Grateful Dead Music Forum

Tennessee Jedi wrote:Always thought about getting the by pass in the guitar and not the pedals.

Even if you do have a guitar FX loop/bypass, you still want your pedals to be TB, because if you have all the FX in one chain, the non-TB pedals can adversely affect the whole chain, anytime the loop is engaged.

Say for instance you have the FX loop engaged on the guitar, going through tuner>octave>distortion>envelope>phase>delay... but you are only using the envelope. Well, if your tuner or your OC are non-TB, the envelope is receiving buffered signal and sounds like stale spaghetti noodles.

The goal in a loop-equipped guitar is to have the loop-bypassed sound the same or as close as possible as the loop-engaged-but-all-pedals-OFF sound.

TigerStrat-
Are most pedals able to be modded for true bypass?
E.H. too?
Yes the "stale spaghetti noodles "demon drops in on me right about the time for the Shakedown intro.
Thanks man

tigerstrat wrote:

Tennessee Jedi wrote:Always thought about getting the by pass in the guitar and not the pedals.

Even if you do have a guitar FX loop/bypass, you still want your pedals to be TB, because if you have all the FX in one chain, the non-TB pedals can adversely affect the whole chain, anytime the loop is engaged.

TS - what is the impact to tone of a non-TB pedal while on?

I bought a loop switcher from these guys and have never had a single issue. Each unit is hand built and for the price I was quite happy.

http://www.loop-master.com/product_info ... cts_id=147

Mixmaster-
Cool!
So you put the unit on your pedal board?
You recommend?
Do you have probs. with all the patch chords?

Thanks

strumminsix wrote:

tigerstrat wrote:

Tennessee Jedi wrote:Always thought about getting the by pass in the guitar and not the pedals.

Even if you do have a guitar FX loop/bypass, you still want your pedals to be TB, because if you have all the FX in one chain, the non-TB pedals can adversely affect the whole chain, anytime the loop is engaged.

TS - what is the impact to tone of a non-TB pedal while on?

You kinda got me there. I think it can vary in different pedals, in some cases it may be negligible or in some its still there... barely perceptible but cumulative loss of high end detail, actually mid and low detail as well. I lived with non-TB pedals for years before it really began to bother me and I fully realized how ultra-sensitive ANY envelope device is to it's incoming voltages.

I made my own board w/grommets and run the cables underneath along with my power supply. I have the loop in front of me (velcro) and the pedals up at the top of the board (velcro). It works for me and gave me a chance to use power tools!

tigerstrat wrote:

strumminsix wrote:

tigerstrat wrote: Even if you do have a guitar FX loop/bypass, you still want your pedals to be TB, because if you have all the FX in one chain, the non-TB pedals can adversely affect the whole chain, anytime the loop is engaged.

TS - what is the impact to tone of a non-TB pedal while on?

You kinda got me there. I think it can vary in different pedals, in some cases it may be negligible or in some its still there... barely perceptible but cumulative loss of high end detail, actually mid and low detail as well. I lived with non-TB pedals for years before it really began to bother me and I fully realized how ultra-sensitive ANY envelope device is to it's incoming voltages.

Here's where I'm confused. My suggestion was to leave the pedals alone and just put each one in a buffered loop individually. But from your post it reads that even then non-TB can ruin your tone but that doesn't make sense to me since in a loop they are always on even if out of the chain and 'always on' negates any 'bypass benefit'.

I was addressing TJ in what I was interpeting as a context of: guitar-mounted FX loop/(true)bypass switch vs each pedal having true-bypass and I was simply saying you want both. However, in the remote switching set-up (GCX, etc) to which you are referring, you are correct- they don't need to be TB, because they are always "ON" and are externally bypassed.

strumminsix wrote:

tigerstrat wrote:

strumminsix wrote: TS - what is the impact to tone of a non-TB pedal while on?

You kinda got me there. I think it can vary in different pedals, in some cases it may be negligible or in some its still there... barely perceptible but cumulative loss of high end detail, actually mid and low detail as well. I lived with non-TB pedals for years before it really began to bother me and I fully realized how ultra-sensitive ANY envelope device is to it's incoming voltages.

Here's where I'm confused. My suggestion was to leave the pedals alone and just put each one in a buffered loop individually. But from your post it reads that even then non-TB can ruin your tone but that doesn't make sense to me since in a loop they are always on even if out of the chain and 'always on' negates any 'bypass benefit'.