A couple of months ago, I posted about the Audio Probes that I put together in my other venture – Rattlesnake Cable Company. The Rattlesnake Cable Company Audio Probes is a great, SIMPLE tool for pedal DIY’ers. If you’re interested in building pedals, modifying pedals or repairing pedals, this is a great tool. A large portion of us don’t have an oscilloscope laying around, and we need something a little better than continuity check on our multimeters to see what’s happening in the circuit.
I’m a programmer by trade, and one of the ways to understand a problem in the code is to ‘step through’ the code with what you call break points. Basically it allows you to go though point by point of the code to find the failure. I know with dealing circuits, I like this same type of debugging logic. When you’re dealing a with a problem circuit, you plug it in, and nothing comes out of the amp. What’s the problem? Who knows, and then begins the blind guessing game.
This is where the audio probe comes in. The audio probe basically allows you to intercept the signal to the amp. In my world, it’s adding a break point to the circuit. So if you have a dead pedal, I would connect the probe to the input jack and send a signal. You hear something.. good. That means input jack is good. Now move down the circuit until you hear it stop. At this point you would have narrowed down the failed component.
Additionally, I love this tool to understand how those components manipulate the signal. It’s a great learning tool. Obviously, if you own an oscilloscope, you’re doing this already (but visually seeing the signal), but a large majority of us.. don’t have one and this tool is super handy.
Check out this video I posted a while back:
It’s important to note, that this used for audio signals ONLY. Do NOT use this to test large voltages, etc. Bad things will happen. I would avoid amps, etc. This is meant to be used with pedals.
So a couple of months ago, I put together a batch of these probes, and they sold quickly. I recently put together another batch and I’m offering these up again. I wanted to mention this on EffectsBay, since I know a lot of you like to experiment with pedal circuits, etc. Rattlesnake Audio Probes are currently available! I have a very limited set of these, and don’t expect them to last for very long.
