Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

wickenspoet

wickenspoet

New member
I bought an MXR Submachine fuzz pedal recently. While I love it, the box, websites, and demo videos advertise that it is true bypass, however the back of the user's manual says that it is buffered bypass in the specs.

When I tested the pedal in person, I discovered that it is not true bypass. I personally don't really care about whether a pedal is buffered or has true bypass, but some people do care.

And regardless of the timeless debate on the issue, I think MXR should be more honest about their products. Still an awesome pedal, though.

Have you guys ever caught B.S. like this from a guitar, amp, or pedal company? Do you think they're deliberately misleading people, or do you think they are just uneducated about their own products?
 
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Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

The whole business is BS in the third degree!
Organic, better, studio quality, meticoulus, handpicked, NOS, 3D sounding, transparent, upgraded, hotrodded, modded, and it keeps going on!
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

Marketing people will say anything to sell a product, even if they don't know what it means. I use a Loop-master strip for all of my pedals, it makes the whole buffer/bypass thing irrelevant.
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

wickenspoet said:
When I tested the pedal in person, I discovered that it is not true bypass. I personally don't really care about whether a pedal is buffered or has true bypass, but some people do care.
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How did you discover this? Was your signal flow interupted when you unplugged the power?
I like having a buffer early in the chain myself. One of the reasons I got the MXR Analog Chorus.
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

If you think true bypass marketing is BS, they're squeaky clean compared to the amp manufacturers who describe their cathode biased amps as "Class A". Very few amps with that designation (and almost none with two or more power tubes) actually meet the proper definition of Class A.
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

How about the fact that if the word "tube" or "valve" appears anywhere in the model name of the amp, there's a 75% chance it's solid state?

Yeah, what up Transtube, Valvestate, Valve Reactor, etc?
 
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Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

aleclee said:
If you think true bypass marketing is BS, they're squeaky clean compared to the amp manufacturers who describe their cathode biased amps as "Class A". Very few amps with that designation (and almost none with two or more power tubes) actually meet the proper definition of Class A.
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Very true! However, what percentage of guitarist actually know the true definition of Class A operation? ;)
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

I find Blackstars marketing of the HT series dishonest. They advertise them as tube amps, but there are a whole lot of solid state components going on in there. They sound good, but I think they are more of a hybrid than full tube amp.
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

El Supremo said:
How did you discover this? Was your signal flow interupted when you unplugged the power?
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Yep. Tried toggling the bypass switch after the pedal was unplugged from power. No signal came through, unlike my other pedals that are true bypass.
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

"True bypass" is probably enforceable.

Tube is a lot fuzzier since they say "tube <something>".

Which pedal is that? I feel like smacking some corporate dorks anyway. Is the company otherwise well-behaved?
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

Never had a problem with my Keeleys or my SD TT-Mayhem. Even unplugged, they send a signal if they are switched off. I have an Ibanez Weeping Demon and TS-7, both of which I love, that are buffered. I run them all together and don't have any issues. Well, from the boxes. My playing...
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

It really depends on your definition of true bypass... If you think it is fully the same as hard-bypass (i.e. by mechanical switching), then you are right.

However true-bypass can also be electronically switched. Also in this way no part of the effect-circuit is electrically active/connected when in bypass mode (not half-connected when bypassed like the tone-sucking buffered-pedals we don't like). Basically electronic true-bypass forces all the signal (without any buffering) to go through one wire without the need for an extra pole on your mechanical switch. All you need for this is power. The benifit of this way of switching usually is less switch-pop, which is why some companies use it... To me electronically it is the same thing, so I am inclined to also call this true-bypass. But for the average player it may not be that obvious anymore, since indeed when you unplug the power the signal is gone... like with a buffered bypass pedal.
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

St_Genesius said:
How about the fact that if the word "tube" or "valve" appears anywhere in the model name of the amp, there's a 75% chance it's solid state?

Yeah, what up Transtube, Valvestate, Valve Reactor, etc?
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Mostly your right but i give Marshall a pass with valvestate since they do have a preamp tube and the name was suppose to represent this combination.

But this is a sin that many have commited... look at the pedal manufacturers. Tube screamer? Dod's Classic Tube?

Even many amps described as "all tube" have diodes somewhere in the circuit. So there is a lot of blurriness with the terms.
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

MrTondo said:
It really depends on your definition of true bypass... If you think it is fully the same as hard-bypass (i.e. by mechanical switching), then you are right.

However true-bypass can also be electronically switched. Also in this way no part of the effect-circuit is electrically active/connected when in bypass mode (not half-connected when bypassed like the tone-sucking buffered-pedals we don't like). Basically electronic true-bypass forces all the signal (without any buffering) to go through one wire without the need for an extra pole on your mechanical switch. All you need for this is power. The benifit of this way of switching usually is less switch-pop, which is why some companies use it... To me electronically it is the same thing, so I am inclined to also call this true-bypass. But for the average player it may not be that obvious anymore, since indeed when you unplug the power the signal is gone... like with a buffered bypass pedal.
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How is that supposed to work, exactly?
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

Let me rephrase what I meant as I see I made some incomplete statements. You can approach true bypass by electronically controlled switching as described here. It is based on CMOS logic switching. You may not call this a full true bypass, since the switch internally has higher resistance (I don't know about capacities, too lazy to look it up) in bypass mode than a hard-wired version, but in the end it pretty much is comparable to a true-bypass by hard-wiring.

I have actually not tried it myself so I do not exactly know what happens when the power comes off, but my guess is the signal will be gone too...

So in the end I am inclined to call it true-bypass, since the impedance change is not too large, which in the end is what is the important difference between true and buffered bypass is. If you want to be really clear concerning these things you should call the 'standard' 3PDT stomps hardwired-bypass or something. Or call CMOS or other digital controlled switching electronically controlled true-bypass. But that would sell you less pedal so they won't...
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

Well that's pretty much like a relay, but as a semiconductor?
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

uOpt said:
Well that's pretty much like a relay, but as a semiconductor?
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Yep, although I have to admit that I have not looked into it enough to really know what happens in these things when the power chord is pulled.
 
Re: Companies that are dishonest about true bypass.

It sounds more like a mistake than a lie. With the box saying one thing and the website saying another it looks a lot like someone has their facts wrong and nobody caught the mistake.


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