Re: OT Variable Power Supplies for Stomp Box Pedals

[mark francombe <mark@markfrancombe.com>]

I have an (unused now) PSU for stomp boxes. called the flatliner. It actually has 3 or 4 outputs with a variable voltage, so you can feed pedals LESS than recommended. I didn't know this, but apparently some pedals (specifically distortion) do nice things whe fed less that OK power. I have tried it, and frankly I dont want it any more, som one wants it they can buy... heavy as **** tho...


Mark

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:

I was researching power supplies for my old
DOD Meat Box and DOD Buzz Box distortion pedals
tonight,   trying to see what is available and if I could buy things
cheaper than standard name brand adaptors.

Online, I was discovering that electronic supply places have pedals
much cheaper than , say,  the proverbial BOSS PSA 120 power adaptors
which are up to over $30 USD when shipping  is included.
The DOD adaptor for the Buzz Box as an example is $18 from DOD
and $10.25 from the first electronic supply place that I went to through google.

In the process,  I called up Bob Amstadt (my favorite electricity and electronics guru
and spiritual advisor)  to ask him  about what adaptors will work and which ones
won't (this might be a cool additional thread topic , actually, for newbies to the stompbox world
such as myself).

Anyway,  I told him that I keep a bunch of old used 9 volt batteries (in various
short lengths of time before their battery death) and that , sometimes,  when I
am tracking something into my computer,  I'll switch out 4 or 5 of them on the
offchance that the particular stomp box pedal that I'm working with will
freakout as the voltage drops precipitously.

He then hipped me to the fact that there are companies that make variable power supplies
(specialty hospital equipment, apparently, have the need these things for various equipment).

Brand new they are pretty pricey ($190 US)  but he told me that
you can pick up old 60's ones inexpensively sometimes at
electronics surplus stores,  so we have a date, soon,  to go see if we can find one
cheaply some day.

I thought that would be such a very hip thing to have.

Has anyone experimented with this?

I know that I record everything if the footpedal is really starting to do weird things,
because you may have some random strange noises made and the unit will never
make the same noise again (and it's pretty difficult to reproduce the results with another battery).

My Casio SK-1  miniature keyboard/sampler just does lovey weirdness when it's batteries go low.
I use the keyboards loop capability to create some really nice random 'weird' loops this way,
so,  see?    This thread actually is relevant to live loopers so I can post it with a modicum of guilt.

Rick Walker

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