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Posted by: PanicProne Jan 26 2009, 10:29 PM

Allright. Ever since I got into pedals I've heard this rant about the importance of true bypass and not loosing tone/colouring your sound/volume loss and so on. But according to some (Pete Cornish [david gilmours guitar tech] for example) a pedalboard/chain WITH true bypass circutry actually damages the sound/signal more than a path WÍTH OUT. What's everyones take on this thing? It'd be great to hear some comments/advice/opinions from instructors as well as other members..

Posted by: Muris Varajic Jan 26 2009, 10:35 PM

Hmm, sounds strange, true bypass should be less damage IF it's true bypass.
But one thing is certain,
more pedals you have in chain the more of signal you lose,
each new cable/jack/pedal is another step in losing signal anyhow.
I read interview with Pete in GP magazine once
and I remember he said many things about true bypass,
gonna check if I can find that issue.

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Jan 26 2009, 10:52 PM

Hmm this will be an interesting thread..I heard that true bypass is a better option since signal travels directly through the pedal (if you don't have batteries in it sill works)...But actually don't own such pedals so I can't tell for sure which one is better..One thing I can tell is that lots of non true bypass pedals really eat your tone..I can really hear it on my bass..

Posted by: PanicProne Jan 26 2009, 11:06 PM

Yeah. Some pedals, like my Boss PH-3 Phaser for example can REEEEAAALLY eat your tone/signal/volume. and yeah, it's a phaser, but still... Compared to my micro POG which isn't true bypass either the PH-3 has a mean appetite..

Why I really started this thread was actually to find out whether pedal-nuts like me can find a nice solution. I've just decided to split up my big board (see an old version of it in my albums if anyone is interested) into two small ones and I want to come up with the best solution when connecting everything together. The big board used a loop-master true bypass-strip so I could cut out the pedals I wasn't using when I wanted to. But I'm not really sure how to go with my "new" boards. The big board really lost a lot of volume and tone. But if that was due to the big amount of cables or not I don't know...

So I'm psyked to see what people have to say..

Posted by: Muris Varajic Jan 26 2009, 11:15 PM

You mean it eats your tone when it's ON?

Posted by: PanicProne Jan 26 2009, 11:24 PM

Oh come on Muris. Even I'm not that stupid. Or am I? Well, what I was gonna say was I really feel it sucks tone when OFF. Haha! Would have been great the other way around.

Posted by: MickeM Jan 26 2009, 11:28 PM

I think the idea here is that in a true bypass chain the signal will get weaker and weaker throughout it's entire length if you don't have them "on".
In a chain where the pedals aren't true bypass the signal will maybe be coloroed but it'll keep it's strength?

A SGI box would keep the signal strength in up to 100 meter of cords so I suppose that would be a solution to it.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Jan 26 2009, 11:37 PM

True bypass feature is not something that will help a lot. The tone will be sucked out the more pedals you have - true or not true bypass. The signal is lost in connections and solder points in cables, so IMO it is far better to have high quality cables than true bypass option on all the pedals.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 27 2009, 02:20 AM

Yep - that's exact;y the argument Micke ... so, perhaps one pedal with true bypass would be better than one pedal without, but 10 pedlas all with true bypass would prbably lose a LOT of signal, wheras 10 pedlas with untrue bypass would at least buffer the signal and keep the level up.

Posted by: PanicProne Jan 27 2009, 11:32 AM

But what if I had, let's say 10 pedals all true bypass. What would be a nice solution? Would a booster do the trick? And if so, where should I place it in the chain?

Posted by: MickeM Jan 27 2009, 11:35 AM

I belive what I suggest will work. A SGI box would keep the signal strength in up to 100 meter of cords so I suppose that would be a solution to it.
You place one unit first in the chain and one last.

Posted by: jdriver Jan 27 2009, 11:46 PM

The Pete Cornish article was a sidebar in the May 2008 issue of Guitar Player Magazine, page 73. It's just a couple hundred words. I'll transcribe it for reference if you all think we can get away with that. I checked their online articles, it's not there.

Posted by: Ajmurrell Jan 27 2009, 11:50 PM

Here's a Pete Cornish article on this topic

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.html

Posted by: Muris Varajic Jan 28 2009, 12:27 AM

Oh great, thanks!

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Jan 28 2009, 01:08 AM

Cool article man, thanks for sharing!

Posted by: tonymiro Jan 28 2009, 08:52 AM

Very kind offer but I'd imagine GP would hold copyright on it. Even if it's not on their site at the moment it would still be an infringement of that copyright. Whilst you can't transcribe it you could however post a link to it - if GP put it back up .

Cheers,
Tony