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Post new topic effect pedal with "passive bypass" such as a Rat
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Author Topic:  effect pedal with "passive bypass" such as a Rat
Jan Dunn

 

From:
Union, NJ USA
Post  Posted 21 Jun 2008 7:44 pm    
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I know the correct answer is "listen and trust your ears" but my ears are not as good as I'd like them to be, so here's my question. If an effects pedal,like a Rat, doesn't have true bypass, should you keep it in your chain when its not activated or are you sacrificing tone by leaving it there? I know tone in is the ear of the beholder but I'm curious what individuals' experience has been.

thanks.
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Cliff Kane


From:
the late great golden state
Post  Posted 21 Jun 2008 8:19 pm    
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Hi Jan,
I have an older model Rat, and the bypass sounds pretty good to me. Unfortunately, my Rat sounds harsh with my steel, but it sounds great with my six-string. For some reason I thought Rats were true bypass. Some pedals have a "buffered bypass", like the Visual Sound Route 66. I had a Route 66 and the buffer was too intense. It added a lot of high end to the signal when the pedal was in bypass, which may have been great if I had been pushing a long chain of pedals, but I didn't like the way the bypass sounded. I have another Route 66 that I use now, and it doesn't do that and it sounds fine in bypass. I think a true bypass is good, but some times they pop when the DPDT switch is engaged (I had a great sounding Menatone Red Snapper that would pop when switched), and a buffered bypass could sound better if you were driving lots of pedals. I think if you listened closely you could hear a difference with some bypasses, but I don't get too obsesed about it because I usually run the end of my signal through an old Roland tape echo and it has a preamp which colors the sound, but I happen to like the way it colors the sound. I also run an old MXR pedal and an old Ibanez pedal that I am sure are not true bypass and they sound fine in bypass. I think to some degree the "tone sucking pedals" and "true bypass" things have to do with marketing, and it's a moot point when the overall signal needs to be eq'd anyway, and you can just put a Matchbox in front of everything.
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Jan Dunn

 

From:
Union, NJ USA
Post  Posted 21 Jun 2008 9:04 pm     thanks
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that's a reasonable answer. I appreciate it.
Anyone else, please chime in. I might be using the wrong term for a rat when I call it passive bypass. I think its something else (active? buffered??--help me out here!)
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ajm

 

From:
Los Angeles
Post  Posted 23 Jun 2008 4:49 pm    
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In a recent issue of GP Pete Cornish (a pedal board design guru) gave his take on TBP. It makes a lot of sense.

If you only have one pedal, and are using two cords each 20 feet long, and the pedal is TBP, when the effect is off your cable is now 40 feet long. That is not something that most guys would sign up for.

It's like anything else. If a pedal (or anything else) sounds good, then it is good. It doesn't matter if it is TBP or not.
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Twayn Williams

 

From:
Portland, OR
Post  Posted 24 Jun 2008 1:29 pm    
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Rat's have a good bypass system. If you're really concerned about tone loss, you should start off your signal chain with a GOOD buffer of some sort. Then true-bypass for everything else.

Keep in mind that sometimes the purest, brightest signal is not actually what you want. Sometimes you want the capacitance effect of a long cable (i.e. SRV and Hendrix) and a few crappy buffers to tame the high end. It really all depends on your rig and how you hear sound.
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Jim Peters


From:
St. Louis, Missouri, USA, R.I.P.
Post  Posted 24 Jun 2008 4:32 pm    
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All my guitars are run straight into an Ibanez pedal, my steel thru a delay, my 6strings thru a tube screamer
The Ibanez pedals have great buffer circuits, negating most any else coming after in the signal chain. JP
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