Question about pedal power and supply

[toomanyslurpees]

I’m one of those bass players that will usually only have a tuner at a gig, I still use an AC adapter cause I’m cheap and I hate buying batteries. My acoustic preamp is probably the only thing that I put a battery in besides my active basses...

 

[KevInDaBassment]

Haven't powered a pedal with a 9v in about 8 years. I carry two power adapters in my bag in case one goes kaput....so far, haven't had problems. For me, the 9v isn't that great of a solution in a pinch since some of the pedals require more than a clip or twist to get to the compartment. For me, I can take or leave the 9v option.

 

[packhowitzer]

The only batteries I have are the ones in my active bass and my wireless transmitter. Even my DI is phantom powered.

 

[agedhorse]

Interesting and helpful responses!

As a follow-up, how many of you have had a pedal or bass damaged by a leaky battery?

 

[gjohnson441496]

I use a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus power supply because I don't want to rely on 9v's. I only use a handful of pedals that I switch out for guitar and bass. It's convenient for me to have the Voodoo Lab plugged in and ready for use.

Another thing about pedals is that pedal makers for the most part are still in the dark ages by still making the battery compartment unreasonably difficult to access. Blows my mind.

I had a NPD today and glued a rubber gasket to the bottom of my Big Muff to keep it from sliding. The battery compartment is on the bottom...

 

[packhowitzer]

Interesting and helpful responses!

As a follow-up, how many of you have had a pedal or bass damaged by a leaky battery?

I've never had a bass damaged by a leaking battery, but I've had a few pedals get damaged from leaks. My small pedalboard has a few always on effects (like a HPF) and I use a power supply with it and never batteries. My DI is always phantom powered.

I have also been intrigued by the latest offering from NS Design: in short it seems that plugging in this bass for about a minute will yield 16 hours of active electronics performance time.

NS Design announces the new NXTa Active Series

Also I believe the newer Shure wireless transmitters use a cell phone style charger (I assume with a lithium battery) instead of AAs. I would strongly consider the Shure if I didn't already have a perfectly serviceable Line6 G50 (that I keep fed with rechargeable AAs [I get about 8 hours of playing per charge]).

I also have one of the first generation Fender VG strats that uses 4 AA batteries to power the on-board processor. I'm not sure if it's an issue with all of them or just mine, but I can't rely on more than a few hours of playing time from it - even with fresh batteries. i.e., I could never rely on it in a live setting.

As far as effects go, the last time I relied on batteries was probably in the early 90s. In my opinion there are just too many options for power supplies and pedal boards and the like to mess with them. And frankly, if I'm already going to be plugging in my amp to AC power, I can make accommodations to plug in my effects as well.

 

[Wasnex]

For some strange reason, Line6 requires a 9V AC @ 2A for some units. Of course, they also use a standard barrel plug. You’d think that they would have used a different format to avoid confusion.

I have a DIY Aion L5 preamp pedal, based on the Moog Lab Series, that uses this power supply. They convert to +/-15V DC on the PCB.

Lab Series L5 Preamp - DIY PCB Project - Aion Electronics

I just bought a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power AC a few weeks ago. Four 9V outlets and two 12V outlets...use any combination of four simultaneously. The 9V only outlets are rated to 600mA and the 9/12V outlets are rated to 1,200mA.

The Pedal Power AC allowed me to get rid of four AC to AC wall warts. I am using it to run two MicroEQs and a MicroVerb from Alesis, and also my old X-Wire XR905 receiver. To my surprise, the Pedal Power AC seems to have improved the S/N ratio of my rig a bit.

I bought "U-Make-It" plugs from Voodoo Lab as there were no off the shelf cables that met my needs.
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Here is the menu for the premade cables.
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[rufus.K]

I haven't had a battery compartment besmirched by a leaky battery in a pedal.
I have had the battery box on my Stingray totally ruined by a leaky battery and had to replace the box and leads... corroded right down the wire about an inch...

 

[Al Kraft]

Interesting and helpful responses!

As a follow-up, how many of you have had a pedal or bass damaged by a leaky battery?

I change out batteries on a regular schedule and honestly can't recall the last time I saw a 9 volt leak even past the date stamped on it, however, even top name brand AA's and AAA's fail with surprising frequency IME.

I'm a minimal pedal/effects user so for me I only have batteries in my bass, tuner, and those stand-by devices I have at the ready for emergency use during a gig (Countryman 85 and BDDI). I find that with technologies like the 1Spot (for the one or two things I might plug in like a HPF or compressor) there is rarely if ever a reason to need to go to battery power for some type of power supply induced/introduced noise issue. My Diamond Compressor doesn't even offer battery power as an option.

 

[byacey]

I got tired of the batteries in my wireless belt pack crapping out at the most inopportune times, so I built up an AC line powered regulated power supply to power the belt pack via a convenient DC power cable. For me, dead batteries are a thing of the past now.

Edit: I shouldn't sound so cocky; some of my ideas never caught on, like the 1 band graphic equalizer, ultra low Q with a 20Hz to 20KHz passband, centered at 10KHz.

 

[bucephylus]

There have been a few discussions about pedals and pedalboards lately and it SEEMS as though most players aren't really using batteries anymore but instead are using either a stand alone power supply or a multi-output (and sometimes multi-voltage) power supply integrated into their pedalboard.

These days, how important is it that a pedal operate from a 9V battery (acknowledging that some simply can not) and is it worth paying more for a pedal that can support battery operation (even if it means <20 hours of battery life)?

As a follow-up, how many of you guys would suggest that the days of using 9V batteries is coming to an end?

I'm looking for comments from a player's perspective, one who uses amps and cabinets and not somebody who mostly uses them at home with their studio.

Hey Andy, I’m using a PedalTrain Nano+ with a CIOKS power supply at EVERY gig. I don’t believe there is a single battery in any of the gadgets.

 

[Aidenn7]

Whatever makes the pedals sound better is what you use.. and always bring extra.. A funny thing is old fuzz pedals require batteries.. one spot is great, but it isn't isolated.. The power supplies often time can't power all the different pedal. Then you get into space issues with wall warts.

we have issues no matter what.. most pedals don't need batteries.. to me.. If a pedal need a battery I'd just do an adapter or rig a quick change external battery mount...

 

[james condino]

One potential problem to solve with a 9-V power jack on a bass amp would be ground loops. And nothing is ever "just do it" when you have to consider safety and reliability.

Can you elaborate on this?

 

[byacey]

What ground loop, and what safety / reliability issues?

 

[Tnavis]

I basically run with three different options; my full board with a T-Rex Chameleon power supply, my "mini" board with a Pedal Train Volto 2, or no pedals at all and my TC Electroncis Unitune clip on tuner (which is, of course, battery powered). I got really annoyed with unplugging pedals just to make sure I wasn't draining batteries, and after I switched to using 3M Dual Lock velcro on my boards, it became a huge pain to actually get the damn pedals off of the board when I wanted to change batteries (although the pedals themselves never move during transit). I'm OCD enough about making sure everything is working before a gig that I was always tempted to rotate batteries out of my pedals and basses, and the constant switching of batteries got to be too much.

 

[BogeyBass]

Interesting and helpful responses!

As a follow-up, how many of you have had a pedal or bass damaged by a leaky battery?

Of course me and my unique situations lol.

I had a vintage Morley wah that used 2 batteries. And was stored to long with them inside and needed new leads installed and one hell of a ugly stain into the case.

Had a mxr envelope followed filter pedal and a leaky battery that took that board out pretty good.

Most battery problems I had was common battery clip failures and needed replacement. I'd say the boss and similar older Ibanez style cases are good designs to protect from leakage. But if you use battery's often those clips break easily from having to really squeeze the thing in there. And pull it out all the time.

Mainly the vinyl style clips leads will break inside the vinyl from flexing . Or other pedals the lead connection to the boards break. The actual cast plastic ones are pretty tough. But sometimes won't fit in the boss style compartment. Dunlop seems to use the good hard plastic ones. And also has extra holes in the board the wires wrap through then gets soldered.

Aside from leakage. Some pedals or various equipment use same barrel jacks as pedals but are AC or some use 18 to 24 volts and higher. Plug one of those into you 9 volt pedal and...poof

I never had the pleasure but seen it many times with a pedal board set up and with various barrel jacks laying around. It can be a easy mistake.

If a pedal had a bridge diode on the supply jack and a simple regulator. Pretty much AC or DC could be plugged in. And likewise the common reversed or non reversed 9 volt DC be fine as well.

Pretty much a pedal that could use ac or dc from 9 to 18 volts, any polarity

 

[Nickweissmusic]

There have been a few discussions about pedals and pedalboards lately and it SEEMS as though most players aren't really using batteries anymore but instead are using either a stand alone power supply or a multi-output (and sometimes multi-voltage) power supply integrated into their pedalboard.

These days, how important is it that a pedal operate from a 9V battery (acknowledging that some simply can not) and is it worth paying more for a pedal that can support battery operation (even if it means <20 hours of battery life)?

As a follow-up, how many of you guys would suggest that the days of using 9V batteries is coming to an end?

I'm looking for comments from a player's perspective, one who uses amps and cabinets and not somebody who mostly uses them at home with their studio.

I LOVE battery flexibility, and have almost completely shifted my home and office to rechargeable batteries. Lots of outdoor gigs and resorts, banquet halls, etc, so rarely do I have power sources set up and waiting for me. I also play several different instruments, and several different genres, so I don’t have one pedal board for every gig. I do have a board, but often have gigs where I just need one or 2 pedals, where battery flexibility saves a lot of time and gnashing of teeth. In fact, I seek out battery powered gear whenever possible.

I am 41 years old though, so hardly on the bleeding edge of tech fashion. More like bleeding gums.

 

[Nickweissmusic]

Interesting and helpful responses!

As a follow-up, how many of you have had a pedal or bass damaged by a leaky battery?

Never. I’ve had to replace several battery connectors over the years, but never a damaging leak to speak of from a 9V. One of my greatest moments was replacing the connector on my $1500 Godin guitar, only to find out the battery was bad out of the box. Well, the $.40 replacement connector is still going strong 5 years later or so

 

[BogeyBass]

Less noise with battery's in the old days. Using individual 9 volt wall wart adapters per pedal Was noisy.

To be successful with multiple pedals you needed to use a single wall wart. But old school 1amp or 2 amp wall warts were huge!! And expensive.

Boss sold a 2 amp wall wart and a snake to power many pedals.
The recommended using a tuner or the noise suppressor/ gate pedal to be first inline.

Those pedals idk if they still do had 2 power jacks. You plugged that massive wall wart into the tuner and the second power jack on the pedal was for the snake to plugin and go to the other pedals

 

[SLO Surfer]

Interesting and helpful responses!

As a follow-up, how many of you have had a pedal or bass damaged by a leaky battery?

I have. Bass and pedal.