Fender Princeton Reverb/Tremolo Switch

chugington

I have a Fender Princeton Reverb/Tremolo Switch - an original chrome type with the cable attached to the switch at one end and two RCA jacks at the amp end. 

Does anyone know of a smaller alternative that can be attached to my pedalboard which I can remove the cable from when not using? Would it be possible to re-use the cable from my existing switch and add a (1/4 inch? Stereo/TRS??) jack to the end? 

Advice welcomed.

ICBM

You will actually need to re-use the cable, or get a length of the same type, or it won't work properly... really. It's a very unusual cable, the reverb connection is shielded and the tremolo connection isn't - if you use a dual unshielded cable the reverb is very noisy, and if you use a dual shielded cable the tremolo doesn't switch off properly.

Probably the easiest solution is to cut the cable at the pedal and fit a TRS plug and socket so you can still use it separately if you want, and mount a small two-button switch on the pedalboard as well. I would use a right-angle plug on the cable so it doesn't stick out too far if you're using the original footswitch...

chugington

Thanks @ICBM ;- that's really useful.

PCG

On a somewhat related note, is there any meaningful difference on a Princeton between running the trem and/or reverb at zero vs. switching it off completely using the foot switch?  

I can’t obviously hear a difference on my Headstrong (Princeton clone) but haven’t actually plugged the foot switch in for a while.  From the perspective of flow through the circuit, however, is there a significant practical difference?

Just curious really!

(Apologies for any thread derailment but I thought it’d be ok given the original question seems to have been answered)

ICBM

PCG said:

On a somewhat related note, is there any meaningful difference on a Princeton between running the trem and/or reverb at zero vs. switching it off completely using the foot switch?

There is a difference, but it may not be meaningful in practice.

The reverb footswitch operates on the return of the tank, whereas the reverb control operates after the return amplifier stage; likewise the tremolo footswitch operates on the oscillator, but the intensity control operates on the link to the bias circuit. Thus in both cases, it's possible that turning the control to zero will result in less background noise than switching off with the footswitch - but it won't be a big difference since they're not very noisy anyway.

PCG

ICBM said:

PCG said:

On a somewhat related note, is there any meaningful difference on a Princeton between running the trem and/or reverb at zero vs. switching it off completely using the foot switch?

There is a difference, but it may not be meaningful in practice.

The reverb footswitch operates on the return of the tank, whereas the reverb control operates after the return amplifier stage; likewise the tremolo footswitch operates on the oscillator, but the intensity control operates on the link to the bias circuit. Thus in both cases, it's possible that turning the control to zero will result in less background noise than switching off with the footswitch - but it won't be a big difference since they're not very noisy anyway.

Excellent, thanks very much for the info, very interesting.