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Ok tone experts... this question is regarding stomp boxes. What are your feelings regarding true bypass circuits? Is all the talk about stomp boxes without true bypass being tone suckers, tone vampires or tone killers true?? Does a GCB-95 Crybaby or a DS1 or SD1 or an MXR Phase 90 rob you of your tone because they don't have true bypass? I have been fiddling around with stomp box and wah mods for a while now and I have to say.. I really don't hear much if any of a difference. Whats your opinion?? I'd like to know.
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Re: The great True Bypass debate!!
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Depends on what it is. I had an old crybaby wah that when it was turned off but inline with my amp, made my amp sound horrible. Some pedals like the Boss SD1 is on 'all the time' because it has electronic switching, and your signal is always going through a buffer. If you had an SD1 first, then the wah, even when the SD1 was off you'd lose less tone than you would if it wasn't there.Originally posted by jgcable:
Ok tone experts... this question is regarding stomp boxes. What are your feelings regarding true bypass circuits? Is all the talk about stomp boxes without true bypass being tone suckers, tone vampires or tone killers true?? Does a GCB-95 Crybaby or a DS1 or SD1 or an MXR Phase 90 rob you of your tone because they don't have true bypass? I have been fiddling around with stomp box and wah mods for a while now and I have to say.. I really don't hear much if any of a difference. Whats your opinion?? I'd like to know.
Really, the Crybaby was the worst offender I ever owned, but I never lined up 10 pedals on a board anyways. I like to build pedals I make true bypass just because it's easier than to add a circuit for electronic switching. I'd rather pay the $10 for a 3DPT switch so I can light an LED and true bypass the circuit completely. Plus if your battery goes out on a true bypass pedal, no big deal. If it goes out on the SD1, you're screwed.
Pete -
Re: The great True Bypass debate!!
When I rigged my Crybaby up to be true bypass, I noticed a pretty big difference. My signal didnt seem as muted. With a boss delay in my FX loop, i notice a bit of trebly/metallicky sound in my signal. So i would say yeah, true bypass is good.Comment
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Re: The great True Bypass debate!!
I think that Cornish's argument makes sense, if you have a bunch of pedals.For someone like me, who has two, loss of signal isn't a huge deal. I'd rather not have a pedal coloring my tone and eating my signal if it doesnt have to be.Comment
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Re: The great True Bypass debate!!
Bob Bradshaw seems to think that true bypass is overrated. I have heard a lot of people say that regardless of a pedal being true bypass or not there will always be some signal loss. Everything in the path sucks on the signal a little bit. I have read that if you have a bunch of true bypass pedals and a good chunk of cable you will lose plenty of signal. Having a pedal with buffer circuitry (Boss, newer Ibanez) can help push a weakening signal. I guess you should have a mix of both if you are running a straight pedal board or have a long cable run, unless you are using some midi loop switcher with all of your pedals in the rack, in which case I would go all true bypass. Wah pedals are notorious for sucking tone. The only one I know that has a buffer in it is Morley. With Crybabys you need to get true bypass just to avoid some sever tone sucking. Thankfully they have a bunch of pedals with true bypass now.Comment
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Re: The great True Bypass debate!!
With any pedal, true bypass or not, you are gonna get some signal loss because that is one more thing that the signal has to travel thru. I tend to agree with Pete...it really depends on what the effect is as to how much of a difference it makes. But I think it's a good thing to have, it certainly doesn't hurt. But for alleviating the signal loss, the cables you use make a big difference. Just the other day one of my managers was telling me about how Monster cables are made, and how they compensate for such things because of how the wire is spooled or something, and it almost is as if there is a built-in Sonic Maximizer or something...I'm rambling now.Comment
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Re: The great True Bypass debate!!
Actually, I agree with this statement:
Case Against True Bypass
Leon..Comment
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Re: The great True Bypass debate!!
Bear in mind also that Pete Cornish pedals are a hell of a lot more expensive than a boss or ibanez pedal...
One thing you can do is build a true bypass box, attach it to your effect, and see if using it makes a big difference tonewise. I did this for my wah, and would just leave the wah on at gigs - I'd bypass it when I wasn't using it with the pedal. One bonus to doing this is that you can leave the wah set at a frequency boost and kick it in/out without having to change the position to turn it off/on. At least you have to do that on a dunlop.
Pete
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by El Bastardo:
Actually, I agree with this statement:
Case Against True Bypass
Leon..Comment
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