Project 3 - A/B/Y Switcher

After recently purchasing an Orange Micro Terror amp, I decided it was time to build an A/B/Y switcher so I could switch between the Terror and my Huges & Kettner Tubemeister 18, or run the two amps together. Unfortunately, the two don't sound all that great together; but having the option of switching between them is wonderful.

If you don't already know, the Micro Terror is an incredible little 20w tube/solid-state hybrid amp that delivers a brilliant classic rock sound. The original version, the "Tiny" Terror, was designed by Ade Emsley so guitarists could emulate the first few AC/DC albums - and it does this exceptionally well. It's been described by Guitarist magazine as one of “the most important guitar products of the last 30 years”, and is actually the first true ‘lunchbox’ amplifier ever sold.

I really wanted a Tiny Terror, but since I wasn't buying it for gigs, and because the Micro costs only $200 (compared to $800 for the Tiny), I decided to save myself a bit of cash.

The Tubemeister 18 is also a great amp, and looks great with it’s front lit panel, but I find it doesn't have the level of gain/distortion I tend to crave - even on the lead channel.

If you’re guitarist who likes to run your amps clean and use different pedals to dial in your sound, then I highly recommend it.

So enough about amps. When I was looking at schematics to build an A/B/Y Switcher, I was originally planning to use yellow and blue LED's for the A/B indicators and green for the Y (yellow and blue = green), but the yellow LED’s look a bit too orange, so I decided to go with red, blue and green instead.

For the enclosure, I chose a Hammond 1590B, since it's wide enough to have a few inches between the 3PDT foot-switches.

As you will notice in the photos below, I decided to put the guitar input jack in the bottom, rather than on top. At the time, this seemed like a good idea; but sadly, with the way I have my pedal board arranged, it would have been better on top next to the outputs and power jack. It's not the end of the world, but if I do decide to build another one, I will almost certainly move the input. This would also help clean up the wiring a bit.

There is also the option of adding a buffer to compensate for any signal loss that occurs from running long cables or having too many pedals that are not true-bypass. Since I'm already using one of the JFET boost pedals I built (see Build 2 – Multiple Boost Pedals), I guess I don't really need to worry about it.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed my summary of the A/B/Y Switcher. Next, I'll be posting about the Silicon Fuzz Face pedal I've been working on. If you have any questions, or would like more information, let me know. Thanks for reading.