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Battery sag for any pedal, easily


Devi Ever

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I just thought about this, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think I might be right.

 

To create a dieing battery sound in a fuzz pedal, you simply wire things up as shown in this handy diagram provided to the public by Beavis Audio Research

 

9voltsag.gif

http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/Pots/index.htm

 

... and then I was thinking about something Autopilot mentioned in regards to the voltage thread elsewhere at www.deviever.com, and it occurred to me that all you'd need to do to make a little box to make any pedal have the "sag" option as shown above would be like this

 

PEEP enclosure [ female DC jack -> pot wired as such above -> male DC plug ]

(all things available at www.mouser.com)

 

... and cost all of $10 or less to make, then any pedal could be experimented with in terms of sagging. :')

 

Then all you would do is plug in your power supply to the "sag box", and plug your "sag box" into whatever pedal you want to sag.

 

I'm too busy to draw up the diagram, but hopefully this might inspire some of you to make it happen, so make it happen!!!!!!

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i agree. it's a useless feature.

 

 

unless you use fuzz pedals.

 

or some time based effects, which can do some crazy cool things if starved for voltage.

 

or some boosters, especially fet based, which can take on a, for lack of a better word, syrup-y overdrive character if starved for voltage.

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If I'm not mistaken, Joe Gagan had the idea years ago to create a sag control using a stereo input plug and wiring the pot between the ring and sleeve connections and then a regular input jack (stereo, too, if you want the battery-off feature preserved when nothing's plugged in). Same idea but works even for pedals without a dc jack.

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Good idea. The only other thing that I have found lesser voltages useful for, other than fuzz, is my ruby amp, so it can break up at lower volumes which is handy for playing at 3 in the morning. I think it works down to about 5v

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Yeah they make these boxes that do what you're describing. People often use them to plug power tools like drills into to make them very variable speed. We use them in the lab for centrifuging at various speeds. You may be able to find them at like a Home Depot or some place like that.

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I had a DOD FX-75B flanger back in the day that did some cool stuff when the battery started to die. With the battery a little underpowered, you'd get slapback delay/reverb-y sounds, then if you kept playing, you'd start a high-pitched whistling sound that eventually overwhelmed your signal before the pedal eventually stopped working altogether.

 

The Dano FAB distortion and overdrive also work well at lower voltages- they take on a gated (but not too gated), fuzz type tonality, and will work right down to about 3v.

 

On the whole, I'd agree that this gizmo might have limited use, but like GRINGO LOCO said, occasionally it might be like flicking the magic mojo switch :thu:

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If my memory of Ohm's law is still intact, then the way a 2K pot behaves is directly dependent on how much current the effect draws. If the effect draws very little current, then the pot won't cause much of a drop. If the effect draws a lot of current, then the drop will be huge.

 

Someone who knows more can correct me if I'm wrong :p

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