Pedalboard Power Supplies February 27, 2008
Posted by Phillip in Effects, Guitar, Live Sound.trackback
Let’s talk about power supplies.
Up until last week, I had been using a Visual Sound 1spot. It’s one of those high power digital switching power supplies that you can hook up a daisy chain to and power 5 pedals with. It worked fine at the time, so I thought, but it went out on me during the first service on Sunday morning.
After the first set, an recurring popping sound started going off during the message. The guy preaching, who also happens to be one of our sound guys (one of the good ones) said something like “Phillip’s heart is beating over here” and unplugged the pedals from the amp.
I did some troubleshooting during the gap between services and discovered that the 1spot was the culprit. I put fresh batteries in my pedals and everything powered up.
During the second service, I could swear that my tone was better. Everything was crisp where it used to be muffled. It sounded like someone took a blanket off of my amp or something.
What’s more is that the noise was gone. Sometimes, when stepping on pedal to engage it, I would get a loud pop. Apparently, that was due to some AC noise that was getting mixed in with my signal.
I did some research and ordered a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power II+. It has 8 isolated outputs so that if you have a noisy (digital) pedal somewhere, then it won’t interfere with your other pedals. It’s supposed to be dead quiet, and I’m looking forward to checking it out. It’s not cheap, but it’s the choice of pros.
I roll a PP2 and it’s the best thing i’ve ever gotten myself. You’re right though it’s not cheap but it is an investment in tone. Have fun with that.
Yup, sometimes a power supply goes bad and the current that it supplies to your pedal goes down, which changes your tone a lot because the low current is not able to drive your effects the way they need. Also, if a capacitor goes bad, well, that’s the popping sound.
I’m so old skool, I use batteries as much as I can, for effects that are not high current suckers, mostly overdrives and distortions. But, anything beyond that (chorus, delays, what have you) are current suckers and go through batteries like crazy. So, I use AC supply for those sometimes and get the AC wires as far away and extra shielded from everything.
IG
That’s interesting. I’ll have to look into that. My current set up is an skb PS-45 and I use it to power all my pedals. It has 8 protected 9V DC outlets and 3 wall wart outlets, and I power all my pedals through it. I wonder if I tried out all batteries, if it would make a difference. That might be a little too expensive for me though, but it would be an interesting test.
+1 PP2
Stay away from the Gator power supply
yeah use the boss pedal board (the $149 or so one) plus some cheap power supply thing from musicians friend (it was like $30) and have not had any problems. but its true, if you are somewhat underpowered your sound changes dramatically. i have had a problem in the past with faulty outlets that ruined a delay pedal of mine i had plugged into some 9v adapter. killed it dead. hopefully your pedals will be ok.
batteries are just too expensive for a gigging guitarist i think, i couldnt even make it through one performance with my digitech pedals…
I use a Pedal Pad and the Pedal Power II and it works great. Powers eight effects and has an AC plug on the side for the larger effects.
I use the pedal power II as well and love it. It’s the only power supply I’ved used (other than AC adapters for each pedal) so I don’t have any grounds to compare. Having the 12V for my DL4 is great and I use the SAG (lowers the voltage) on my tube screamer and it definately does change the tone in a good way. You’ve probably heard this before but it’s absolutley key that no power cables run parallel to audio cables, otherwise you get noise.
While I’m on pedal boards, the biggest improvement I’ve made was making custom audio cables. I used to have a mix of monster, George L, and cheap cables running between my pedals. I got some nice cable, nice connectors, custom cut and soldered it all together and it was a HUGE increase in tone and quietness. I had no idea it would make much of a difference but it did.