Mark V footswitch & PedalSnake (or, Mark V & 7 pin cable)

[flowcontrol]

Hi All! I created an account on here, just so I could post this. There seems to be no info out on the web about this, so I thought it might be useful to share.

I'm a long time pedalsnake user (http://www.pedalsnake.com/) - and I've been rocking a Mark V for the last 2 years. My pedalsnake use predates my Mark V ownership. I love the pedalsnake: before I found it, I never bothered using delay in my live rig, because for my sound/preference, it's not worth it if it ain't in the loop. Also, I never bothered using the loop because I didn't want to mess with the additional cables.

I'm in a band the gigs 2-3 times per month. We play all originals. We aren't that "high profile", so at the bulk of our shows, we're usually one of 4 bands (3 if we're lucky!) at a given venue in a night. So, little things like running additional cables for an fx loop, managing a bunch of power supplies, or securing power at the front of the stage for your board are not always practical, or worth the effort. At the same time, I want to put on the best show I can, recreate all the sounds on our records, and I just like using all of my gizmos because I'm a guitar nerd. Sure, songwriting, and actually guitar playing is important too - but this is not a songwriting forum, in case you didn't notice.

Long story long, I have a few 1 spot power adapters jammed in front the tubes in the back of my Mark V head, and the pedal snake carries power to all my pedals on my board, fx loop cables for my time factor, and my the audio to the input of the amp from the board, all in one convenient cable. When I set up my rig, all I have to do is plug in 4 midi-type din cables at either end and it's all hooked up - super easy. My rig is super neat and clean - I'll have to take some pics and share them when I get home tonight, if you're into that sort of thing.

(At this point I feel compelled to tell you that pedalsnake is not paying me for this - I have a few gripes with the product too - weird grounding/hum issues, shorts in the end connectors - I'm told the guy that owns the company is helpful in troubleshooting, although I've never bothered to call him. Pros generally outweigh cons.)

Getting to the point (I swear): I've always had to run the Mark V footswitch cable in addition to/along side of the pedalsnake, which kinda undermines the point of the pedalsnake. The Mark V's footswitch uses a proprietary 8 pin midi stye din cable. It doesn't jive with the pedalsnake's stock 5 pin midi connectors.

The point (for reals): Pedalsnake does offer 7 pin cables/connectors, via custom order only. I wondered if this would work as a footswitch cable between the Mark V and the stock footswitch. The custom pedal snake I specced out (with one 7 pin line) on their site is going to be $170 out the door, so I wanted to know if it would work before I gambled that much dough. Apparently, no one on the interweb has tried this and posted anything about it anywhere I could find. So, I ordered a hosa 7 pin midi cable (http://www.amazon.com/Hosa-ADA-725-BULK-MID-725/dp/B0002GTZMQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341256737&sr=8-1&keywords=7+pin+midi+cable), and gave it a try.

It works! But, you lose the ability to on/off your fx loop from the footswitch. I guess that's the center pin. Not that much of a sacrifice for me, considering I'm only running one pedal in the loop - I just have to be cool with the fact that if I want to control delay on/off from the pedal, my signal is running through and extra 40ft of goddamn cable.

So, yeah, there you go. A really long post just to tell you that you can use a 7 pin cable with your Mark V footswitch. Hope this helps someone out there!

 

[ave]

Hello from England.
Pedalsnake - great idea - but at the gig it's not so clever.
All these totally unnecessary din connections which ultimately do nothing but degrade the signal by virtue of having an extra and totally spurious connection in the chain will ultimately devalvue the tone which we all aspire.
The fix is to snip the dins and replace with decent Neutric 1/4" connectors hence derailing the unnecessary 'Pigtail' scam and away you go.
You can do it yourself at less than half the price with decent cable and connections - it's not difficult - after all it's nothing more than a bog-standard multicore that the good folks at Pedalsnake would have you believe is the Holy Grail, be fair to Pedalsnake though it's a great though vastly overpriced product. Soldering-iron technique - it really is the way forward and it's not that bloody hard to do !

 

[groovemule]

Jody here, from PedalSnake. Sorry it took me so long to weigh in, this was just brought to my attention. I just want to say, that before you go clipping DIN’s, do a blindfolded AB test. If you think the DIN’s affect your signal, clip away. But they won’t. Connections don’t degrade signal. Only capacitance does that, and capacitance can be managed. There are 100’s of electrical connections between your ax pickup and speaker, and we choose DIN's because they make a solid, robust electrical connection. Eliminating DIN's won’t help your tone, and it will rob you of the ability to ever modify your PedalSnake with the Plug n Play Pigtails, or use it for a footswitch line with a DIN connector, or for MIDI. To manage capacitance, we always recommend "one buffered pedal in each pedal chain", i.e., don't use "ALL true bypass". This will manage capacitance and preserve great tone, even in rigs with lots of cable and connections. Of course, too many buffers in your signal chain can degrade signal. A good rule of thumb: Try to not exceed 5-6 buffers in your total signal chain.