Question:
hey there
i was wondering if anyone out there has had any experience with the DC Brick.
Im thinking of getting it and is just in front of the Voodoo labs pedal power 2 right now mainly coz its cheaper..
n e thoughts appreciated....
Answer:
I have the Voodoo labs power supply and Godlyke powerall. I can tell you that both are good units and I do not have any hum in my sound. Sorry I can't give any input on the DC power brick. But all of the power units will be capable of powering your pedals just fine. It's gotta be better than using a wall wart to power multiple pedals that was designed only to power one pedal.
Answer:
Originally Posted by edddd hey there
i was wondering if anyone out there has had any experience with the DC Brick.
Im thinking of getting it and is just in front of the Voodoo labs pedal power 2 right now mainly coz its cheaper..
n e thoughts appreciated....
I use a DC brick for my pedals--works great.
Answer:
what pedals do u power up??
how long are the leads that connect to the pedals?
Answer:
Originally Posted by edddd what pedals do u power up??
how long are the leads that connect to the pedals?
See pics for the pedals, kinda messy since I took them out from the board and haven't got a chance to tidy them up together.
The leads are about 2 ft long.
Answer:
You know what's better than the DC brick? The Visual Sound 1Spot. You can power up to five pedals, and if you get an extra daisy chain thing, 10, for about a third of the price of the DC brick.
Answer:
Originally Posted by Mattlock You know what's better than the DC brick? The Visual Sound 1Spot. You can power up to five pedals, and if you get an extra daisy chain thing, 10, for about a third of the price of the DC brick. 1Spot=great stuff.
I had to use one once when I was playing with single effects for a show that didn't have enough room for my amp. Just plugged 'em in and went.
Answer:
You probably don't need info this in depth, but I'm about to give a mini lesson in why special multi-pedal power supplies are sometimes better than conventional adapters (or batteries) and why they're sometimes over rated.
Ok, first thing's first. When you plug a normal cord into a wall, you get AC. What this means is that the voltage is oscillating between a negative and positve voltage. In the US, it does this 60 times a second with an RMS voltage between 110 and 120.
To power an effect, first of all you need a much lower voltage, and secondly you need a steady, DC voltage.
The first half of this is done with a transformer. This is essentially just two wires wrapped around a common metal core. This is one place where some noise can be introduced into your effects chain. Transformers create magnetic feilds (as do all circuits) which can interfere with your pedals & pickups, and they pick up interference from other magnetic feilds.
Ok, so now that the power goes through the transformer you get a managable voltage, closer to 9v, but usually higher (sometimes as high as 15v in an adapter labeled as 9v). But it's still AC. To convert into DC, you have to rectify it. Don't worry about how this is done for now. If you know what a sine wave looks like, great. If not get out that TI-8x you had to buy for high school and plot one.
There are two ways to rectify - full wave & half wave. Full wave takes the bottom half of that sine wave and makes a positive mirror image of it ( y=abs(sin(x)) will give you this in your calculator). Half wave rectification just chops off the bottom half.
Now you'll notice that neither of these look very smooth. A DC power supply should be a straight line, right? What we have is still pretty squigly. If you start with a 60Hz power supply like in the US, and rectify it, you'll get all kinds of nasty audible noise from harmonics that are added. You'll get a loud 120 Hz from a full wave rectifier but not really anything at 60 Hz. With HW, you get less 120Hz, but keep the 60 Hz and add more nasty harmonics.
So how do we get rid of harmonics so that our pedals don't hum? Filtering
A conventional wall wart, sold for something other than an audio device will have insufficient filtering in it. If you've ever tried to use an adapter from something like an answering machine for guitar fx, you'll find it's extremely noisy. Guitar fx adapters have better filtering. I'm a fan of the Danelectro 200mA 9.6v "hum-free" adapter. It's very quite, especially if you don't have any pedals in your chain that are noisy to begin with.
However, things like the DC brick will have the best filtering. It's not quite as good as a regulated supply like you would use in a lab, but it's pretty darn good and will be the quietest adapter you can use.
Also, these PS's have voltage regulators in them to maintain a steady voltage. A conventional wallwart will have a high or lower voltage depending on how many pedals are being powered by it.
Plus there's some protection in there in from short circuiting the power supply which could otherwise damage the trasnformer & regulators & rectifier. And the transformer is sheilded from picking up and/or generating noise.
Also, some DC power supplies out there ommit the transformer all together, but this is uncommon and pointless.
So if you want clean, virtually noise free power, something like the DC brick is the way to go.
However, if you only have a few pedals which are generally quiet anyway, you can get by just fine & spend less money on conventional fx adapters and batteries.
Answer:
I have a Pinnacle pedal board. It may not be what you're looking for, but it does come in handy. It has the DC built into it, and it has everything you need to get going. I haven't had any problems with it. Just thought I'd suggest it.
Answer:
I began using a DC Brick on my board to power my pedals. and just recently switched to the Visual Sound 1Spot, after visiting with Bob Weil and chatting about the differences between the two. Simply put, I find the 1Spot to be much cleaner on the board (daisy chain vs individual cables), I can use a smaller surge protector, and I find it's better regulated power. My DC Brick is now on permanent backup duty in the pedal board case. I highly recommend the 1Spot, both for space and cost.
Answer:
As said, I would also highly recommend the Visual Sound 1Spot. It works just as well, is a good bit cheaper, is smaller then anything else, and it is cleaner due to all plugs coming off the one main one. Overall by far the best bang for the buck out there.