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how safe/unsafe for pedals is a voltage starver

Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 5:50 pm
by pigmaker
my friend gave me one of these, which was pretty cool

http://www.musicianyou.com/articles/dan ... tro-review

it lets you starve the voltage going to a pedal with a dial, 3 volts to 9 volts.

obvious application here is boutique fuzzes, where im pretty sure i wont be damaging anything.

other pedals though - i'm not so sure about (all my pedals are analog - i'll state that up front)

anyone have/heard a horror story trying something like this? certain types of pedals this shouldnt be tried on?

Re: how safe/unsafe for pedals is a voltage starver

Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 5:58 pm
by Bellyheart
It's fine. It varies the volts from the peak to less. Can't hurt it by giving it less power. More doe...that may do something...

Re: how safe/unsafe for pedals is a voltage starver

Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 7:08 pm
by friendship
You'll be fine. It may not do anything noticeable/useful on some types of effects; dirt is where you're really going to reap the benefits of voltage starving. And what delicious rewards ye shall reap.

Re: how safe/unsafe for pedals is a voltage starver

Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 9:26 pm
by chaseblissaudio
Yep, your good. A pedal like mine has a microprocessor, which will just shut off below 5V... but there is some pretty wacky stuff that happens in that 5.5V to 7V range...

Re: how safe/unsafe for pedals is a voltage starver

Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 9:39 pm
by pigmaker
awesome...thanks guys

tomorrow is the day to record guitars.

dan electrode + ? fuzz + feedback looper = ?????

Re: how safe/unsafe for pedals is a voltage starver

Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 2:09 am
by rfurtkamp
Yea, the rule I've always used is if it ran off batteries by design, you can starve it (because a battery starves the device as it dies itself).

May be good, may not. Never know!

Digital stuff is less fun to starve but sometimes, even that gets fun. Headroom starts suffering and DAC gets wonky on some of them.