Inputs and outputs, stereo or mono

dfish · Post by **dfish** » 21 Jul 2009, 13:22

I'm getting ready to build my first pedal. It's a simple fuzz box. I'm guessing the input and output should both be mono. Is that right? I appreciate answers to this obviously newbie question. Thanks.

Dr Tony Balls · Post by **Dr Tony Balls** » 21 Jul 2009, 13:45

usually the way you do this is that you use a stereo jack on the input, so that you can wire the negative battery terminal to the ring terminal of the jack, and ground the sleeve terminal (and of course wire the tip terminal to the signal input). This way, with no cable inserted into the jack, the battery is not connected to ground, and thus not being used. The battery only connects when you plug a cable into the pedal's input, and so the jack works like a switch to turn on or off the battery.

The output jack can be a mono jack with sleeve wired to ground and tip wired to signal output.

Check it out:

http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/StompboxWiring/

dfish · Post by **dfish** » 21 Jul 2009, 15:01

Thanks very much. That clears it up for me perfectly.

Dr Tony Balls · Post by **Dr Tony Balls** » 21 Jul 2009, 15:06

no prob. when i first started building stuff that one confused the shit out of me. that and how to get a status LED working.

anyway the beavis audio site is GREAT at explaining the simple stuff that no one else seems to bother with.