Bypass

[shawsofhell]

I was just wondering what sort of bypass you guys recomend using?

[hawkeye2u]

I would use a full bypass, not to wreck the original tone of your instrument in the bypass mode!!
Ie switching BOTH Input & Output, so the input circ of the FX pedal won't aff the impedance etc from your pickups
Use a DoubleTrow Double Pole (DTDP) switch, easy to find everywhere, however concider getting a Tripple Throw switch from Aron as U can then incorporate a LED as well, to tell You when ON/Off

[R.G.]

I was just wondering what sort of bypass you guys recomend using?

I recommend reading "The Technology of Bypasses" at GEO (http://www.geofex.com)

[toneless]

...and then the millenium bypass article
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/Millenium/millen.htm

nick

[Mark Hammer]

I generally use a DPDT stompswitch (3PDT if its a pedal where I sometimes can't easily tell the difference between effect and bypass, like in a compressor).

My reasons?

1) Easy and dependable.

2) I have a vast supply of 9v alkalines I have recharged, and it happens that they drain on me.  Taking the entire circuit out of the signal path allows you to completely sidestep any sorts of power issues that may crop up, like dead batteries (e.g., in BBD-based or other high current-consumption effects that can change battery status from okay to drained in an eyeblink) or enthusiatic audience members or bandmates bumping power bars or extension cords.

3) Although there is something to be said for having a nice clean booster always in circuit at the "head" of one's signal chain, when you have a half-dozen or more pedals in series, leaving any part of them in the signal path or hanging off it, just invites noise and loading.  For me, a straight-wire path is simply sound planning for what I anticipate to be a complex signal path.

[smoguzbenjamin]

What about boss-style FET switching? Don't FETs have a high enough input impedance to stop the signal from loading? :?

I guess building a boss bypass is a lot more complicated than wiring a 3PDT but OK :mrgreen: We have aron for 3PDTs! He sells em for a lot less! Check this out: http://www.diystompboxes.com/parts.htm

[Mark Hammer]

I have nothing categorical against BOSS-style solid-state switches.  They are, however, designed around a pedalboard which will rarely be anything like my own.  My bias is that once you get past about a half-dozen pedals in series, cumulative noise and loading starts to become an issue.  Certainly, a pedal with a 1meg input impedance and a true 80db S/N ratio does precious little "harm" to one's signal.  For the standard 2-pedals-and-a-wah setup, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the industry-wide solid-state-switching scheme.

Where it starts to become problematic for ME, personally, is when the little bit of hiss picked up here, and the little bit of bass-shaving by series caps there, add up over 8 or 10 pedals (not all of which are in simultaneous use, but if they were BOSS/DOD pedals they would all have an active transistor stage or two always in circuit).

The compromise is to have some sort of straight-wire master bypass or loop selector, which lets you enjoy the virtues of solid-state bypass without having to suffer their disadvantages.

Incidentally, one of the things that is largely underexploited is the way that FET-based switching can be exploited for remote-switching purposes.  Drill a hole for a mini phone jack in the side of your BOSS/DOD/Yamaha/Danelectro/etc pedal and you can run a cable to a solid chassis with nicely-spaced momentary switches of your choosing, while mounting your pedals themselves on a stand where you can easily get at the controls for no-bendover tweaking.  The nice thing is that since the footswitch extension cables carry no audio, you can pretty much run 'em as far as you want.  Most of them simply involve grounding a contact so that you can feed remote footswitching for 5 pedals to a footswitch assembly over a standard 6-pin DIN cable (5 hots and a ground).