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Originally Posted by LordOVchaoS  If it's really true bypass it will not hurt your tone. Tone loss from bypassed pedals is all about capacitance. High end cable manufacturers boast about "low capacitance" because capacitance in cables cuts both highs and lows from your tone.
The Gear Page alone has made this big argument about whether true bypass is good or bad for your tone and I find it 100% gay. Remember, there are guys there that spend over $1000 on a new power cable for their amp even though the romex electrical cable in their house is the same as everybody else's. You can't boost electricity with a better cable at the end.
They say the buffers strengthen your signal but the average true bypass pedal is equivalent to 1-2 inches of cable where as the best of buffers out there add the equivalent of 15-20 feet of cable since your guitar signal still runs through the input cap. A .001uf cap = 15 feet of cable and 99% of pedals have a bigger cap than that in the input buffer.
My belief is that those who say they can hear the difference in the few inches of wire a true bypass pedal makes are full of shit.
That said a few buffers in your path can make a difference for the better. It works both ways. Something like a tuner should most certainly be true bypass IMO. That's why people spend money on tuner mutes for their boards. |
He knows what he's talking about. a few buffers I can live with, like my Morley wah, however if all my pedals were not true bypass that would definitely be bad for my tone. The buffer in my Morley isn't noticeable but when I use my DOD distortion pedal the buffer is crap and my cleans become very dulled when it's off, even with forty feet of cable. I think the quality of the buffer is a factor as well, but I'm just sticking with my Morley as it has a level boost as well so I'd rather not have anymore.