Powering pedals

[johnd]

My friend leant me his Voodoo Lab power supply along with some pedals while I get to grips with playing my Washburn, the idea being I could see which effects I want to use.

I was looking it up and it sells for about £150 ($200-250 in the US I guess), which is a heck of a lot for a power supply.

What is so darned good about this, and why as an aspiring electric player would I pay that much when I can get a simple splitter for £15 or something a little more robust for £30?

Is it simply pro gear, the way you can pay £300 for a delay pedal but most of us would be advised to spend £75?

[terrapin]

The main advantage is that each of the inputs on the Pedal Power is individually buffered for low noise, and you have the benefit of running pedals at 18 volts instead of 9 which really improves the sound of SOME pedals. It also mounts easily and cleanly to a pedalboard and eliminates alot of power cord runs.

[J.R. Rogers]

Yes - What Terrapin said. There is quite a difference in noise between using an isolated power supply and simply daisy chaining pedals off of one power supply. I use the T-Rex Chameleon which gives you a mix of 9v, 12v, and 18v isolated outputs, and will even power a 12v AC pedal. Each output provides 300ma so you can still daisy chain a lot of pedals off of each port if you want. I've found that some pedals are noisier than others and it's best to give them their own bank and daisy chain the quieter pedals.

[redir]

I bought a cheap Joyo one over a year ago and it's still working.

[moon]

Rechargeable batteries work fine for me with half-a-dozen or so pedals.

[terrapin]

Originally Posted by moon

Rechargeable batteries work fine for me with half-a-dozen or so pedals.

I actually think some pedals (Fuzz for instance) sound better with batteries (especially dying batteries) than they do with a consistent power supply. Has to do with increased Sag I think.

[J.R. Rogers]

Yeah... and they have adapters to emulate the sag in a battery. I think the Voodoo Labs power supply has "sag" on some of the outputs, too.



http://www.thegigrig.com/acatalog/Vi...S2.html#SID=24

[ricdoug]

Originally Posted by moon

Rechargeable batteries work fine for me with half-a-dozen or so pedals.

+1 for me. Ric