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| | The Straight Dope on True-Bypass |
| | True-Bypass has become a marketing term used to indicate a level of quality. It sounds impressive enough but there are other switching formats, so here's the straight dope.
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| | In a nutshell, true bypass works by removing the circuitry of the pedal from your signal chain when the footswitch is clicked off. The signal would pass to the input jack, hit the switch and be routed directly to the output jack without being modified in anyway. There are a couple absolute hard facts about what constitutes true-bypass.
- True bypass by definition requires a mechanical switch.
- If an unpowered pedal doesn't pass signal in the off position than it isn't true bypass.
- As a rule of thumb, if a pedal has a 3PDT switch it is almost always a true-bypass pedal.
- Generally a pedal with an LED not equipped with a 3PDT switch is not true-bypass. There are exceptions, but it's rare.
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| | Obviously, there are other switching methods, the most common being FET and garden variety mechanical. FET switching uses electronics to remove an effects from the loop, and is generally buffered on either side of the switch. Almost all Boss pedals pedals use this type of switch. The three advantages of this type of switching are, it's cheaper for the manufacturer to produce, a well made FET switch circuit will not pop or click when it's engaged or disengaged, and the buffer itself can help particularly with long cable runs. Garden variety mechanical switching has no upside to the guitar player, it is simply the manufacturer making the pedal as cheaply as they can. In recent years, a bunch of syntax variations have arose to please mostly the marketing departments.
Terms such as Hardwire Bypass or Hardware Bypass or the like were invented to make consumers think that they are buying a true-bypass pedal, when in fact it's just marketing lingo to church up the garden variety mechanical switching.
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| | So true-bypass is best and worth every penny? Well, like anything it depends on your rig. If you leave your pedal on all the time, than how's it's switched doesn't matter to you, since you're not actually switching. A quality buffered (FET) switching generally isn't a problem tonally when you're dealing with a small number of pedals, many buffered pedals chained together can create problems. Pete Cornish is perhaps one of the most respected proponents of buffered switching. He has written a short article on the topic called "Case Against True Bypass" True Bypass switching works best with a simple setup, a Fuzz and a Wah for example, a large fully true-bypass board will suffer signal loss, particularly loss of high end.
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| | Confused on what to choose? Yeah, all of us non-engineers are. Here's the straight dope, a couple tips from a practical standpoint.
- Don't buy shitty pedals with cheap switching.
- If you have a small rig, don't sweat it, a couple buffered pedals or a couple true-bypass pedals aren't going to mess with your tone that much. This is assuming that they are quality pedals that are reasonably well made. If having true bypass pedals makes you feel better about your rig, than go for it.
- Many guitarists with a large board will place a buffered pedal early on in their chain to drive the signal through the True-Bypass effects.
- Use an effects loop that cuts off unused portions of your board. A well thought out looping setup can be a joy to play through, but there's nothing worse than a poorly planned one. The Voodoo Lab Pedal switcher is particularly nice....very expensive, but it's my favorite so far.
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