True Bypass or Not True Bypass...

True Bypass or Not True Bypass...
That is the question... 
After you use pedals awhile, you begin to hear about the importance of true bypass. True bypass refers to the feature of using a DPDT or 3PDT switch inside the pedal which allows your signal to be passed straight through the pedal's input jack to the switch to output jack without it going through the pedals circuit. If you want to test any of your pedals to see if they are not true bypass, you can remove all power from the pedal (battery & adapter) and test whether it functions in the off position passing the clean signal. If it does not pass your clean signal in the off position, it is not really true bypass. Examples of true bypass pedals are seen in most boutique effects, such as Fulltone, Keeley, Malekko, Lovepedal, etc. A pedal without true bypass uses either a buffer before the switch, electronic switching, or sends the signal through the circuit that is bypassed before hitting the output jack. Doing this processes the signal and can cause signal loss that is often noticed in the brightness of your sound. Typically, the more non-true bypass pedals you send your signal through the more loss you have. The next type of bypass is a buffered bypass. Examples of buffered bypass would be an Ibanez TS9 or Boss TU2. These employ a buffer when your pedal is off that is meant to retain your signal. The problem with these isn't that these pedals suck tone by themselves, in fact they help retain tone, it's that the more of them you chain together the more your tone will begin to suffer from being processed. This is a simple explanation, but will help with my next point.

Some guitarist refuse to buy an effect that does not have true bypass. This a great idea to preserve your tone from loss from a non-stop processing pedal, but the more pedals your run the more signal loss you will have due to the length of your cable run. After 18.6ft of cable, your signal begins to drop out. So going out of your guitar with a 18ft cable going through 10 pedals connected with a 6 inch cable each and then connecting to your amp through another 18ft cable will have about 40ft of cable before your guitar hits the amp. With no pedals on just using your clean signal, you will absolutely have some signal loss.

So the great debate of "refusing to buy any pedal that isn't true bypass" seems crazy when you think about the signal loss you have when you have 9 six inch connectors and 40ft of cable. At this point, we need some solutions to solve this problem. I'd recommend finding quality pedals that have a buffered bypass or buying a buffer pedal to reside in your signal chain. A buffer will add power back to your signal and push it strongly to your amp helping retain your tone.



In conclusion, there are a variety of problems that can pile up here. You can use all buffered bypass pedals and loose some high end and tone of your guitar. You can use all true bypass and have signal loss because of the length of your cable run.

There are some solutions to these issues, here are some ideas:

Buy a Good Buffer and use mostly true bypass pedals
1) Solidgold FX Buffer
2) Option 5 Destination Bump
3) JHS Little Black Buffer

Use a Looper pedal - Use these to remove some of your buffered pedals
1) Loopmaster
2) Keeley True Bypass Looper
3) Voodoo Lab Pedal Switcher
4) Musicom EFX MkIII
5) Providence PEC-2

Use Pedals that have good buffers sparingly at the beginning and end of your signal chain of true bypass pedals:
1) Boss Pedals
2) Ibanez Pedals

And with that...
Let the comments begin! Wooo!