Reamp device + stomp box line level interface?

I'm throwing around the idea of building something similar in function to the Radial EXTC. For those not familiar it's a guitar effects interface that allows you to use your stomp boxes as outboard. I want my implementation to allow you to use the device as a reamp box or as the effects interface. I'm brainstorming the easiest way (with fewest parts) to go about doing this. So far I've broken it down into two blocks: Line input -> guitar level output and guitar level -> balanced line level output. Here is what I'm thinking for these stages...keep in mind I'm a noob.

Line input -> guitar level: Edcor or Jensen transformer (similar to the NYDave schem or the Jensen schem). This would act as both a reamp or drive your pedal chain.

Guitar level -> balanced line level output: This is where I'm having trouble. I'm thinking just an opamp stage that ranges between full attenuation and a gain factor of say...10? I was originally thinking from unity to 10, but there are some pedals out there that are insanely hot. The output of that gain stage would go to a transformer to balance the signal. 

Every time I try to keep things simple there is a caveat that I haven't thought of. I'm crossing my fingers on this one.

like this: http://broadcastproaudio.com/missing_link.htm ?

You have mic preamps, right? Why not just do a combo Reamp/DI. That way you can make it passive or phantom-powered and skip all the power supply business.

I mocked up a 51x design called 51z with front panel design based on the zx spectrum the z implies impedance.
there are already so many good stand alone and very simple devices/design choices that you can use though, it seemed a little superfluous.

there was an ultra simple re-amp circuit recently finalised by 2 members here as i recall.
just combine that with a simple di and you can even fit it in a 500 space with the existing pre made boards or perf board.
plenty of room on the front for mix/wet/dry signals etc left too.

Edit:
or a little box of course if you have some batteries

here was the thread about the reamp: http://www.groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=45364.0
it as Meathands (above) and adjustments by Prr.
good work on that dude

I have been dreaming of something like this, but I want it to be a kind of a hybrid table top stomp interface. Seems to me a bunch of stomps would be easier to use on a table next to some leveller+PSU interface instead of hanging from a rack and inconveniently on the floor when you want to tweak all those stomp knobs.

I actually already specified it with 4 channels of reamps and 4 channels of some simple but good preamp as a DI. I will make two diffferent reamps for it: NYD and some other one with inductor that seemed interesting.

I've yet to decide what preamp would be best suited for it, but no expensive stuff here. Maybe there should be a cab model to tame some of the very nasty distortions. And when I say "cab model" I mean passive low pass filter like on many passive DI's.

There seems to be some nice hammond tilted "table top" panels for projects like this. As an important detail I think there should be a bunch of 9V outputs for the stomps right there on the interface where the rest of the "patchbay" is as well.

Something I find useful in these sorts of di/reamp -> fx pedals -> outputs  devices
is to have a mixer allowing parallelling of fx pedal outputs with some individual volume adjustment.
A lot more flexible and easy to get complex pedal things going than just series connections.

I use a di/reamp device with aux sends to pedals and a mixer for recombining to a recording output

My next 'big box of fx' will use the AMZ 'simple mixer' for that purpose.
The 'send and blend' pcb would also be nice for this.

So it will be a DI/reamp input, a splitter for sending and a pair of mixer pcbs for recombining,
as well as a final recording and HiZ out.

Lots of premade pcbs out there for doing these things! And lots of diy effects out there for making
some killer fx matrices.

Stompboxes like a low level input. I'd say that 1v pk-pk would be a good compromise, so whatever source you have should be trimmed down to a level in that range if you want to interface with guitar pedals.

regards, Jack

AMZ-FX said:

Stompboxes like a low level input. I'd say that 1v pk-pk would be a good compromise, so whatever source you have should be trimmed down to a level in that range if you want to interface with guitar pedals.

regards, Jack

Click to expand...

Yep. My plan is to use a transformer to go from line to guitar level -> FX chain -> line amp -> balancing xfmr.