Ok, so this is the idea. I would love to make my own DIY box with 3x4 mults and few attenuators.
I want it to be passive, so attenuators should be passive.
So, how do you make mults and attenuators.
Is it OK for if you connect the signal from input of mults and split that signal to 3 directions-3 outputs of mults?
And what to do with the ground?
I made a simple attenuator from a broken volume pedal, so it is just a passive pot… Is this it?
What else should I do?
Connect the ground to metal box?
I found a simple cheep box in local electric store which reminds me of Cp box… same high and I could make a wooden panels also.
So what are the tricks.
I’m no electrical engineer (although I play one on TV)…
For the mults, get 4 jacks (or 2 or 3 or 400), mount them to an enclosure, and on the back, solder wires to each tip contact of the connectors together, one wire to each ring, and one wire to each sleeve. I believe most jacks of this variety ground themselves (via the sleeve) to the enclosure (providing you use a conductive enclosure) when you bolt them in place… Just like any mult, only put ONE input signal into the mult… then you can have as many outputs as you like.. If you plug in multiple inputs to it, you risk damaging your stuff and should use a mixer…
As for attenuators, grab two jacks (an input and output jack), and a potentiometer… Tie the grounds from the jacks together as above, and tie that to one of the contacts on the pot (you’ll have to experiment with which one, or else your pot will work backwards to what you expect). Tie the tip from one jack (the input jack) to the other contact of the pot and the tip of the other jack (the output jack) to the wiper contact of the pot… This should form a voltage divider splitting the signal at the tip (sending some to ground and the rest to the output). Depending on which contact is tied to ground will determine if you your pot attenuates in the clockwise or counter clockwise direction. Either way is fine, but i like mine to attenuate counterclockwise… Im not so sure what to do with the Ring terminals on the jacks though.. I would leave them disconnected or use TS cables. Depends on how much you want to preserve your +5V expression pedal capabilities…
Hope that helps.. And i hope i didnt say anything incorrect..
Here’s a simple but very useful homemade mult/attenuator in a cheap plastic box I use for prototyping. Sorry for the dark photos, but the box is pitch black.
Still you can see 4 jacks. The bottom wire connects all 4 jacks (ground). The positive wire (or tip), on top of pic, connects the tips of the first three jacks (3 x mult), but to connect to the fourth jack, a 50K pot is inserted as an attenuator. Only this jack is attenuated if your source is in the first three, but if your source is in the attenuated jack, then the other 3 jacks of the mult are attenuated too.
Do not connect anything to the ring terminals until you know how to deal with the possible +5 volts that may be coming on the ring terminal of a moogerfooger or CP-251.
You should not need to ground a passive mult or attenuator box/module for the kind of current it deals with if proper construction rules are followed.
Thank you guys for your time!
I will work on this one as soon as I get material for it.
Is there any other simple gadget I can construct, without complicated electrical work- or without power?
One thing I would love to do is signal selector from 3 to 1 and inverter - so that positive voltage gets negative, like on attenuator on CP but without pots, just + in and - out.
Another thing is that I want to use moog cnobs.
You can get them from synthesizer.com, but it is little expensive for me to pay the shipping costs to EU-Slovenia.
Any dealer for moog cnobs in EU???
And wooden side panels!!! Yeah - classic analog appearance!
In my Voltor box, which utilizes 50k and 100k linear pots, I have the ring going to the unused terminal on the pot. Mults are easy. Tip to tip, ring to ring, sleeve to sleeve.
Cool.
I will try all this.
I rely need allot of mults.
Now I can build one box just for Mp-201, to route signals to different locations.
So Can you build a mult which has option to switch outputs on/off???
Technically, yes. You will need a DPDT switch for each jack you want to turn off. You’ll want to use one switch to turn both ring and tip off. That could get expensive quickly…
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