Scott Henderson Discussion

[tonetone25]

The other day I did a comparison to a few pedals with a one spot power supply vs voodoo labs. I should mention there were more pedals on the voodoo labs pedal board with a boss delay last on the chain than the one spot board.

The difference though was clear...the voodoo labs board sounded waaaay better. Fatter, less harsh frequencies. Will have to do a full test with the same exact pedals, but I am lee to believe the power supply did effect the tone probably.

I know you've said many time batteries sound the best. Buying new batteries for all my pedals all the time just doesn't make any sense in my situation but just curious, how noticeable is the tone difference to your ears?

Also, how do you handle the battery situation without spending too much money? Or is it worth the money

[Scott Henderson]

The difference between batteries and power supplies is very noticeable, but that's in the studio when I'm really paying attention. In a live situation, I probably wouldn't notice the difference as much.

I have a battery box on my board which powers 5 pedals - you can see it on my website. It has an on/off switch, so I turn it off between sets and of course for travel. I can do a whole tour without changing batteries because they're only being used for about 2 hours a day. The exception is my Arion chorus - it eats batteries and I have to change that one every week. I totally understand using a power supply if you have a lot of pedals and don't want to unplug each one separately - that's a major hassle. But next time you're in the studio, try comparing a carbon battery to your power supply - I'm sure you'll like the battery more.

[peter_heijnen]

If batteries for all your pedals makes no sense, check for what pedals it does. AB'ing becomes very easy if you get something like this:

http://store.truetone.com/1-spot-battery-clip-converter/

It also makes life a lot easier if unplugging pedals is hell because your board is too crowded, simply unplug the converter cable(s).

[Travis]

How loud a pedalboard's background noise is directly related to power supplies. A one spot typically comes with a daisy chain cable, which seems pretty sweet, but all the the grounds are tied together so you make a ground loop between each pedal. This causes a nightmare for any kind of noise troubleshooting. In fact the noise is probably so great after so many pedals (maybe 4 or 5 pedals?) that the tone of the guitar is compromised because it's fighting against the audible hum of multiple ground loops. Couple that with a transformer-less computer power switching supply and you'll have serious noise and hum problems in some situations. A good power supply like the voodoo lab, the G-lab or the Decibel 11 hot stone all isolate and quiet the operation considerably-and they sound way better; the G Lab being my personal favorite.

A power supply sounds different than a battery but my reasoning is that I want stuff to sound consistent firstly on the road and a good, regulated power supply is always going to put exactly the voltages it says within a 1/10 of a volt. Batteries typically (and again, very subjective to what pedal we are talking about) are favored for fuzzes and overdrives, but if the power those devices is being fed is not consistent-the tone won't be either. Staying on top of that is a commitment (Scott knows: the battery box, the extra batteries, the little battery checking gizmo you showed me that one time, checking batteries before shows at sound checks, much larger carbon footprint, etc), so if you go that route, be prepared for the hassles it brings with it.

The studio is, of course, the ultimate in controlled environment, where if you hear something you like more with a battery, of course you should use the battery. But in live or touring situations, I can personally let go of that control in favor of controlling other aspects-like my dirt pedals getting 9.10vdc at all times with clean power. That voltage also dictates the impedance of whatever distortion device it powers, so the higher voltage a battery provides may be tonally favorable, but it will also drift over time as the battery slowly dies, causing the pedal to change tonally because if the corresponding shifting of impedance. Sometimes the change is subtle like a tubescreamer or an SD-9; sometimes drastic-like a fuzz face...

Blah blah blah.