A while back I asked for ideas on boosting my acoustic pickup's output enough for rhythm and lead. The original thought was to use a second preamp that would be always on, to give enough clean signal, then boost with my microamp for leads.
Someone on the forum suggested leaving the microamp on all the time at lead volume, but putting something like J Everman's "The Pot" in front of it to quiet things down for rhythm.
I like the idea of something passive, but I want to be able to turn the LED on when the "pot" box is off, so I can see when I'm at solo volume -- how would I wire a 3pdt switch to do this? Also, do I need to use a 9V to light the LED, or could I use a AA, with the appropriate resistor? Thanks, all.
Peter
You can see the 3pdt switch here of something I recently completed. The LED is wired to light when the "effect" is off. Mine is actually just a patch bay with a mute switch. When the signal is going through the box, the LED is on. When I mute the signal, the LED goes off.
Anyway, basically what you do is if you alread have a switch wired to have the LED on when the effect is on, desolder the + lead from the LED and solder it to the pole on the other side of the resistor.
https://webspace.utexas.edu/woodas/Pics/mutebox/SMuteBox%20073.JPG
http://analogalchemy.com/pedals/ledtrick.gif
You may find a volume pedal more versatile. I use an AMZ MosFet booster and a volume pedal with my acoustic pickup, and it works quite well.
Kerry M
Thanks, everyone -- I appreciate the help. Kerry, I thought about using a volume pedal, but I want to keep the size of my pedal board down -- sometimes I feel like I have (*gasp*) too many pedals, although it's jsut a handful.
Any thoughts on using an AA battery instead of a 9V -- this way I could use a 1590A box and keep it even smaller.
Thanks again.
Peter