pedal order with true bypass and buffer

[dsguitar1]

pedal order with true bypass and buffer

So if your core sound is a les paul into an ocd (always on) into a Marshall how would you go about sorting the order of these pedals and cable runs so that the core sound you love is unaffected when the other pedals are off bypassed.

Bit confused as people often say buffers change the tone not in a good way but... With two 20ft cable, true bypass pedals and some patch cable there will be some change in tone so surely a buffer will be needed somewhere in there.

Here's what we got

2x good quality 20ft cables

4x good quality 1ft patch cables

Fuzz face (true bypass I believe)

OCD (always on)

Wah (true bypass or buffered)

Boss TU2 (buffered)

TC electronic Buffer ( if needed)

 

[jeremy]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

what fuzzface? my sunface always sounds best when its first inline. wah pedals also sound different depending where you put it in the chain, before or after drive. if it was me it would be fuzzface->wah->ocd->tu2

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

I think you need to start with the most important thing in the equation -the pickups.

Are we talking active/passive bucker/single coil.... as this affects at least the first 2 pedals in your chain if the first pedal is a true bypass -or maybe more depending on how many TB

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Fuzz face first in line - the fuzz face circuit likes to see the guitar controls in my experience. Then OCD. If your OCD is always on, it already acts as a buffer all the time, so no need for a dedicated TC electronic one. Then whatever pedals you want, it doesn't really matter after the buffer except for fuzz faces.

 

[SlyFoxx]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Not trying to cause trouble but you've got a few pedals, experiment and do what sounds best to you. I've got just one true bypass pedal on my board and the only place it gets along with the rest is last in line. There's theory and application. The latter will tell the tale.

 

[Larioso]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

One way to solve this - and not even worry about true bypass - only order of pedals as you see fit - get a bypass looper pedal.
So in a loop pedal is always on - and the bypass switch include it as you see fit.
And they often have presets to in one foot operation activate a bunch of pedals in the total scene.

There are budget priced ones like Mooer from $120 doing 6 pedals I think it was - and up.
Just look out since some of these bypass loopers are not true bypass themselves.

A little overview here
https://tgt11.com/category.html/bypass-loopers--midi

One Control, Voodoo Labs, Musicom, Carl Martin are a couple of well known brands.

 

[VinceT]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Already pointed out, but if your OCD is always on, you already have a buffer running. The question here is really the Fuzz - Wah order (a notorious breeding ground of hard-fought opinions and internet lore).

FuzzFace (especially Germanium transistor) have I put impedance that’s matched to the guitar output, so typically first in line with Wah next - and that’s definitely my preference (though I’m not a big Wah user) - but try it both ways and see which sounds best.

Side tip - Fuzz and/or OCD into a Klon-type circuit then into amp is a glorious thing!


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[dsguitar1]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Fuzz face first in line - the fuzz face circuit likes to see the guitar controls in my experience. Then OCD. If your OCD is always on, it already acts as a buffer all the time, so no need for a dedicated TC electronic one. Then whatever pedals you want, it doesn't really matter after the buffer except for fuzz faces.

Thanks for all the replies

So fuzz face > true bypass wah > OCD > TU2

And as the OCD is always on the buffer in the boss tuner won't have any coloration on the tone like it would if the OCD was turned off, is that correct?

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

dsguitar1, I don't believe you answered my pickup question -it's relavant.

If you have active pickups -you essentially have the first buffer inside your guitar before any pedals and the placement of the Fuzz pedal becomes a different strategy all together -as now your fuzz placement is more for the benefits of pedal order interaction, and stacking tone strategies downstream instead of the what is commonly the preferred passive pickup direct to fuzz interaction needed at the beginning of a pedal chain. Make sense?

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Thanks for all the replies

So fuzz face > true bypass wah > OCD > TU2

And as the OCD is always on the buffer in the boss tuner won't have any coloration on the tone like it would if the OCD was turned off, is that correct?

OK, so with buffers/true bypass/cable capacitance there are two issues that you want to avoid. Too many buffers will so something funny to your high (and a little bit to your lowest) frequencies. You'll still hear your highs, but they get muddier/less precise. It's like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy - at some point things start to get blurry. Not good. With true bypass pedals/cable capacitance though it ends up sounding like someone has rolled back your tone knob a bit - highs disappear. Also not good.


Any time you run through a buffer, there's some amount coloration. If the buffers are half decent, then this is very, very small and difficult to detect with only a few pedals. To give you an example - at one point I had a board with 12 buffered boss pedals . . . there was a huge difference between going through them and plugged straight into the amp. It was especially noticeable in the high frequencies. When I cut it down to four boss pedals, there was no real difference I could hear.

The cool thing about a buffer is that it pretty much stops the high frequency roll-off that you get due to capacitance in long cable runs. So you can do a 20 ft cable run to a buffer, then do a 30 ft cable run and you're only going to hear the roll-off that you get from the 20 ft cable run.

You're running 40 ft of cable total before the amp. My goal is usually to make the guitar sound like it has been plugged into the amp with a short, low capacitance cable* - this way you get a bright signal to the amp. This means that I want a buffer as soon as possible after the cable from guitar -> pedals. It's safe to figure that each true bypass pedal acts as an additional 1-3 ft of cable capacitance, so in your scenario above you have at worst case about the equivalent of 26 ft cable capacitance before the buffer. About 30 ft before the buffer is my limit - where it starts to sound noticeably like too much highs are rolled off, so the set up you're proposing should work fine.


TLDR - Since you are using a buffer between the long cable runs I'd say that you should notice little HF roll-off from capacitance. You've only got two buffers going in the chain, so you're not really going to hear coloration from the buffer. Thumbs up from me!





*Some people prefer roll-off to tame bright pickups though, so it's very much a matter of taste. My preference is to let a strong, bright signal through so that you can use the tone control on the guitar to tame highs.

 

[dsguitar1]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Sorry yeah they are vintage output passive pickups in all my guitars, mules, Duncan 59s, CS 51 Nocaster etc.

OK cool thanks for all the help I have a big pedal board full of loads of pedals that's was setup and works great for some of the bands I play for. But for a couple of the blues rock bands putting this small board together and love the core sound of guitar, ocd and amp so just wanted to keep that tone as much as possible when wah, fuzz and tuner are off.

Thanks been a big help.

 

[Larioso]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

With true bypass pedals/cable capacitance though it ends up sounding like someone has rolled back your tone knob a bit - highs disappear. Also not good.

... to continue a bit

using standard quality(100-130pF/m) instrument cord you get more high roll offs than high quality 60 pF/m(19 pF/foot) cord.
GeorgeL and Klotz make high quality ones, only ones I found so far.

And this you also notice if rolling off volume knob which creates a serial resistance with signal, with capacitance in cord over to ground - creating a low pass filter. If you use high quality cord you move that crossover frequency up a full octave due to half capacitance. More so on 500k humbucker pots than 250k SC pots as well, so make much more difference on humbucker type guitars.

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Sorry yeah they are vintage output passive pickups in all my guitars, mules, Duncan 59s, CS 51 Nocaster etc.

OK cool thanks for all the help I have a big pedal board full of loads of pedals that's was setup and works great for some of the bands I play for. But for a couple of the blues rock bands putting this small board together and love the core sound of guitar, ocd and amp so just wanted to keep that tone as much as possible when wah, fuzz and tuner are off.

Thanks been a big help.

ok, great -then Guitarstv has you covered -fuzz likes the to see the direct impedance of the pickups. -and compressors hate buffers in front of them usually.

 

[ehdwuld]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Excuse my Ignorance

but shouldn't the Tuner be the first in line
not the last?

I mean, right?

 

[jeremy]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

not with a fuzzface. the fuzzface input independence is really low compared to many pedals and if you have a buffer before it, it sucks the goodness away. if you had a true bypass tuner then you could but not with a boss

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

First... try all the combos to see what you prefer. None other than signature Fuzz Face user Eric Johnson himself prefers a buffer in front of his Fuzz Face. :eek2: I was surprised to see that...

Second... I’m a fan of the pedals you are using. My preference is:
Wah (True Bypass & Fuzz Friendly Buffer)
Fuzz Face
OCD/Tuner (I don’t have your tuner, but the TU-3 is brighter than others. Try just these two pedals in both orders to see which you prefer)

Having a tuner last gives you a master mute. You can then turn off the other pedals to tune. Having a tuner closer to the front allows tuning without turning of other pedals.

For me, discovering the wah with true bypass and fuzz friendly buffer was a revelation. It gives me the wah/fuzz sound I want and helps “drive” other gain pedals too.

 

[NegativeEase]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Excuse my Ignorance

but shouldn't the Tuner be the first in line
not the last?

I mean, right?

Depends really -if you are using always on modulation that is amplitude or harmonic only you may want it downstream of this so that you are dialing in based on any slight pitch issues with all the circuitry in line (It does happen -I mean if you've owned EHX pedals you probably know about this).

 

[dsguitar1]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

I have read on forums before that the ocd doesn't like to be put after a buffer, but there are a few versions of the ocd, mine is the v1.7 and on my big pedalboard its seems OK but different sounding ,thinner and maybe it's in my head but acts different to the guitar controls, but on that board there is a Tu2, Mxr M222 (although I believe that's TB) EVH phase 90, jerry cantrell crybaby and an overrated special all before it never mind what comes after it. Ocd sounds more hmm organic amp like when plugged in by itself, hence why on the smaller board I want to try and keep that sound/tone as much as I can. The TB wah not here yet and not got my large Hendrix fuzz face yet due to all that's going on, that's why I've asked the question rather than just experimented myself. Will def try the FF> wah(TB)> OCD> TU2 order first though.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

Which wah will you be using?

 

[VinceT]

Re: pedal order with true bypass and buffer

I have read on forums before that the ocd doesn't like to be put after a buffer, but there are a few versions of the ocd, mine is the v1.7 and on my big pedalboard its seems OK but different sounding ,thinner and maybe it's in my head but acts different to the guitar controls, but on that board there is a Tu2, Mxr M222 (although I believe that's TB) EVH phase 90, jerry cantrell crybaby and an overrated special all before it never mind what comes after it. Ocd sounds more hmm organic amp like when plugged in by itself, hence why on the smaller board I want to try and keep that sound/tone as much as I can. The TB wah not here yet and not got my large Hendrix fuzz face yet due to all that's going on, that's why I've asked the question rather than just experimented myself. Will def try the FF> wah(TB)> OCD> TU2 order first though.

My OCD - v1.4 I think - sounds the same wherever I have it on the board, or just on its own, though I should say I always run it at 18V. It’s my go to drive for what I do!


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