I'm designing an 8 loop relay based programmable pedal switcher.
16 jacks plus other i/o takes up a huge amount of enclosure real estate. It occurred to me that perhaps I could use a single stereo jack for and a "y" cable for each loop instead of two ts jacks and regular ts cables since this would cut in half the number of jacks I have to fit into the enclosure.
is the reason you don't see this approach because having the send/return share a ground causes a ground loop?
I see that Disaster Area did something like this with the SmartLoop, but the recommended setup shows the Y cable split between two pedals, am I right that that is to separate their grounds?
https://www.disasterareaamps.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/SMARTLoop-Manual-v1.0.pdf
Thanks for any advice.
Quote from: Elegost on May 15, 2019, 11:03:55 PM
is the reason you don't see this approach because having the send/return share a ground causes a ground loop?
I would expect it's because you would need a bunch of Y cables, and most consumers would want to use regular instrument patch cables. If you do go with stereo jacks and Y cables, you can avoid ground loops in the way you build the Y cables.
You can absolutely do that. The probable reason you don't see it is the "uncommonness" of guitarists having TRS Y cables (and added expense). The Disaster Area unit is meant for supporting stereo loops where it would be weird to have separate channels on separate Y cables - more sense to have in L&R on one Y cables and out L&R on another. It's not about grounding.
Quote from: willienillie on May 15, 2019, 11:15:51 PM
I would expect it's because you would need a bunch of Y cables, and most consumers would want to use regular instrument patch cables. If you do go with stereo jacks and Y cables, you can avoid ground loops in the way you build the Y cables.
Should i just leave the ground on one side of the Y cable floating?
You could, but ground loops are rarely a concern with pedal circuits.
Generally, if you were using separate send and returns the grounds of all the jacks would be connected together, so as far as ground loops are concerned I can't see any difference compared to a combined send/return and Y cables.
Awesome, thanks folks. I'm doing it with insert jacks then. I have to make custom cables anyway anyway and cutting the number of jacks in half will make the enclosure much less of a rat's nest!