# DE-MYSTIFYING SWITCHING JACKS ( switched, switcher, switch )



## Feral Feline (Sep 1, 2022)

THIS THREAD IS FOR ASKING/ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT SWITCH-JACKS, please contribute tips, tricks, explanations and diagrams if you can.


I was just looking online for a diagram of a switched-jack FX loop, and found bugger-all.
After a few hours of trying various search criteria, I found but a couple of examples of switched jacks as it relates to our hobby, most illustrations were for stereos with a few amp-FX-loops thrown in.

So I made my own damned diagram:




EDIT: cleaned up the diagram's tip-of-the-switch 'cause it was sloppy.​Anything in the above diagram needing clarification, correction?

You could wire those jacks between two circuits in a dual-circuit build, you could wire it before or after the dual-circuit build — hell, you could wire it before or after a single circuit so long as you've enough room in your enclosure for the extra jackage.

In between two circs in a dual build, if nothing is in the FX loop your dual-circuit works normally,  and you have a nice insert point — stick a pedal in the loop and using the inserted pedals bypass... well, you get the idea.

You could stick a whole chain of pedals in the loop, and if that's your intent I'd suggest adding a BYPASS to the INSERT LOOP. Nothing plugged in to the loop, then it doesn't matter if the bypass is engaged by accident or forgotten about and left "on" — nothing's in the loop so the signal goes right through.

ANUTTERIDEAR, M'DEARIES
For you big-bad perdalboarders, build a few of these switched loops into 1590A (4 jacks — in, out, send, return) and scatter them throughout your pedalboard:

Put one between dirt and modulation, another between your boosts and time-based pedals...

If you're on a gig and a pedal goes down you can patch past the problem pedal, or at least find/diagnose it more easily later.

Need a specific pedal for one gig but not the next, doing that for a lot of different gigs? That 1590A insertion point could even be hidden under your board, out of the way not taking up valuable pedalboard real-estate.

At home/rehearsal/studio you can try different pedals without having to tear apart your whole board.

Bottom line is that switched-jacks don't have to be intimidating, shouldn't be...
So bust out a breadboard and play around with some different types of switched jacks.


What other ways could you, would you, do you use a switched-jack FX loop?
What else you got for switched-jacks in general?


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## jubal81 (Sep 1, 2022)

OT failsafe?
Don't see why you couldn't use one for the speaker jack on an amp and wire a big-wattage 8R resistor from SW to GND. If no speaker is connected when the amp is on, the resistor is a dummy load.


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## Bricksnbeatles (Sep 1, 2022)

I use a matrix of switched jacks for summed-mono/dual TS stereo/single TRS stereo wiring


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## Feral Feline (Sep 1, 2022)

Bricksnbeatles said:


> I use a matrix of switched jacks for summed-mono/dual TS stereo/single TRS stereo wiring


That boggles my mind. Any graphic representation to be mustered?


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## swyse (Sep 1, 2022)

I was thinking about doing a 3 in 1 pedal with 6 switching jacks so you could use the intended order or mix and match or use an effects loop or however you saw fit instead of doing an order switch. I'm not sure if its worth the effort for me personally, but I guess it is a selling point and some people would appreciate it so I think I just talked myself into it.


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## Bricksnbeatles (Sep 1, 2022)

Feral Feline said:


> That boggles my mind. Any graphic representation to be mustered?


I’ll see if I can find my schematic drawing of it on my computer. Otherwise I’ll draw it up tonight or tomorrow


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## swyse (Sep 2, 2022)

swyse said:


> I was thinking about doing a 3 in 1 pedal with 6 switching jacks so you could use the intended order or mix and match or use an effects loop or however you saw fit instead of doing an order switch. I'm not sure if its worth the effort for me personally, but I guess it is a selling point and some people would appreciate it so I think I just talked myself into it.



maybe something like this


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## szukalski (Sep 2, 2022)

I use them to make a loop box for my pedal board to switch between amps with an effects loop and those without.


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## Feral Feline (Sep 2, 2022)

So here’s a question…

Are there any circumstances where you’d want BOTH the send & return jacks to be of the switch-variety?


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## Cybercow (Sep 2, 2022)

There are the other type of switching jack that are commonly used. They key is in the diagram in the lower-right-hand corner. This particular switching jack is a bit more versatile for both mono and stereo TRS configurations.


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## giovanni (Sep 2, 2022)

A cool application is as an insert box or an order switcher/patch bay like the Patchulator. I’ve wanted to build one of those for a while, I never pulled the trigger on those mini jack plugs.


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## Feral Feline (Sep 2, 2022)

I just want to build the Patchulator with all 1/4", more versatile that way and you can patch things in from the sides and from the top. 

It'll fit, just. I've mapped out the drilling for Hammond's Octagon, but it's so tight that even a millimetre off on one hole and... down go the dominoes, nothing else will be correct after that.


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## Feral Feline (Sep 2, 2022)

Cybercow said:


> There are the other type of switching jack that are commonly used. They key is in the diagram in the lower-right-hand corner. This particular switching jack is a bit more versatile for both mono and stereo TRS configurations.
> 
> View attachment 31637


This is what I mostly have used in pedals, box jacks.


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## andare (Oct 16, 2022)

I understand jack about switched jacks - too dumb - but I'm building a Duo-Phase and it needs one. The build docs don't mention if it's switched mono or switched stereo. I guess mono is good?


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## Feral Feline (Oct 16, 2022)

andare said:


> I understand jack about switched jacks - too dumb - but I'm building a Duo-Phase and it needs one. The build docs don't mention if it's switched mono or switched stereo. I guess mono is good?


If you're ordering, just get the mono switched. 

If you've got a switched stereo jack already on hand and don't need to order anything else, just use the stereo jack, it'll just take a bit more figurin' what's what.

You're less likely to have a trouble-shooting thread if you go for the switched-mono. If you want to run the DuoPhase as a stereo effect, that's a different thread altogether, IMO.


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## andare (Oct 16, 2022)

Feral Feline said:


> If you're ordering, just get the mono switched.
> 
> If you've got a switched stereo jack already on hand and don't need to order anything else, just use the stereo jack, it'll just take a bit more figurin' what's what.
> 
> You're less likely to have a trouble-shooting thread if you go for the switched-mono. If you want to run the DuoPhase as a stereo effect, that's a different thread altogether, IMO.


All I have is some open frame stereo jacks but I understand they are not the same thing so I'll order a switched mono jack. Looks like It has 3 tabs, shouldn't be hard to figure out.

Thanks!


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