In 20 years of guitar playing I've never used pedals. It has always been either a rack effects units, or a floor board or no effects at all. But I hate effects programming with a passion and I have just finished building my first pedal board. I bought a Harley Benton power plant junior with 5 isolated outputs.
The pedals that I have are:
TC Electronic HOF, Flashback and Polytune
DOD YJM308 overdrive
Marshall Jackhammer JH-1
MXR Dynacomp
Vox Wah pedal
Now...the power supply came with a serial cable with 5 jacks to power 5 similar pedals from one DC outlet.
This is what the manual says:
The serial cable is used to power several effects pedals standing next to each other in a clear way. Connect the five outputs of the serial cable to the DC inputs of the effects units. Connect the input jack of the cable to one of the 9V outlets of the power supply. The total current draw of all connected pedals must not exceed 120mA, thus leaving a maximum of 24mA to each pedal when using devices of the same kind.
Now, would it be OK to connect the three TC pedals using the serial cable, and leaving the other 4 DC outputs for the other 4 pedals?
I know I sound like a muppet, but this is one aspect of guitar playing I never bothered myself with
Many thanks in advance!
Comments
Not sure about the dod overdrive, I don't have any fussy pedals (bar the Qtron which is 24v ac!). But it's just an overdrive, so it'll run for a while on a good battery anyway
Digital modelling pedals suck power like no tomorrow, so I'd keep them isolated - the harley benton is great value, but only offers low power per output. Perfect for small boards with a few drives/analogue stuff and a couple of digital that need to be isolated
Nice and small, too.
The battery supplied with them lasts so little time that people regularly post on the TC Electronic forum that their unit is faulty after initial playing tests - only to discover that it's perfectly normal for them to die even before you've fully got your head around how they work.
I've got a Harley Benton PP Jr as well - great value power supply.
This is a useful resource for finding out how much juice different pedals draw. Just make sure that no single output on the PP Jr is being asked to provide more than it's maximum 120mA.
If you have a pedal that needs more than 120mA, you can use the yellow y-cable provided with the PP Jr to use two outputs in parallel - that gives you 240mA at 9V.
Although not provided with the PP Jr, it's possible to buy (or make) a 'series' y-cable that would allow you to use 2 outputs in series for 120mA at 18V. Some drive pedals can be operated at 18V (always check, not all can) for greater headroom, lower noise and a more dynamic 'response'. I do this with the Award-Session JD10 on my board.