The RG Rules Thread

[amptramp]

The question R.G. replied to was, for me, far more interesting than the question you supposedly wanted to ask, so, thank's for not mind reading R.G.

I suppose there was (is) another thread that holds the key to this whole thread, because I don't see where the - Oh, now I get it, the OP was edited, that's why this was a strange thread (pun slightly intended).

+1

I was wondering about what was going on here.

In addition to cost and reliability issues, 3PDT switches do not necessarily behave consistently - there is always one contact that is first and one that is last to switch and they are not necessarily the same going one way or the other or from switch to switch, even from the same lot.  I have never seen a switch that guarantees which pole switches first, so you could work out a switch pop suppression scheme for one unit and then in production, the behaviour could be entirely different.  You also cannot initialize a latching switch whereas you can guarantee turn-on in a specific state for electronic switching.  And as R.G. says, it is cheaper to use an SPST momentary switch and a few transistors and passives than a 3PDT.

[artifus]

agreed. just trying to lighten the mood and i have what some have described as a warped sense of humour which i acknowledge may be taken in unintended ways at times. i mean no harm. each to their own. we all need to find our own paths.

*was originally replying to the can't we all just get along post but stand by my sentiment - what's so funny about peace, love and understanding?*

*edit* these problems will continue until humanity gets over this whole 'money' thing. we will otherwise be doomed to 'failure'.

and by failure i mean extinction. no biggie in the grand scheme of things, mind. it's all good. party on.

please don't nail me to a tree this time. thanks.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

BTW...

I was merely trying to help clarify why RG gave the response that he did. I do not necessarily agree/disagree with what he said. I was merely pointing out that Strange posed a vague question and RG responded with some good info which apparently was not what Strange was looking for. There was no "hijack" of the thread... merely an answer to a question that should have been clarified.

P.S. PMing someone and calling them immature names is NOT a good way to get help in the future 

[Perrow]

agreed. just trying to lighten the mood and i have what some have described as a warped sense of humour which i acknowledge may be taken in unintended ways at times. i mean no harm. each to their own. we all need to find our own paths.

*edit* these problems will continue until humanity gets over this whole 'money' thing. we will otherwise be doomed to 'failure'.

Ah, I know that feeling. I have a tendency to wander off topic with (more or less) witty remarks.

BTW, your shift key appears to malfunction 

[zambo]

I love you guys.....( says in his best Eric Cartman voice..)

[artifus]

BTW, your shift key appears to malfunction 

it's just an outward expression of my inner anti-capitalist stance. and laziness.

[aron]

I guess this thread is now dead. Strange asked that his account be deleted.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

I guess this thread is now dead. Strange asked that his account be deleted.

I am sorry to hear that Aron. As I am sure you can tell from the pre-edit postings, this thread took a wrong turn somewhere.

It is sad that Strange is reacting this way. I hate to see people get frustrated to the point of quitting all together 

[head_spaz]

Yeah. My bad. I will stick to reading and refrain from trying to add to the forum.

Good!
Just 'cause you're on the rag, that doesn't give you license to misplace your aggression on the rest of us.

[Colonel Angus]

There is some hot stuff in here. This time last year I would never has guessed that 3PDT would be such a contentious issue. Look out guys, soon it'll be like Gearslutz in here 

I am interested in this electronic switching topic, though. Easier, cheaper and more reliable you say?

[Paul Marossy]

We tested buffered bypass against hard-switched true bypass in a blind taste test with guys who make their living playing guitar, and they preferred by vote the buffered bypass, so sound is arguably not an issue between the two. We took video of that a posted it on youtube, just because it violates politically correct internet pedal switching postings.

Oh no, that CAN'T be right. Everyone knows that true bypass is ALWAYS best.  

I still like Pete Cornish's argument against true bypass - http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.html

I still think people are nuts for wanting to true bypass Boss pedals and the like. Whatever makes 'em feel better I guess.  

My ONE must have exception on true bypassing: vintage wah pedals. They can REALLY whack the life out of your "bypassed" signal!

[Jdansti]

Without getting into how specific the original question was, etc., I'm glad that this forum allows the threads to meander. I've seen other forums (not stompbox related) where you get chewed out for going slightly off topic- kinda like a Nazi homeowner's association seizing your home because your shrubs are 2-inches too tall.  We're all here for fun and the friendship that comes from having similar interests; however, there will always be someone who gets torqued over some small slight. Not much we can do about that.

Peace, Love, and Grub.

[cthulhudarren]

I agree that R.G. rules.

[Gurner]

I am interested in this electronic switching topic, though. Easier, cheaper and more reliable you say?

until your (free?) batteries fail.....then you're somewhat up a small 'poo polluted' river, with no forward propulsion mechanism to hand.

Sure mechanical switches can give problems, but there's a reason that 99.99999% of all guitars ever made use a mechanical switch!

[Colonel Angus]

Honestly, I would like some more info on the topic, it is interesting to me. I've never got past the caveman approach of doing my wiring according to the quickest to find and most graphic bypass diagram, the majority of which are 3PDT true bypass. That works fine insofar as I can tell, but reading that bit from Pete Cornish got the wheels turning a bit. However, I lack the information to advocate one system as superior to another.

[zambo]

yeah i would like to know more too. And if you could tell me how to do it with radioshak parts I would be forever grateful. 2n3904 and 3906 seem to be the transistors I get and irf510 mossfets.

[joegagan]

i want my tone going through as few opamps ,fets and transistors as possible when bypassed.

i believe that the results of RG's test are accurate, for what the test was. but in the real world, you have guys with 6 to 10 ( boss, IBZ etc etc ) pedals on their boards. this is a shitload of buffer stages. a shitload of caps. could be good, could be bad, but ultimately, it does something to the tone.      when i ask these guys to unplug their pedalboard and plug straight into their amp, they are often amazed at the fidelity that is restored.

another consideration. i like a lot of low end going to my fuzzes, some of which are further down the line from other things. if there is one .1 cap anywhere in the chain, what is that doing to my otherwise lowendy guitar sound?



true mechanical bypass, despite all the shortcomings, is the best weapon against unknown buffer stacking.

pete cornish may or may not have the answer. his systems are a fully engineered systems( guitar to speaker in many cases), so one can assume that he has everything taken into account. applying his logic to a less-than-idealized system is misapplication IMO.

[The Tone God]

I still get emails about electronic switching mostly around the "Wicked Switches" articles. Things like how the serial resistance affects the sound and running at different voltages. There is interest in the move to electronic switching.

until your (free?) batteries fail.....then you're somewhat up a small 'poo polluted' river, with no forward propulsion mechanism to hand.

That is the only reasonable advantage I ever saw for using mechanical bypass, it will pass signal reliably when power is removed. Pretty much every other reason from an electrical stand point is weak or mojo when the bypass is designed properly.

Sure mechanical switches can give problems, but there's a reason that 99.99999% of all guitars ever made use a mechanical switch!

I'm not sure but if you are arguing that the reason mechanical switches are still used is because they can pass signal with the power removed I have to disagree. There are far more persistent issues for the dominance of mechanical switches at this point. Reasons like the cost of production as it is generally easier to wire up, takes less parts (no logic control), less space, etc. as well as just the legacy of the switch design which players expect. And even if that was an issue more and more effects are coming without battery options so an external power supply is being expected which is removing the need to be able to bypass during power failure.

Honestly I have RARELY heard of a player complaining about the lack of bypass during a power out. Really the number one reason for mechanical switches is the infamous "tone sucking". The belief that only true bypass with allow your precious signal pass unharmed. I would love to use electronic bypass but at this time it is expected by any serious player for a product to have mechanical true bypass and that is just what the market demands. I think its mostly an educational thing. It took 10-20 years to for the average player to know what true bypass is and maybe just now players are just starting to accept relays as an acceptable replacement. The acceptance of electronic bypass will take atleast another 10-20 years.

Andrew

[Earthscum]

Sure mechanical switches can give problems, but there's a reason that 99.99999% of all guitars ever made use a mechanical switch!

Gotta hit that one with perspective... mechanical switches have been around about that much longer than (reliable) electronic switching. Why change if it hasn't been discontinued?  

I do agree with Joe, here... and I swear R.G. mentioned something to the same effect, but it may have well been someone else... you can start to run into problems with too many buffers. I just had a vision of the pic of all the boss pedals on the rack. I'm sure Boss plays nice with Boss with 40+ buffers between coil and amp with no effects on, but there has to be some kind of limiting factor.

There are some circuits that just don't like being buffered, and you gotta go with TB... FF, BF, some wah pedals... about half of Escobedo's circuit snippets. You can use Jack's pickup sim, but that's about a full cubic inch of real estate gone, and another couple bucks.

So how are the poles in relays compared to the 3PDT (or DPDT... I still love Mill indicators)? I'm at work and PDF broke (or something... not gonna worry about it), but I thought I saw something about the poles regarding the latching at different times, like a spec. I was looking at the TQ2-L-5V (the Panasonic sheet has multiple types).

[joegagan]

pretty sure a carling dpdt ( bygone days) and the modern blue 3pdts also affect tone somewhat, ( there was a HUGE discussion at the gear page where a guy with gold plated earlobes could hear the tonesuck of a 3pdt equipped wah in bypass), but unless it is a huge difference, all of my earlier points still apply.