Fuzzbox, Distortion, Phaser, Chorus, Echo and other Guitar Effects Info

Last week, I saw a picture of the inside of a custom pedal, with extremely neat wiring. All the wires were routed in orderly parallel rows to the switch, jacks and pots. Very neat and a beautiful construction job.

However, in my opinion, it is a poor method of construction for most pedals. The spaghetti wiring method with wires taking short paths to their destination is much preferred.

In audio circuits (like pedals) we are dealing with low signal level and high impedance. This is a recipe for problems if the wiring layout is not done properly.

Parallel strands of solid core wire can lead to extra stray capacitance, induced noise and oscillation problems that could be avoided with a different wiring method. Two solid wires next to each other will form a capacitor – Craig Anderton used this method in one of his designs to form a low value capacitor (5pF as I recall) to filter out noise. Conductors in a guitar cable run in parallel and the capacitance can be as much as 100pF per foot! This stray capacitance could be avoided by not having wires bundled or in parallel rows.

The spaghetti wiring method has no wires running parallel and many cross at right angles, which is preferred to reduce crosstalk and induced signals, which may cause feedback oscillations. Keep the wires short and direct.