I've been thinking about this project for a month or two and I'm getting close to finally starting to collect the necessary parts and start construction. I'm open to any suggestions on this project!
My goal is to make a modular audio fx rack to use during music production sessions. Basically it will just be a series of homebrewed guitar pedals, designed in such a way that I can easily house and rearrange them. I'm sure I can get more specialized and powerful effects through software and pre-built products... but I want the experience and satisfaction of being able to use my own custom-built gear.
Onwards!
On each end of the rack (probably gonna be a box a few feet long about the same size as a two by four board) there will be a 1/4" TRS jack... and then on the rack itself will be a series of slots that you can attach an FX box to.
Each 'slot' will have a 1/4" male plug of a short patch cable sticking out of the board, a 1/4" female slot of another patch cable going into it, and a 9v power jack. (I suppose the board could just have both plugs sticking out, and then the fx module have two jacks instead...)
So then each fx box (somewhere in the neighborhood of the size of a box of kitchen matches) will have the reverse of that configuration. And 1/4" patch cables will just daisy chain one or more effect boxes down the rack into the next FX module slot until you plug the output of your chain into your audio interface.
The idea being that you can just pop an fx module box off, move it to where you want it in the rack, and pop it back on. All the fx boxes I've seen plans for so far run off 9vDC. So I think I can probably have a few FX modules running on a single AC > 9vDC wall wart. I'll start looking into that.
Also, I plan on making these modules out of clear and colored plastic, so all the fun innards will be on display! I've been looking into basic wave generation and I've found some nifty circuits online that I can modify to create my own very basic tone generators. So I can have that running at the input end of the rack, run it through all these home made fx.. and then record it into Ableton. I could also use Ableton to generate the initial sound, route that out through this rack, and then back into Ableton for recording.
I'm open to any type of effect that anyone might know how to build, or can even find a diagram for.
I will post what I find as well and what I plan on building.
Attached is a basic sketch of what I'm picturing.... (which for some reason is being rotated counterclockwise upon upload...)
My goal is to make a modular audio fx rack to use during music production sessions. Basically it will just be a series of homebrewed guitar pedals, designed in such a way that I can easily house and rearrange them. I'm sure I can get more specialized and powerful effects through software and pre-built products... but I want the experience and satisfaction of being able to use my own custom-built gear.
Onwards!
On each end of the rack (probably gonna be a box a few feet long about the same size as a two by four board) there will be a 1/4" TRS jack... and then on the rack itself will be a series of slots that you can attach an FX box to.
Each 'slot' will have a 1/4" male plug of a short patch cable sticking out of the board, a 1/4" female slot of another patch cable going into it, and a 9v power jack. (I suppose the board could just have both plugs sticking out, and then the fx module have two jacks instead...)
So then each fx box (somewhere in the neighborhood of the size of a box of kitchen matches) will have the reverse of that configuration. And 1/4" patch cables will just daisy chain one or more effect boxes down the rack into the next FX module slot until you plug the output of your chain into your audio interface.
The idea being that you can just pop an fx module box off, move it to where you want it in the rack, and pop it back on. All the fx boxes I've seen plans for so far run off 9vDC. So I think I can probably have a few FX modules running on a single AC > 9vDC wall wart. I'll start looking into that.
Also, I plan on making these modules out of clear and colored plastic, so all the fun innards will be on display! I've been looking into basic wave generation and I've found some nifty circuits online that I can modify to create my own very basic tone generators. So I can have that running at the input end of the rack, run it through all these home made fx.. and then record it into Ableton. I could also use Ableton to generate the initial sound, route that out through this rack, and then back into Ableton for recording.
I'm open to any type of effect that anyone might know how to build, or can even find a diagram for.
I will post what I find as well and what I plan on building.
Attached is a basic sketch of what I'm picturing.... (which for some reason is being rotated counterclockwise upon upload...)
