Dead battery?

[Spoonman462]

i always see ppl talking about getting a certain sound by using a dead battery with a certain pedal. but what does that exactly mean? is that using a power supply but with a dead battery in the pedal? or what?

[niftydog]

No, it just means using a dead battery!

A dead battery has a lower voltage output, and the maximum current output is also limited. This simply means you're starving the circuit of what it needs to work as designed, and you essentially get more distortion.

[Spoonman462]

ok, but then how would the pedal even turn on?

or am i just not getting the concept of a "dead battery" at all...?

[JanusZarate]

Originally Posted by Spoonman462

ok, but then how would the pedal even turn on?

or am i just not getting the concept of a "dead battery" at all...?

The battery isn't entirely dead in these scenarios... it's why they usually call it the dying battery effect.

Most pedals work below 9VDC, as batteries put out increasingly less voltage as they're used up.

At some point, there's not enough voltage for the pedal to continue functioning, but what that lower limit actually is will depend on the pedal. Digital pedals, for example, usually have a high upper limit, but a lot of analog distortion pedals will hang in there for quite a while.

The dying battery effect is popular with fuzz pedals - you can get a sputtering, gated, yet significantly distorted sound out of them. Some power supplies can simulate that effect with jacks that have variable voltage outputs (like the "SAG" outputs on the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+).

Some pedals also have knobs to adjust the voltage, which automatically creates that effect. The EHX Germanium OD is an example of a pedal with such a knob.

[bigchiefbc]

Originally Posted by MysticBoo

The battery isn't entirely dead in these scenarios... it's why they usually call it the dying battery effect.

Most pedals work below 9VDC, as batteries put out increasingly less voltage as they're used up.

At some point, there's not enough voltage for the pedal to continue functioning, but what that lower limit actually is will depend on the pedal. Digital pedals, for example, usually have a high upper limit, but a lot of analog distortion pedals will hang in there for quite a while.

The dying battery effect is popular with fuzz pedals - you can get a sputtering, gated, yet significantly distorted sound out of them. Some power supplies can simulate that effect with jacks that have variable voltage outputs (like the "SAG" outputs on the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+).

Some pedals also have knobs to adjust the voltage, which automatically creates that effect. The EHX Germanium OD is an example of a pedal with such a knob.

+1 - I have the Germanium Overdrive, and can very nicely nail the dying battery sound. The range of the VOLTS knob goes from 3 volts to 9.

Also, Dwarfcraft makes a pedal called the Power Struggle that accomplishes this same task, and it even has an expression input.