boosted bypass??????

[iainpunk]

i have bought a fuzz pedal on a fleamarked and it was clearly home made by the seller.
we talked for a bit and he told me it actually features a buffered/boosted bypass, wit a boost trimmer inside. this was because the fuzz didn´t feature a volume knob, instead, a trimmer inside boosted the clean signal to match the fuzz volume.

has anyone here heard of that concept before? i think its absolutely genius, but also verry funny if you think of it.

[MrStab]

hi Iain,

hmm. i'd like to know their thinking behind this - usually you'd alter the gain of the effect, not the bypass. i wonder if it has anything to do with preserving the impedance characteristics of fuzz pedals. is the boost circuit completely separate from the rest of the effect (ie. the signal only goes there in bypass mode), or is part of the fuzz circuit itself just switched in and out? if that question makes sense.

[iainpunk]

the boost is on a separate board entirely.

he wasnt really clear why he thought this to be a better idea than giving the fuzz a volume control. but he said that turning down the amp does the same ting as turning down the fuzz volume. the trimmer inside could also be set to 0dB which is a buffer basically, the max boost is 9dB

[antonis]

> i think its absolutely genius <

Indeed..!!

Never though to set my amp low enough for the sake of just one pedal, part of the entire chain, and boost the rest of the chain when specific pedal by-passed.. 

[iainpunk]

just found this pedal in the pile again, the ''fuzz'' is working, its very nasty, more of a bad/scooped distortion, but the bypass booster is done for. the voltages on pins of the 741 are:
1- 0v
2- 0v
3- 4.68v
4- 0v
5- 0v
6- 0v
7- 8.93V
8- 0v
i guess the 741 is dead, so i decided to throw it out, only salvaging one of the transistors, an AC127. the rest were 2n2222, not worth salvaging. its not like i was planning on ever using this horrible pedal

this was also the first pedal i ever saw without any controls. this gave me the idea for the wave folder fuzz to not have a volume control, which i now decided against, instead opting for a trimmer inside.

what do you guys think about 'boosted bypass'? and pedals without knobs in general?

cheers, Iain

[Mark Hammer]

If the universe consisted of only one pedal, "boosted bypass" would be clever and useful.  But consider that more and more folks are using loop selectors to engage clusters of pedals as a kind of preset.  Should a "boosted bypass" pedal be in the loop, deselecting that loop results in a potentially inconvenient volume drop.

Personally, I think a simple unity-gain buffer provides the least complicated buffered bypass.

[iainpunk]

i don't know man, there is a single trimmer to match the distortion output, or not, of course, you can dial it down to buffer but for the guy that runs a dirty amp all the time, the boost can drive the amp harder

maybe a (foot) switch to engage/disengage the boost but only when in bypass, that way you can easily switch between buffered or boosted

cheers, Iain

[pinkjimiphoton]

a boosted bypass? why not? use it to boost your amp some, why not? may make it sound better in some cases. i almost always make "buffers" so they can be set to boost. a buffer is just below unity gain, sooooooo..... it kinda makes sense i guess to have it as an option.

i mean, i DO often just turn on a fuzzface, then leave it on and turn my guitar up n down all nite, sooooo.... i guess it may make sense... to someone