Fixing the Mute issue on true bypass

[rolloman]

I was just wondering if anyone has ever looked into the Mammoth Clickless True bypass board regarding the known issue with muting during ON/OFF switching. It would be nice to know how removing Q1 and Q2 fixes it from doing this. I removed them and it worked for my Boss BD-2 pedal perfectly. Also it remained clickless too which is also very good. Turned this great little true bypass into a super great product with just two lead snips.

[slacker]

Hi welcome to the forum. What do you mean when you say "known issue"? The board is supposed to mute the signal when it switches that's what makes it clickless. If you don't mute the signal then when you switch you can get a click if the levels of the signals you're switching are different, muting the signal, switching and then unmuting it stops this happening. I haven't seen the schematic but Q1 and Q2 must do the muting.

[rolloman]

Below is a link. Actually it was on this forum where it gets mentioned starting on line 3 and going down until line 10 where the fix is given. Also if you look at the product reviews at mammoth it gets mentions as having a 400ms mute length. All I know is that I did the supposed fix and it no longer has any noticeable mute or click. Supposedly the fix turns it back into the Jack Deville V1 Bypass which is where it started life.
Link Below
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/true-bypass-relays-clickless-amz-monomonster.1507761/

[electrosonic]

The mute should not be audible. It should be something like 30mS long not 400mS. Removing the mute is more of a hack than a solution in my opinion. The mute is what makes it "click less". Without the mute there will always be some audible switch bounce - it just might not be loud enough to matter.

The reviews on the mammoth site are amusing. Complaining that it removes the tails from an effect?  Complaining that it is not stereo?

Andrew.

[rolloman]

Stereo    I'm confused about that one also.    I will try to find somewhere I saw 400ms was mentioned. On second thought that guy probably just got it from the other, like I did.     Oh well until I hear clicking I'm gonna leave it as is hack or not, and do a lot of playing and stomping. I'll report back anything that I find.
Thanks guys for the replies. Hoping for lot's more.

[rolloman]

From searching around it definitely appears that Jack Deville sold the technology to Mammoth in 2013. I found this old video that shows Jack Deville talking about his product back in the day. The best I can tell it looks like it had 1 transistor on it back then. I'm just hoping I never hear any clicking during switching.

[electrosonic]

I put relay bypass in all my builds, but with no mute.  It's quieter than a stomp switch, but not silent. The common way to mute is to use a uController to handle the timing.

mute signal - switch relay - wait 10-30 mS for the switch bounce to finish - unmute signal.

I have resisted including the mute because I don't feel it is strictly necessary and I don't want a uC in every pedal.

Andrew.

[rolloman]

Well, heard a click every now and then. Still prefer that over the mute. I wish there were some specs on the mute time. I really think that mine was longer than 10 - 30 ms. Gonna leave the "hack" which I prefer tons more since the click is rarely heard. The fine balance between mute and click is a tough issue, and I totally understand the purpose of the mute now.