Kill switch problem

stratovani · #1 07-12-2009, 10:12 AM

I just picked up a new (well, used, actually!) bass amp yesterday (Yorkville XM100) to play in church on Sunday mornings. The guy who owned the PA took it out of the church a couple of days ago, due to issues which I'm not privy to. Anyways, my bass has a kill switch which I installed, so I can shut off the bass and preserve my volume settings. When we had a PA and I ran my bass directly into the mixing board the switch worked silently, but now running it right into a bass amp it makes a loud popping sound when I turn it on and off, which is obviously very annoying to everyone up on the stage. My question is, does anyone here have a solution to this problem? A resistor, capacitor, or whatever?

dmusic148 · #2 07-12-2009, 10:22 AM

Did you install the switch in such a way that it simply opens the circuit when used? You will probably find it works a lot better if it shorts the output, instead of opening it.

**line6man** · #3 07-12-2009, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmusic148

Did you install the switch in such a way that it simply opens the circuit when used? You will probably find it works a lot better if it shorts the output, instead of opening it.

I think he is talking about switch click, not "open guitar cable noise".

FWIW, this is the correct wiring of a killswitch:

You could try putting resistors across the switch terminals to reduce the switch click.

walterw · #4 07-12-2009, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by line6man

I think he is talking about switch click, not "open guitar cable noise".

FWIW, this is the correct wiring of a killswitch:

You could try putting resistors across the switch terminals to reduce the switch click.

why would it need to even be that complicated? a simple two-pole on-off that connects the hot straight to ground would do the trick, and likely not have any noise like disconnecting the hot even momentarily might create.

MIJ-VI · #5 07-12-2009, 07:53 PM

A 'make-before-break' switch design..?

UncleFluffy · #6 07-12-2009, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by walterw

why would it need to even be that complicated? a simple two-pole on-off that connects the hot straight to ground would do the trick, and likely not have any noise like disconnecting the hot even momentarily might create.

That's fine for a passive setup, but an active setup would require the 2-way switch to avoid shorting the preamp output.

walterw · #7 07-14-2009, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UncleFluffy

That's fine for a passive setup, but an active setup would require the 2-way switch to avoid shorting the preamp output.

i've wondered about that. EMG pickups do fine when wired up in jazz bass config, which shorts the pickups right to ground when the volumes are turned off.

it would make sense to put a proper shorting kill-switch after the pickups but before the preamp, so that it shorts the preamp's input rather than its output. at that point, there would be no reason to break the hot connection, as just shorting it would still give you instant silence.

UncleFluffy · #8 07-14-2009, 12:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by walterw

it would make sense to put a proper shorting kill-switch after the pickups but before the preamp

Yes, that sounds like it would make sense.

stratovani · #9 07-15-2009, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by walterw

why would it need to even be that complicated? a simple two-pole on-off that connects the hot straight to ground would do the trick, and likely not have any noise like disconnecting the hot even momentarily might create.

That's what I wound up doing. An SPDT miniswitch, input to the middle lug, one output from one of the outside lugs, the other lug to ground. Works like a charm, nice and quiet.

Thanks to everyone here for their input. Hopefully if in the future someone needs info on a kill switch the search function will refer to this thread.