I've seen some guitar pedals built to do the same thing but some use different voltages.
Does more voltage act like having a wider inched tape and a slower I.P.S?

I was wondering if voltage or the frequency of it helps with the stability or sound of an audio signal when it is processed by the circuits.

Obviously the components do but does the actually electricity feeding the circuit help or hinder?



Thanks

Morning Manic.

Big subject (amongst pedal afficianados anyway!). The industry is bit fixated on 9volts and this is both a curse and a blessing (little bit).
Resticting the supply to 9V places serious limitations on the headroom or maximum, undistorted output of the circuits,. the best you will get is about 2.5V rms giving a headroom of ~+18dB over the (sort of!) pedal standard operating level of -10dBV (0.316V). This is in fact more than good enough for passive guitars and guitar amp inputs but problems can arise with active pups and some FX loops.
But then the very limited performance of the 9V supply is part of the character of some "vintage" pedals. Indeed, peeps often simulate a low battery to get certain effects!

A few companies (cough!) eschew that approach and run the circuits at manlike voltages, +&-15volts and design the pedal to produce consistant effects unhampered by the vaguaries of the PP3!

Dave.

Some boutique FX makers of the synth/circuit-bending variety also offer voltage 'starve' controls (often just a variable pot in series with the battery) so you can get grungy results with analogue or even totally chaotic results with either analogue or digital circuitry

Here are some examples of starvable FX:

www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=971348

Here's an example of a voltage-starved fuzz in action:

www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=n7sr5y-Ec14#!

And here's another classic effect (Dwarfcraft's The Great Destroyer) that demonstrates some of the more extreme chaotic sounds you get from intelligent voltage starving:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCJMl3k-nu8&feature=related


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

dave,

kudos on an excellent explanation! another reason i trust the SoS forum regulars.

cheers,

d

ps: not to slight martin: thanks for the links to the Y/T vids, very interesting!

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"Patsy had the drug tolerance of Keith Richards and the moral rectitude of Brian Jones." - Dr. Walter Bishop, "Fringe"

Thanks Dave. Food for thought there and I don't completely understand what you say.
Its sounds like everything has to fit together and the 9V is the standard which they have set.

Martin - thanks for links. I've always wondered how that beautiful fuzz sound was attained. The bottom end is so warm and doesn't exist in cheap pedals. I always thought it was the germanium transistors that gave that character.

Don't know about a "standard" Manic! I think most pedal manufacturers think musicians will not fork out for or be A'ed to change more than one battery!

The PP3 came about in the mid 1950's to power the new fangled transistor radios. It seems (Wiki) that the only other battery about at the time was a rather specialized 22.5volt camera battery* and 22V was on the limit of the feeble solid state devices (Germanium of course!)of the day.

Note too that for higher drain pedals, multifunction digital devices such as the Korg AX3G, the PP3 would have much too short a life and so a 6 volt supply is employed using the much meatier AA cell.

AFAIK Germanium transistors are no longer in production (good riddance!)Ge diodes are I think. It would therefore be foolish for a pedal peddler to market any device using such obsolete stock.

*Just remembered! The Avo multimeter used one for the X100 resistance range.

Dave.

Wow! Dave, you're a great one for taking me on trips down memory lane!

My very first transistor radio kit used one of those batteries. It was a two transistor MW/LW reflex receiver with that amazing modern development... a ferrite aerial.

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Quote Folderol:

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Wow! Dave, you're a great one for taking me on trips down memory lane!

My very first transistor radio kit used one of those batteries. It was a two transistor MW/LW reflex receiver with that amazing modern development... a ferrite aerial.

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Heh! Later on the Quality People Hacker used two 9Volt but bigger batteries (what WAS the type number?!) and a split supply, transformerless output stage. IIRC it put out nearly TWO watts!

Dave.

Quote ef37a:

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Quote Folderol:

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Wow! Dave, you're a great one for taking me on trips down memory lane!

My very first transistor radio kit used one of those batteries. It was a two transistor MW/LW reflex receiver with that amazing modern development... a ferrite aerial.

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Heh! Later on the Quality People Hacker used two 9Volt but bigger batteries (what WAS the type number?!) and a split supply, transformerless output stage. IIRC it put out nearly TWO watts!

Dave.

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As an ex-Hacker tester I can tell you that the Mini-Herald used 2xPP7 and the Herald and Sovereign used 2xPP9. Commonest problem was the AF117s going S/C collector to can. Usual solution these days is just to cut off the can leg! Sovereign V2 went all silicon apart from O/P transistors (AC187-AC188) and you're unlikely to have a problems with them.

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

My first guitar amp my dad and I cobbled together froma a "portable" radio. It used 2 KT66 vales for the power section of the amp, so it was ideal for a guitar amp.
And in the leather bound wooden case was... a lead acid battery (rechargeable of course) that rne the whole thing.
We gutted the radio but and hooked the resulting mains powered mp up to a genuine ex RAF Tannoy 10" speaker.
I know it was a Tannoy, because the front of the open backed case had "Tannoy" cut out of the front panel fretwork style, with the speaker contained in a coarse woven black cloth bag behind it!

About 1955/6. My pickup was a pair of throat mics from an RAF pilots helmet stuck inside the body of my acoustic guitar. And it worked!

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Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!