects, channels that were only and entirely delay, reverb, octave down/up pitch shifting, etc. That done, I set up automation tracks for all of the dupe tracks so everything fluidly shifted from one multi paralleled tone to another. Automated the panning too. I can automate the settings on the plugins but didn't get to that point yet.

Too much fun!!!

 

I couldn't play with full focus on the music, and do that at the same time - assuming one had a setup that allowed it - 9 parallel effects rigs with volume pedals is the only thing I can think of but you'll run out of feet!!!! You won't be able to adjust panning, that would take a few more expression pedals, or level of distortion, speed of modulation etc. = more expression pedals. In the end, it is not humanly possible, at least not by one person. Gigs don't pay enough to hire roadies, sound crew etc., it's just me bringing my amp and guitar and helping with the PA, drums etc.

 

You could add parallel outputs on the guitar with separate volume controls but then the right hand is busy fiddling with knobs instead of giving full attention to the strings. I'm not good at that and not happy doing it and it would only cover a small portion of the insanity.

 

I still find this thread interesting and think it's great that everybody is looking for that "thang", whatever it may be. It's fun too!

[Scott Fraser]

I couldn't play with full focus on the music, and do that at the same time - assuming one had a setup that allowed it - 9 parallel effects rigs with volume pedals is the only thing I can think of but you'll run out of feet!!!! !

 

This is how my current rig works. Three parallel rack hardware effects chains controlled by three volume pedals. I'm in the process of moving over to all software implementation of this, which will have four chains, plus a dry send. So, five volume pedals. I play seated, both feet moving from pedal to pedal throughout.

[Winston Psmith]

My live rig for Novparolo is very stripped-down; One OD/Distortion box, one Chorus pedal and one Analog Delay in the Guitar S/R Loop of my Roland GR-20. It all fits on one Pedaltrain-1 'board.

 

My FX rack, OTOH, is much like what Scott and KuruPrionz describe; the pedalboard to run it has 5 Lexicon Dual Momentary Footswitches, 2 EV-5 Expression Pedals, a Rolls MIDI Buddy, a Digitech FS300 and a Roland DP-2. That doesn't include any pedal FX or MFX units I may be sending into the FX rack, of course.

 

The original question regarding daisy-chaining is related to my next pedalboard project, gathering most of my large-format Delays and Loopers onto one board, with one Power Brick.