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I want to make a switch pot footpedal accessible


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Ok new to this forum - but have looked around awhile.

I have a Roland Blues Cube 60 that i love. My complaint is that on the clean channel there is a 3 way pot switch on the control panel that says

"Normal-Crunch I -Crunch II". The normal is for all clean, and the other two increase the overdrive a bit. They sound great- and they are different sounds compared to the second overdrive channel.

What i want to do is make a foot switch to allow access to the Crunch I and Crunch II settings. Is this possible. I know my way around a solder gun, and am not afraid to get into the chassis and get down to business if someone has any insight-suggestions-or experience at this please let me know- Thanks

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It's going to be a bit tricky - Weber makes a relay board that you could use to do the switching, although it might take more than one board, and you'll have to figure out how to pwer them. You most definitely do not want to run the signal outside the amp chassis to a footswitch, so get used to the idea of remote switching. If you've got a schematic, I can probably help you figure something out. The most popular choices for amp switching are optoisolators (Vactrols and such) and JFETs or MOSFETs, but solid state relays are getting more attention recently. It really depends on signal levels at the switch to say which is likely to work best. This page may help give you some ideas:

Audio Switch Notes

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OK, this is not amp related and like Lovecraft mentioned, you don't want to mess with the kind of power that cycles around in a guitar amp outside the amp. But there are some useful ideas here. Remember those little chorus boxes put out by Tom Sholtz of Boston fame? They had two clean channels and two distortion channels, problem was, you had to stop playing, reach over and slide the switch to change channels! So I asked my father to modify the unit by adding a footswitch. It was a BIG success and now I can cycle thru the four channels without having to stop playing. Anyway, my father made some schematics and shows how he modified my Rockman with "sequential electronic switching". Don't ask me to translate his schematics I only know how to solder basic switches, pots etc. Perhaps there is something here that can be used to modify your amp in a similar fashion.

Click on "Projects --> Guitar Effects --> Switching / scroll to bottom and click "Sequential Electronic Switching".

http://members.shaw.ca/roma/

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Southpa, your Dad is an absolute gem! That's about as simple and elegant as any switching system I've ever seen. That gives me some new ideas to try out - thanks so much for reminding me about his page, I'll have to check back there more often.

Yeah, I'm proud of my Dad. :D Did ya check out his old car Scrapbook? Just a little side attraction for his website.

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I think the concern was not just the voltages but also the signal....

The voltage is probably less of a concern actually...you could likely run another low voltage circuit off the power supply to control the switching....

it'd likely be safer to have it completely seperate maybe running off a 9v but probably not necessary

The signal however would be degraded if you ran it to a switch and back....

In any case....you'd have switches onboard the amp probably powered by some form of low voltage circuit and controlled remotely by the foot pedal.....essentially a switch controlling another switch

At least I think this is what every one else is aiming for...

I've never considered an electronic sequential switching circuit....that'd be some fun mental gymnastics...

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