# Pedal Daisy Chain?



## Nohtanhoj (Jun 30, 2008)

I have a Boss TU-2 that I daisy chain the following effects from - Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive, Boss DD-3 Digital Delay, Boss CE-5 Chorus Ensemble. For a self-Xmas present, I purchased a Jimi Hendrix Edition Crybaby wah and an MXR Dyna Comp. I am aware that I cannot daisy chain into the Crybaby, but the salesman at the Twelfth Fret (Toronto) was telling me that I couldn't daisy chain into the MXR either... This doesn't seem right to me, since it's a fairly compact pedal and the daisy chain cable that I own works with its power slot....

Can I set the MXR in my daisy chain or do I need to buy another adapter?


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

There's no reason you shouldn't be able to daisy chain into both pedals as long as they have 9v center negative jacks. I had a Dyna Comp for a while that I powered from a TU2 no problem, ditto with a Crybaby.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

The only issue I see is the power cable may not reach the pedals without skipping a jack, and some pedal boards won't accomodate a variety of input configurations. Whereas Boss puts the power at the back end of the pedal, MXR may be on the side, as is the Dunlop wah. Sometimes this means skipping a jack so that the cable will reach. Otherwise, as hollowbody said, they are all 9v centre negative.

Peace, Mooh.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Digital pedals, such as the DD-3, are juice hogs. While the other pedals you noted do not demand much current, perhaps the total current required by the lot of them exceeds the current delivery capability of the power supply you are feeding the daisy chain with. I'm not saying it necessarily does, but perhaps that is what the salesperson was referring to. Remember that just because a daisy chain cable has more plugs sitting unused does not mean that they should or can be used.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

mhammer said:


> Digital pedals, such as the DD-3, are juice hogs. While the other pedals you noted do not demand much current, perhaps the total current required by the lot of them exceeds the current delivery capability of the power supply you are feeding the daisy chain with. I'm not saying it necessarily does, but perhaps that is what the salesperson was referring to. Remember that just because a daisy chain cable has more plugs sitting unused does not mean that they should or can be used.


Depends on which PSA you have. The old 120 supplied 200ma and the new 120S puts out 500ma. In any case, the DD-3 only draws 55ma and 22ma for the chorus, leaving 123ma for the SD-1, comp and wah. I'd be flabbergasted if those pedals combined drew more than 20ma.

The only thing I can think of is that wahs sometimes like to be powered by their own separate adapter, or by a battery. I don't know why, and I can't back it up, since I use a daisy chain to power mine, but some people think they don't sound as good daisy chained. YMMV.


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## Nohtanhoj (Jun 30, 2008)

Fair enough.... I can look up the power draw for the pedals and set up my board accordingly. Basically, I asked this question to figure out whether I should be buying a Pedal Power for my Pedaltrain JR that is coming in the mail soon. People have recommended me buying one anyway, but I figured I could save 200 bucks if I could keep daisy chaining.

When I acquire more effects then I'll need a Pedal Power, but for now I think I can get by. Thanks.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Nohtanhoj said:


> Fair enough.... I can look up the power draw for the pedals and set up my board accordingly. Basically, I asked this question to figure out whether I should be buying a Pedal Power for my Pedaltrain JR that is coming in the mail soon. People have recommended me buying one anyway, but I figured I could save 200 bucks if I could keep daisy chaining.
> 
> When I acquire more effects then I'll need a Pedal Power, but for now I think I can get by. Thanks.


I'm guessing the salesperson was trying to do exactly that, sell you a PP2 or something similar. As long as your pedals are getting power, your cables aren't a huge mess and there's no noise on the line, there's no reason to need a PP2. If noise becomes an issue, then at that point sure, look into it.


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## Cort Strummer (Feb 16, 2009)

I have 5 pedals running on one chain. So what I did to combat current loss is I went to an electronics store I bought a 9v 1500mA adapter with the proper tip and plugged that into my NS-2. I dont have any problems even with all pedals on at once.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

It can happen that digital hash can be created when two digital pedals are sharing the same power line, even though each works silently on their own, and the same supply would produce no noise when powering one of those digital pedals and a whack of analog ones. Well-designed supplies do not do this, but even decent supplies are not totally immune. It doesn't *always* happen, but it happens, and when it does it is a royal PITA.

So, is the TU-2 a digital pedal? Alternatively, do wah pedals lack the sort of line regulation that would protect them from that sort of line noise? Just curious.


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## Nohtanhoj (Jun 30, 2008)

The TU-2 is a chromatic tuner, so I'm not sure whether digital/analog applies in this case. This website, however, seems to indicate that it IS digital. http://www.analogman.com/boss.htm

Scroll down to the section on the TU-2 and it mentions something about a computer chip - I assume that means digital.

Just FYI, I'm a total electronics/pedal noob, as I've only been playing electric guitar for 4 years or so. This is my first pedal board that I'm looking to assemble. I Googled "digital hash" and wasn't able to obtain any useful results (mostly sites on recipes for pot). However, I understand from your post that this "hash" entails excess noise in my signal chain.

My effects will likely be placed in the order that follows: Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner -> MXR Dyna Comp -> Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive -> Dunlop JH-1B Jimi Hendrix Edition Wah -> Boss DD-3 Digital Delay -> Boss CE-5 Chorus Ensemble.

I know for a fact that the MXR is analog, and that the DD-3 Delay, the SD-1 Overdrive, and the CE-5 chorus are all digital. The wah I'm not sure of - although it seems that to obtain wah-like signal modulation an analog circuit should be required... Can anyone more experienced in circuitry comment?

I guess my big question is this: Am I building a board predestined for disaster by using all these digital effects?


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## Farbulous (Dec 8, 2009)

Instead of going out and spending $200 on a PP2 just get the Godlyke powerall: http://www.godlyke.com/Online_Store.php?thiscat=16&=SID

I think I paid $50 and it powers up to 11 pedals. 2000 ma's!

Using the TU-2 to daisy-chain is dangerous, (as I was informed by the reps at both Tom Lee and L&M), especially when you don't know what each of your pedals will be drawing, power-wise. However, since you are only using other Boss pedals, or similar style pedals, the TU-2 should work just fine.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Nohtanhoj said:


> The TU-2 is a chromatic tuner, so I'm not sure whether digital/analog applies in this case. This website, however, seems to indicate that it IS digital. http://www.analogman.com/boss.htm
> 
> Scroll down to the section on the TU-2 and it mentions something about a computer chip - I assume that means digital.
> 
> ...


Pedals that use so-called "bucket brigade" chips, like chorus, flanger, and analog delay pedals, will have an internal clock that steps the delay chip through its paces. Often, that clock will be well within the range of human hearing, and produce an irritating whine if the right sort of filtering is not used.

Digital pedals will have a number of assorted high-frequency clocks on them (or at least divided-down versions of the same overall master clock), that co-ordinate all the different elements, such that they will be "ready" for each other at the right time. If there is memory or sampling involved, then the part of the unit that does something with that memory or sample data has to be ready to receive it, and the memory/sample-input has to be ready when it comes time to feed the data to the thinking part.

Okay, put that info on the back burner for now.

You may have heard of ring modulators. These are circuits that take two signals (which were typically relatively pure tones, back in the days of synthesizers) and output the sum and difference of those two frequencies. So, put in 400hz and 500hz and you get out 100hz and 900hz. The 100hz and 900hz tones are referred to as *sideband products*, and the process that created them is often referred to as *heterodyning*. Normally, heterodyning is considered an unwanted side-effect of bad design or layout, but in the case of ring modulators it is done in a deliberate fashion.

Okay, now back to digital pedals. The various high-frequency clock signals in them will almost always be well about human hearing range. So, even if they produce noise on the power lines, it will be at frequencies we won't hear. However, let us say that pedal A has a 1mhz clock on it, and pedal B has a clock that is supposed to be running at 1mhz, but because of part-to-part differences (*component tolerances*), it is running at 999,000hz. Adding 1mhz and 0.999mhz gets us 1.999mhz, which we won't hear. Subtracting 0.999mhz from 1mhz, however, gets us 1khz, which is squarely in the middle of our hearing.

So, the "problem" with digital pedals, is that spikes on the power lines caused by the clocking of the circuit internally, may, on their own, present absolutely no problem in terms of audible noise. Should there be any risk of heterodyning, though, that "clash of clocks" can result in very audible artifacts on the power lines, not unloike what used to happen in the good old days, when your mom or grandmother would work the sewing machine as you were trying to watch the Stanley Cup on TV. The two devices were sharing the same power line and spikes from the one would produce noise in the other.

As I hope I've been able to make clear, heterodyning is not ALWAYS a problem. If clock A is 2mhz and clock B is 1mhz, then neither sum nor difference will be audible, no matter how uch heterodyning you get. Moreover, there ARE things you can do to stabilize the power lines such that even IF you have potentially audible spikes, the clocks on one pedal are prevented from influencing other pedals.

Noise arising from two or more digital pedals sharing the same power line *can* be a problem, but it can also be *averted* by proper design of power supplies.

Thus ends today's little lesson.:smile::wave:


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## Nohtanhoj (Jun 30, 2008)

Makes sense. I should probably invest in a good power source then, if this noise can arise from an inadequate one.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Your SD-1 isn't digital, it's analog.

Also, try swapping the chorus and delay positions to have chorus 2nd last and the delay last. 

Finally, try putting the wah in front, ahead of the compressor, you might like it better there.


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## Nohtanhoj (Jun 30, 2008)

For future reference, how could I tell that it's analog?

Also, I've done a little bit of research on signal chain and what I've come across is generally: EQ's (compressors, dynamic eq, etc), Distortion, Modulation (phase, wah), Delay, Chorus..

Why would you swap them? (Again, sorry for the noob questions, this is my first pedalboard.)


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Increasingly, it is *not* possible to tell if a pedal is analog or digital simply by the effect _type_, or sometimes even by what it describes itself as being. Line 6 and Digitech, among others, have come out with standalone pedals of traditional categories (overdrives, chorus, autowah, compressor) that are fully digital. Conversely, a number of delay pedals that describe themselves as "analog" are not. The input/output may be analog, but the delay component is a digital chip (usually the PT2399 or PT2395), with filtering added to give it an analog-like tone.

In which case, the simplest way to determine if a pedal is digital or not (for the time being, at least), is to open it up and look for any surface mount chips that are more than 16 pins. If yes, the odds are very good that it is not fully analog. next look up the current consumption of the pedal. If it's more than 15ma or so, and most assuredly if it is more than 40ma, it is in all likelihood digital, since it is rare to find individual effects drawing more than 15-20ma when they are entirely analog-based.

I'm not going to claim these are hard and fast rules, but they are certainly reasonably good estimates.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Nohtanhoj said:


> For future reference, how could I tell that it's analog?
> 
> Also, I've done a little bit of research on signal chain and what I've come across is generally: EQ's (compressors, dynamic eq, etc), Distortion, Modulation (phase, wah), Delay, Chorus..
> 
> Why would you swap them? (Again, sorry for the noob questions, this is my first pedalboard.)


In my experience (and of course someone else's might differ), I like sticking phasers, wahs, envelope filters and similar pedals _in front_ of distortion, because I find they track better that way and you get a more pronounced sweep than if you feed those pedals an already distorted signal. It's all trial and error, really, and what works for you might not work for someone else, but hey, switching pedal positions is super easy and might get you a sound you didn't know you had.


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## Nohtanhoj (Jun 30, 2008)

Fair enough. May as well experiment while you're at it, right?


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