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Plush Pile
Bronze Member
Australia
93 Posts |
 Posted - 09/06/2005 : 14:44:42
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| Can my MT-2 be modded for true bypass? If so how could i do it? |
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arcanon1313
Silver Member
USA
414 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2005 : 17:32:32
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| Go to www.stinkfoot.se and email him. he'd be able to tell you. |
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stinkfoot
Silver Member
Sweden
181 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2005 : 21:54:33
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Well... technically you *can* modify Boss pedals to TB, but in reality it isn't really feasible. There is no place to put the new switch, for one. JPL Audio in the US is the only one I know who does TB mods to Boss pedals, and he uses a relay to switch the audio, leaving the existing switch to control the relay. That is a neat solution, but it adds quite a bit to the current draw of the pedal (cutting the battery life short).
I have also seen one Boss pedal here in Sweden that had a 3PDT switch with shortened shaft mounted where the existing switch usually sits. That was also neat, but far too much work for it to be reasonable.
Quite frankly, I don't find that Boss pedals in general steal enough tone to warrant such drastic measures. There are exceptions, of course - the PH-3 and AW-3 being among them - but in general, a Boss pedal or two in the chain will not hurt your tone too much. It usually not until you start piling them up - stacking six or seven of them in line - that the tone will really start to change.
/Andreas |
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phenry20
Bronze Member
USA
105 Posts |
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boss freak
Gold Member
USA
663 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 01:03:37
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I've personally never understood the "true bypass" hype. I have been a Boss user for quite a long time (along with Ibanez and other Japanese-made effects) and never understood why there was so much importance placed on things that were "true bypass". I'm guessing that since I am mainly a Boss user that this is why I never understood it. To my ear, there has never been a need for TB in my chain. I have always understood that the Boss buffering system makes TB unnecessary with Boss pedals, but maybe I'm misinformed.  |
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Plush Pile
Bronze Member
Australia
93 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 04:45:08
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Ok, thanks everyone.
cheers |
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stinkfoot
Silver Member
Sweden
181 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 15:59:26
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The Cornish article seems to pop up from time to time, and while I agree with some of his sentiments, I also find him to stretch his theories a little too far. Who - in their right mind - uses 2 feet of patch cable between each pedal? Unless of course you're building a rack with individual pedals on shelves, like Pete does... 
Also, in his article, Pete Cornish claims that the cable capacitance (which is responsible for treble loss in long cables driven by a high impedance source such as an electric guitar) adds up with each cable, as if they were a single long cable. Jack Orman decided to measure this, and found it not to be entirely true. Apparently, the capacitance is broken up by the connections/switches, which prevents it from adding up too much. Here's a link to that article: http://www.muzique.com/lab/truebypass.htm
Lastly, Pete's article assumes that all the pedals are turned off - as soon as you activate one of them, the signal after it is low impedance, which throws any capacitance calculations out the window...
Even though my own pedalboard is a maze of true bypass loop boxes and TB-modified pedals (I have intentionally left a TS-9 in there as a buffer, while the rest is TB), I agree with boss freak - there is no need to go overboard with this. Regardless of if you go overboard with the buffered or TB approach... However, if you ask me, the best is to either:
* ignore the whole thing and just play, or
* follow Jack Orman's advice and start the chain with a decent buffer amp (a Boss pedal will do this job just fine, as long as you feel it doesn't affect the sound negatively) and keep the signal chain from there on out as short as possible (using true bypass wherever possible)
/Andreas |
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phenry20
Bronze Member
USA
105 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 18:35:59
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| As always, well put. That was my intention with posting the Cornish link: to give folks a little peace of mind when it comes to true bypass and get to playing! Remember JoeMeek - if it sounds good - it is good. |
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walrus121
Silver Member
USA
187 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2005 : 22:29:21
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For pedals that use only SPDT switches for the "bypass" I am in favor of switching to DPDT switches without an LED and 3TDT swtiches with an LED. There are also some schemes using FETs where you can get true bypass with a DPDT switch and an LED, so I recognize those, too. However, in general I am in favor of the buffered bypass on most compact pedals for the following reasons:
1. A low impedance output allows you to drive several high impedance inputs in parallel (i.e. you can do parallel effects if you have a previous effect or other high-Z-in low-Z-out buffer).
2. The buffered bypass reduces tone sucking by the cabling.
There is also Craig Anderton's CMOS bypass switch design, but I don't think that it is intended to work well with effect designs other than his. I put it in my Vox wah-wah and it seems to be giving me some problems with volume. |
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True Bypass
