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Certain YouTube videos would have you believe that not all buffers are created equal, but most people seem to like the TC bonafide buffer, from what I've read.
good work sir
A friend of mine had a large pedalboard with a mix of Boss pedals, a Cry Baby and a few true bypass pedals - despite the Boss buffers, the tone with all the pedals off compared to the guitar straight into the amp was terrible.
To make it easier to try to work out where the problem was coming from and save faffing around plugging and unplugging cables, I ran the whole pedalboard in the loop of my Boss LS-2. With the level set to the same (on the controls), it was obvious that the signal through the pedalboard was slightly quieter than the bypass as well as worse-sounding. So I increased the loop level until they were identical, and... the tone suck disappeared - completely.
We then compared it to the guitar straight into the amp and there was also no difference.
Even more surprising, when I then increased the loop level very slightly - but not enough to create an obvious volume boost - it was then the *direct* sound which seemed to “suck tone”.
In other words this is simply the known psycho-acoustic effect where a small change in volume is perceived as a tone change and not a volume change.
While it’s true that some pedals do definitely alter the bypass tone, I’m fairly sure that the vast majority of problems guitarists have with “tone suck” from buffered pedals are due to this alone. The simple solution is just to turn the amp up very slightly .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I've had loads of pedals that people have suggest have "terrible bypass" but never noticed. Because I don't use any sort of loop switcher, I always just use my ears to set the amp based on whatever the signal chain is, and never worry about comparison to the sound with just a cable.
It might well have prevented this whole “true bypass” fashion - undoing all the good work Boss and others did in the late 70s to fix the many problems with mechanical switching - from taking off in the first place.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I'm certain they wouldn't be interested, since they've never fixed any of the other commonly-reported problems which go back decades either - eg the SD-1's bypass bleed and the GE-7's excessive noise.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein