line level through guitar effects

[provide86]

is running a line level signal through a guitar pedal harmful for the electronics inside? i recently used a boss dd-5 to get from my mackie 1202 to my tascam 4track and now it doesn't seem to work correctly. interestingly, a chorus pedal i had set up in series with the delay pedal still works fine. is there anything i should know before I run an EQ pedal through a preamp insert?

[Rodgre]

Are you saying the DD-5 doesn't work correctly?

Usually, you aren't going to harm the electronics in a pedal by putting too hot a signal into them, you're just going to clip the hell out of it. Then again, the DD-5 is a digital pedal and could possibly have an input section that's more sensitive than an analog EQ pedal.

How is it not working correctly anymore?

Roger

[provide86]

it begins to work normally for a short amount of time if i haven't used it for a while. then after about 10-15 minutes of use, the signal stops going through the pedal, even when it's off. the LED starts to dim. i can tell that the delay functions are still working, because when i plug/unplug the guitar cable the clicking noise repeats itself and responds to my knob twiddling. however, no real sound will pass through the pedal aside from what occurs when i touch the opposite end of the cable attached to the input.

[markpar]

If using a battery, is the battery going dead?

It could be a dirty input jack. Maybe try cleaning it out, or checking the connections to the jack to make sure they're good.

Hope this helps,
-mark

[Rodgre]

Either it's a power supply issue with the DD-5 or else there was some damage done by running such a hot signal into where the input preamp/converter circuit must have some kind of thermal failure... Use it until it heats up and goes kaput.

I'm not sure what to tell you about that.

Roger