Will a buffer revive a tone sucking pedal?

victorludorum

I have a Modtone Chrous which has extreme tone suck when not on. I'd like to keep it, as it sounds good when engaged, but wanted to know the best way (if possible) to remove the tone suck. Will adding a buffer bring the tone back to life, or will a bypass pedal be better?

Cheers all ;-)

iseverynamegone

You would need a bypass for it to take it out of the chain when not engaged. 

ICBM

A buffer in front - any buffered pedal like a Boss - will work.

impmann

You can’t put back what has been taken away.
Stick it in a loop.

ICBM

impmann said:

You can’t put back what has been taken away.
Stick it in a loop.

No, but you can stop the taking away.

A buffer afterwards would do no good, but one before will.

impmann

ICBM said:

impmann said:

You can’t put back what has been taken away.
Stick it in a loop.

No, but you can stop the taking away.

A buffer afterwards would do no good, but one before will.

It depends on what and how it’s being taken.
If it’s True Tone suck, a buffer *may* help but if some of the frequency response just isn’t passing through, it won’t change things, in my experience. I don’t know the pedal involved so can’t comment but I’ve found that the only way with some pedals is switching them in and out of a loop (example original release Ibanez Sonic Distortion). 

slacker

Imho boss pedals suck tone. I sold all mine and got my treble back. Bypass loops are cheap and effective.

However you go down the rabbithole of true bypass mixed with long cables.so you might need a buffer, but subjective opinion alert not a boss one.

With any problem solving, you need to change one thing at a time, change it back etc. Try to borrow a loop pedal, shudder a boss pedal and see what works without buying anything. Oh short decent cables are your friend patch included.

UnclePsychosis

Boss pedals don't suck tone. The boss buffer sucks a tiny bit of volume which the ear perceives as tone. Turn the amp up a smidge and the "tone" returns. 

ICBM

Boss buffers do not suck tone. What they do is very slightly reduce level - the buffer is not quite unity gain. You probably won’t notice with just one, but run a few in series and you will - and you will hear it as an apparent loss of tone and not volume, due to a quirk of psycho-acoustics.

The reason I would use a buffered pedal and not a loop switcher is because you then get another useful effect! Instead of an otherwise useless extra box...

UnclePsychosis

Beat you to it @icbm, you're slacking :-P

not_the_dj

UnclePsychosis said:

Beat you to it @icbm, you're slacking :-P

It took him a few extra seconds to bang his fist on the desk shouting “not this again!”

ICBM

UnclePsychosis said:

Beat you to it @icbm, you're slacking :-P

lol

You just wrote half as much .

impmann said:

It depends on what and how it’s being taken.

If it’s True Tone suck, a buffer *may* help but if some of the frequency response just isn’t passing through, it won’t change things, in my experience. I don’t know the pedal involved so can’t comment but I’ve found that the only way with some pedals is switching them in and out of a loop (example original release Ibanez Sonic Distortion). 

That is true. The vast majority will be fixed with a buffer in front though.

slacker

Fair enough gents but if the op buys a boss pedal and can't live with the tone,volume, mojo suck he's out of pocket.

ICBM

slacker said:

Fair enough gents but if the op buys a boss pedal and can't live with the tone,volume, mojo suck he's out of pocket.

Borrowing one - or buying one of the millions of second hand ones, so you can sell it on at no loss if you don’t like it - would answer the question though.

Buying a loop switcher if it isn’t really necessary also puts you out of pocket .

slacker

slacker said:

Try to borrow a loop pedal, shudder a boss pedal and see what works without buying 

There you go

victorludorum

The old hornet's nest has been stirred up!

Thanks for all the replies chaps :-)

I have a Boss pedal, so I'll give that a crack later on today and report back, in the hope that it doesn't start too much grief on here ;-)

victorludorum

Well the verdict is that this pedal just plain sucks! That's a shame as the chorus sound is good. The Boss pedal did nothing to revive the tone of this baby (known for being a tone sucker, but not by me when I bought it!). I imagine that it's just plain bad circuitry, as there is a version II that exists i believe.

Cheers for all the input as always. Now, back to my Chorus search... :-)

lasermonkey

ICBM said:

Boss buffers do not suck tone. What they do is very slightly reduce level - the buffer is not quite unity gain. You probably won’t notice with just one, but run a few in series and you will - and you will hear it as an apparent loss of tone and not volume, due to a quirk of psycho-acoustics.

The reason I would use a buffered pedal and not a loop switcher is because you then get another useful effect! Instead of an otherwise useless extra box...

My understanding is that a few, including the CE-2/3 do, as the pre/de-emphasis circuit is always switched in. That said, I just adjust the eq on my amp accordingly and rarely turn my CE-3 off anyway!

Frizer

Lehle Sunday Driver is another boost/buffer option. 

skunkwerx

Buy a bright onion mini looper (its a true bypass loop pedal which will take the chorus effect out of your chain entirely when not on, so you can effectively leave the chorus on all the time, only needing to stomp on the looper to engage it). 

Not to be confused with audio loopers like the boss loop stations etc. 

Or for a little more (£10 or so) buy a used sd or ds 1 or something. 

Fretwired

ICBM said:

impmann said:

You can’t put back what has been taken away.
Stick it in a loop.

No, but you can stop the taking away.

A buffer afterwards would do no good, but one before will.

^^

This.

I have a TC Bonafide which works well. Vernon Reid uses one .. check out his pedal board from Hell.

https://www.tcelectronic.com/Categories/Tcelectronic/Guitar/Stompboxes/BONAFIDE-BUFFER/p/P0CLK