Solution for budget pedal's poor switches

lincolnblue

I've had a few 'budget' pedals before and whilst most sound good the issue is most often with the poor switches. 
Having recently just bought a pedal switcher, if a budget pedal, for example a Behringer, is use in a switcher, thus negating the need to stomp on the pedal, the issue goes away.

ICBM

Behringer pedals have decent switches.

It's most expensive boutique pedals - as well as a lot of less expensive, but still more than a Behringer - that have the poor ones. They're pretty easy to identify - they're metal, round and go CLICK when you press them.

ecc83

ICBM said:

Behringer pedals have decent switches.

It's most expensive boutique pedals - as well as a lot of less expensive, but still more than a Behringer - that have the poor ones. They're pretty easy to identify - they're metal, round and go CLICK when you press them.

And this goes to show the non-intuitive, can't effin' win situation with electronics design!

You will all I am sure know the pedals I mean when I say they came out over ten years ago and were big! To avoid known issues with poor quality switches said pedals were equiped with huge, high grade switches some 1" cube. InDUStrial fellers!

To further avoid issues, no audio went through the switch, they operated a flip flop circuit and audio was switched by FETs.

The system gave bother! No amount of testing various samples of the switches could induce failure outside the pedal. Not to give the competiton a headsup I won't post the actual cause but the problem was fixed by replacing the switch (which was never the actual problem) with the wee jobs you get on computer keyboards and a new mechanical design that made it impossible to "overtravel" the switch.

IMHO trying to switch at raw, passive guitar levels and impedances is a mug's game. Buffers rule!

Dave.

prlgmnr

The only solution is all pedals on at all times.

jellybelly

Surely a relay-based bypass loop like Lehle or GigRig do would be the best, if slightly expensive, solution? I've noticed TB switches can occasionally fail, but be OK if you shake them. Which isn't OK when you're gigging!

ICBM

A FET-based bypass loop like the Boss LS-2 is even better - silent, fully buffered and almost indefinitely reliable.

ecc83

ICBM said:

A FET-based bypass loop like the Boss LS-2 is even better - silent, fully buffered and almost indefinitely reliable.

+1! I never had any FET fail nor any problem with the IC flip flop driver and "they" must have sold thousands of pedals by now.

Relays can be noisy and require vastly more power than FETs.  They might be ok in valve amps if you need to switch high signal voltages but even here I think 300V MOSFETs could do better?

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

+1! I never had any FET fail nor any problem with the IC flip flop driver and "they" must have sold thousands of pedals by now.

Boss have sold literally about fifteen million pedals. In thirty years of professional repair work I've never seen or even heard of the switching transistors failing, and I've only ever had to replace four of the actuator switches. There have been *weeks* where I've replaced that number of mechanical true-bypass switches. (Two this week alone.)

ecc83

Funnily enough IC in the related (a bit!) field of hi fi, bipolar transistors were used before FETs as muting devices, notably in tape recorders and these were a bit notorious for going noisy! We suspected that the bean counters thought "only a mute" so made production buy in the cheapest surplus crap they could. We had similar problems with logic transistors in some Grundig tellies. Fitted BC107 Mullies, never seen again!

Dave.

Cookiemonster

A switcher is the solution for sure

clarkefan

ICBM said:

ecc83 said:

+1! I never had any FET fail nor any problem with the IC flip flop driver and "they" must have sold thousands of pedals by now.

Boss have sold literally about fifteen million pedals. In thirty years of professional repair work I've never seen or even heard of the switching transistors failing, and I've only ever had to replace four of the actuator switches. There have been *weeks* where I've replaced that number of mechanical true-bypass switches. (Two this week alone.)

No argument with reliability, they're superb.

The problem with Boss is the damage they do to the overall sound.  Don't get me wrong, they're solid, and I couldn't care less about their size over mini pedals, they are great in so many ways, but I've recently removed about four of them from my chain.  When swapped out for a cheapy true bypass pedal there was no contest, Boss pedals "muffle" things.

Yes I'm asking for trouble, but I'm a home player only and not risking failure on stage.  Roland really should do something about whatever is wrong with Boss pedals.

ICBM

clarkefan said:

The problem with Boss is the damage they do to the overall sound.  Don't get me wrong, they're solid, and I couldn't care less about their size over mini pedals, they are great in so many ways, but I've recently removed about four of them from my chain.  When swapped out for a cheapy true bypass pedal there was no contest, Boss pedals "muffle" things.

Yes I'm asking for trouble, but I'm a home player only and not risking failure on stage.  Roland really should do something about whatever is wrong with Boss pedals.

You need a simple always-on level boost pedal. The problem with the Boss buffer is because it's not quite unity gain. If you use just one you don't notice it, but a few in series and you do - the slight loss of volume is perceived as a loss of *tone* instead, due to a well-known psycho-acoustic effect.

It's very easy to demonstrate this with an all-Boss pedalboard and a level-controllable loop pedal. With the level brought back up to exactly unity, there's no change in tone at all. (You can actually modify the compander circuit on a GE-7 to do it, if you use one and don't want an extra pedal.)

Alternatively, don't worry about it and just turn your amp gain up slightly.

ecc83

So, are Boss still using a transistor emitter follower IC? That seems stupid when an SMT chip  would almost certainly be cheaper and use fewer components as well as giving zero signal loss.

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

So, are Boss still using a transistor emitter follower IC? That seems stupid when an SMT chip  would almost certainly be cheaper and use fewer components as well as giving zero signal loss.

I'm not sure about the latest models and revisions with the small-size PCBs and SMT components, but they were up until that. I hope they have changed it, but I don't hold out a lot of hope when they've been making the SD-1 with bypass bleed and the GE-7 with noisy chips for the best part of 40 years!

It's so annoying, because it's been a major factor in the true-bypass nonsense - most people have no idea what the problem is (and as users, why should they need to really?) - they just plug in three or four Boss pedals and hear what appears to them as a 'tone loss'.

And so almost the whole world has gone back to using ancient technology which was replaced for still perfectly valid reasons... it's just about the only case I can think of in any technology where a superior system has been superceded by a clearly worse one. So much so that in order to keep up with fashion, Boss have started using metal switches on some of their newest pedals, even though they're in fact not in the audio path.

Bonkers.

Marktigere1

clarkefan said:

The problem with Boss is the damage they do to the overall sound.  Don't get me wrong, they're solid, and I couldn't care less about their size over mini pedals, they are great in so many ways, but I've recently removed about four of them from my chain.  When swapped out for a cheapy true bypass pedal there was no contest, Boss pedals "muffle" things.

Yes I'm asking for trouble, but I'm a home player only and not risking failure on stage.  Roland really should do something about whatever is wrong with Boss pedals.

I never seem to get this problem.

I have an almost exclusive board of BOSS pedals (see pedalboard thread) with a True bypassed Crybaby wah at the front followed very swiftly by the TU3, SD1, DS1, DS2, BD2w, CH1, DM2w, DD7, RV6.

I have plugged directly into the amp and then through the BOSS pedalboard with non-engaged and I cannot hear a difference.

I think either I have the impedance of the collection correct, good patch cables (homemade and Ernie Ball) or my hearing is 'cattle trucked' and I cannot hear the muffling.

My guess is that if I was to add another pedal then things may take a turn for the worst but so far I simply don't have this problem.

Just my 2p.

Ta

clarkefan

Congrats if you can't hear it with that lot!  I swear, even with only one in the chain I can hear it, including the NS-2, and most irritatingly the LS-2

Though I'm feeling a bit gutted now after ICBM's thoughts, maybe I was a bit hasty.  Still have a couple...

And this is just home playing at relatively low volume, it's probably meaningless at stage vols. 

ICBM

clarkefan said:

I swear, even with only one in the chain I can hear it, including the NS-2, and most irritatingly the LS-2

What you need to be sure is a true-bypass switching box. Put one of the Boss pedals in the loop, turned off, and switch back and forth on the fly. Best of all, do it with your eyes closed and see if you can still tell if you switch fast a few times randomly before you start.

clarkefan

ICBM said:

clarkefan said:

I swear, even with only one in the chain I can hear it, including the NS-2, and most irritatingly the LS-2

What you need to be sure is a true-bypass switching box. Put one of the Boss pedals in the loop, turned off, and switch back and forth on the fly. Best of all, do it with your eyes closed and see if you can still tell if you switch fast a few times randomly before you start.

That’s what I used to use the LS-2 for

But point taken, I'll check it out, I'd prefer the Boss pedals back if I could have them.  Once I noticed the difference in sound I started going through the chain manually removing them and subbing in a TB equivalent, then vice versa, so I've manually done what you're suggesting.  

But a TB switch would be the smart way to instantly flick back and forth.  Works so well with the LS-2

ICBM

clarkefan said:

That’s what I used to use the LS-2 for

But point taken, I'll check it out, I'd prefer the Boss pedals back if I could have them.  Once I noticed the difference in sound I started going through the chain manually removing them and subbing in a TB equivalent, then vice versa, so I've manually done what you're suggesting.  

But a TB switch would be the smart way to instantly flick back and forth.  Works so well with the LS-2

Exactly - it's hard to be sure when you have to disconnect a pedal and swap, even if you can do it in seconds. The LS-2 is especially good for checking since you can balance the levels and eliminate the psycho-acoustic effect of a small change.

If you can still hear a difference, really what you need is to have a true-bypass loop which you put the LS-2 into, and then the other pedals into the LS-2 loops .

ecc83

Many folks these days have home recording facilities? Even a modest mic and AI can be used to record the swapover and the results compared. You can also play them back to a third party and get a less biased result. Stuff them though Right Mark analyser and you will soon see any gain or response differences (16 bit .wav only)

Dave.

thermionic

Boss missed a trick by making their buffers with a gain of 0.9 (or whatever the figure is). If they’d made them with a gain of 1.1, people would be talking about great and sparkly they make their rigs sound instead of complaining about dull, muffled sound etc.