I'm trying to use my pedals when playing my acoustic or my electric. It would seem like I would need an ABY box at the end of the chain. But I'd rather not have to unplug/plug in my acoustic/electric when switching guitars. So I thought I'd use an ABY box at the beginning of the chain as well. I've attached a PDF showing how I think I should hook up the pedals. Can someone weigh in on this and let me know if this will work? I tried it at my last gig and I couldn't get things to work. My acoustic goes to the board and my electric goes to my amp.

Also, it seems like when I plug my acoustic straight into the board, or with just one effect, I get a much stronger signal than if it goes through the entire change. Is this something common? I'd like to run both guitars through the whole chain of pedals.

Thanks,
Matt

Attached Images

Pedalboard.jpg (43.0 KB, 10 views)

Frankly, I would use a separate pedal board for your acoustic. Things get too confusing. The setup is possible with 2 a/b/y switches, but it's really easy to get it mixed up live and sound like crap. A small pedal board direct into the PA would be best for the acoustic IMHO. Also easier to set up.

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Stage Guitars: '80s Thin line LP Custom, '70 LP Standard, '83 Squier Black Headstock Strat w/ Dan Torres pickups, '59 Black Danelectro DC, sometimes others.

Pedal Board: Nady UHF 10 -> TU2 -> Rocktron Big Crush -> 70s MXR Phase 100 -> Cry Baby -> Bad Monkey -> Early '80s Rat -> Early '80s Ibanez CS 9 -> Ibanez DE 7 -> Behringer Dr 100 Stereo Reverb

Stage amps: '63 Blonde Tremolux w/ two original 2X10 cabinets with a '60 Ampeg Rocket/18 watt VTB Marshall clone/ Epi VJ into a Mashall 1965A

Frankly, I would use a separate pedal board for your acoustic. Things get too confusing. The setup is possible with 2 a/b/y switches, but it's really easy to get it mixed up live and sound like crap. (you know, all of a sudden your electric is direct in or your acoustic is howling through your stage amps) A small pedal board direct into the PA would be best for the acoustic IMHO. Also easier to set up, control, and less confusing to the engineer.

__________________
Stage Guitars: '80s Thin line LP Custom, '70 LP Standard, '83 Squier Black Headstock Strat w/ Dan Torres pickups, '59 Black Danelectro DC, sometimes others.

Pedal Board: Nady UHF 10 -> TU2 -> Rocktron Big Crush -> 70s MXR Phase 100 -> Cry Baby -> Bad Monkey -> Early '80s Rat -> Early '80s Ibanez CS 9 -> Ibanez DE 7 -> Behringer Dr 100 Stereo Reverb

Stage amps: '63 Blonde Tremolux w/ two original 2X10 cabinets with a '60 Ampeg Rocket/18 watt VTB Marshall clone/ Epi VJ into a Mashall 1965A

Another pedalboard means more money in the board and another delay for the acoustic. I only play out about 2 times a month. If this is possible I'd like to do it. I'm not playing the Hollywood Bowl by any means but just a few locals restaurants.

I don't mean to further complicate matters, but if you find that your acoustic sounds best through one or two pedals instead of the entire chain, you could put the a/b switches within the signal chain instead of each end. I've attached a crude diagram. This way you would plug your electric guitar into your overdrive, the overdrive into the boost, and the boost into input A of the first switcher. Plug your acoustic into input B. The y output would go to your tuner and delay (I'll assume those are the two you want to use with your acoustic), and the delay would go into the Y input of the second A/B switch. Output A would go to your EQ boost and along to your amp. Output B would go to the PA.

You just have to remember that both boxes on "A" equals electric and both boxes on "B" equals acoustic. You would never have one on A and the other on B.

Attached Images

Alternate routing.jpg (48.0 KB, 9 views)

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I'm just two people short of a threesome.

Jonny,
I like the idea of putting the acoustic through less of the chain. Your diagranm also has the acoustic closer to the tuner than what I tried previously. Once I had an ABY at the front with my Boss Tuner at the end since it has an Output and a Bypass. The thought was that the Output would be the acoustic going to the board and the Bypass (always on) would be the electric to the amp. But the tuner seemed useless as a tuner at the end of the chain.

I'll have to give some thought to what your proposing but in the meantime, here's what the pedals are used for (in case you want to take another crack at it)

Tuner = Obvious
Overdrive = Boss Blues Driver for acoustic leads. Just to add a little overdrive to smooth out the sound.
Boost = Fat Boost used for electric leads
Delay = TC Electronics Flashback that I'd like to use for both acoustic and electric leads. I may be able to get my hands on an old Boss delay as well.
EQ Boost = Boss EQ pedal used for acoustic only when doing a song with fingerpicking (i.e. James Taylor, etc.)

So some pedals get used by both acoustic and electric and some don't.

Tuner = Acoustic / Electric
Overdrive = Acoustic (maybe Electric)
Boost = Electric
Delay = Acoustic / Electric
EQ Boost = Acoustic

Let me know if you think this would work. The blue pedals are common to both guitars, the green are acoustic and the red are electric. See attached.

Thanks,
Matt

Attached Images

Pedalboard.jpg (44.2 KB, 4 views)

It would work, although I don't really care for the delay before the boosts/overdrive. It is useful that you have a mute function on your tuner however, because you could just use that when you are switching guitars. I'll ponder a new routing scenario with the new information in mind.

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I'm just two people short of a threesome.

Jonny,
You're right. I forgot that the overdrives or any distortions needs to some before any clean boost or delay.

Or one used multieffects pedal for the acoustic.

__________________
Stage Guitars: '80s Thin line LP Custom, '70 LP Standard, '83 Squier Black Headstock Strat w/ Dan Torres pickups, '59 Black Danelectro DC, sometimes others.

Pedal Board: Nady UHF 10 -> TU2 -> Rocktron Big Crush -> 70s MXR Phase 100 -> Cry Baby -> Bad Monkey -> Early '80s Rat -> Early '80s Ibanez CS 9 -> Ibanez DE 7 -> Behringer Dr 100 Stereo Reverb

Stage amps: '63 Blonde Tremolux w/ two original 2X10 cabinets with a '60 Ampeg Rocket/18 watt VTB Marshall clone/ Epi VJ into a Mashall 1965A

^^^^^^^^^^^^^That.

__________________
I'm just two people short of a threesome.

What type of mulit-effect pedal. Is there a pedal that has a little overdrive toit as well as delay?

My other thought was usign my friend's old Boss delay which he doesn't use and put that in the acoustic chain. That would eliminate the need to share the TC Electronics delay. But I would still need an ABY switch at the front so both guitars could be plugged in and go straight to the tuner first. But the realy question is, if I went ABY - Tuner and from there did 2 separate effect chains, is there a Y cable that decent that I could use to come out of the tuner and into A and B?

Just get a clip on tuner. They're $15. You can get a used rack multiple- effect for next to nothing. Just set it on the floor.

__________________
Stage Guitars: '80s Thin line LP Custom, '70 LP Standard, '83 Squier Black Headstock Strat w/ Dan Torres pickups, '59 Black Danelectro DC, sometimes others.

Pedal Board: Nady UHF 10 -> TU2 -> Rocktron Big Crush -> 70s MXR Phase 100 -> Cry Baby -> Bad Monkey -> Early '80s Rat -> Early '80s Ibanez CS 9 -> Ibanez DE 7 -> Behringer Dr 100 Stereo Reverb

Stage amps: '63 Blonde Tremolux w/ two original 2X10 cabinets with a '60 Ampeg Rocket/18 watt VTB Marshall clone/ Epi VJ into a Mashall 1965A