OT - When is "true bypass" truly true bypass???

[Resonant Alien]

I have a couple of pedals that claim to be "true bypass", but when I A/B the path through the bypassed FX unit vs. going straight to the amp, I can still hear a distinct tone suck from the bypassed "true bypass" pedals. Other pedals that claim to be true bypass actually seem to live up to the claim. what gives?

 

[RockStarNick]

Which pedals. Do tell...

True bypass is truly true bypass when:

A. You have a 3PDT switch on the inside with an LED

B. You have a DPDT switch without an LED

C. The pedal achieves the true bypass via an electonic relay system.

 

[Resonant Alien]

Both my Line6 M9 and my Peterson Strobostomp seem to still have an effect on the tone when bypassed. I double checked and made sure they are both set to True Bypass - the Peterson has dip switches that set it between true bypass and DI mode, and the M9 has a menu item that selects between DSP bypass and true bypass.

The M9 must use relays, because the switches are not 3PDT, and I can hear the relay click when I switch it from DSP bypass to true. The Peterson uses a 3PDT.

It's not a huge huge difference, but I can hear loss of high frequency when going through the bypassed unit versus going straight in. I'm tried it with both Monster Rock and Spectraflex cables to see if the cables made a difference.

My Dime wah also has a similar effect - however, it is NOT true bypass, so I would expect that. What's weird is that the Dime wah doesn't have any worse effect than the other pedals that are supposed to be TB.

I guess I'll look into a loop switcher with a tuner out so that I can keep them out of the path when not in use.

RA

 

[RACKSYSTEMS]

Well some times it is all about the pedal circuit board layout. Just running through the jacks and traces there is some capacitance which will cause the slight signal degradation. How are you testing this though? When you test use a very short cable from the out of the pedal to the amp meaning like 6 inches. Plug your normal cable into the pedal. listen and then plug the guitar cable to the amp and listen. This will mostly eliminate the 2nd cable. See if you have 2 long cables then you are changing cable length when doing the a/b.

 

[Resonant Alien]

Well some times it is all about the pedal circuit board layout. Just running through the jacks and traces there is some capacitance which will cause the slight signal degradation. How are you testing this though? When you test use a very short cable from the out of the pedal to the amp meaning like 6 inches. Plug your normal cable into the pedal. listen and then plug the guitar cable to the amp and listen. This will mostly eliminate the 2nd cable. See if you have 2 long cables then you are changing cable length when doing the a/b.

That could be part of it. I am using a 12 ft cable to the pedals and then another 6 ft cable to the amp. Then when I go straight to the amp, I'm just using the 12 ft cable. I'll try again with a short cable from the pedals to the amp and see. Thanks.