Help needed. How do I get my tone back. Too many pedals?

markj

I have put together a new pedalboard with 10 pedals. These are crybaby, microvibe,tuner, 3 drive pedals, delay, reverb and a looper. I have a buffer that I've tried in various places on the board, but Iam loosing all the clarity of my superb amp. Does running these many pedals on my board mean I've got to sacrifice my precious tone. Iam using quality lava cables all through the rig, so I don't think that will be to blame.

ICBM

What are the pedals? (Including which model is the Cry Baby.)

What order are the pedals in, and where have you tried the buffer? (Including right at the start, and right at the end?)

Have you tried taking out individual pedals one at a time to see if there is a single culprit or at least a worst offender?

markj

The pedals are in the order I have listed. The crybaby is a Joe Bonamassa sig. I have tried the buffer before od pedals, after the od pedals. I have tried the buffer before the delay and right at the very end but not had good results.

ThePrettyDamned

Yes, but what exactly are the pedals? It sounds like one might be causing problems to me, the wah is the usual culprit I've found. 

d8m

ThePrettyDamned said:

Yes, but what exactly are the pedals? It sounds like one might be causing problems to me, the wah is the usual culprit I've found. 

I'd try the pedals one at a time to check them.

Check your patch leads also as a bad one could kill the sound.

markj

I took the wah out of the chain but it didn't make any difference. Is running these many pedals something you got to put up with loosing the tone of your amp? The list of the pedals in the chain are. Joe Bonamassa sig crybaby, voodo labs microvibe, Pitchblack tuner, tc electronics spark booster, Wampler euphoria, rockbox boiling point, tc electronic repeater, digitech reverb and ditto looper.

ICBM

markj said:

The pedals are in the order I have listed. The crybaby is a Joe Bonamassa sig. I have tried the buffer before od pedals, after the od pedals. I have tried the buffer before the delay and right at the very end but not had good results.

Edit (sorry, you beat me to that post ).

markj said:

I took the wah out of the chain but it didn't make any difference. Is running these many pedals something you got to put up with loosing the tone of your amp? The list of the pedals in the chain are. Joe Bonamassa sig crybaby, voodo labs microvibe, Pitchblack tuner, tc electronics spark booster, Wampler euphoria, rockbox boiling point, tc electronic repeater, digitech reverb and ditto looper.

Take each of the other pedals out of the chain one at a time and find out if any of them is the main culprit.

meltedbuzzbox

define tone.

Are you losing top end? Volume? Bass?

Drop the wah and the Digitech and see what happens

markj

Yeah loosing the top end and clarity.

dindude

What Lava are you using, are they the solderless ones?

d8m

 Sell the lot.

Realise in a couple of months you miss the pedals and buy them all again.

You will be that pleased to have them back you won't notic any tone loss.

markj

dindude said:

The soldered ones

What Lava are you using, are they the solderless ones?

markj

markj said:

dindude said:

The soldered ones

What Lava are you using, are they the solderless ones?

markj

Bit of a balls up! The soldered lava cables.

meltedbuzzbox

how long are the leads from your amp to you board and from the board to the guitar?

dindude

markj said:

Bit of a balls up! The soldered lava cables.

Ok, if it's quite a pronounced loss of high and detail it's still worth checking. I had a situation with a solderless Lava I built at the weekend which checked out as ok with a cable tester but sucked all my tone. It coincided with me putting a new wah in the chain so it was about to go back!

ThePrettyDamned

remove pedals until it sounds good, then confirm whether it was a pedal or patch cable causing the issue. 

Truth be told, I don't think any of those are known tone suckers, to be honest... 

The JoBo sig wah has a switch for true bypass and whatever the other one is, which *does* suck tone, as he likes it. 

d8m

meltedbuzzbox said:

how long are the leads from your amp to you board and from the board to the guitar?

This reminds me I must by some shorter cables.

markj

2 metres each side of the pedalboard. When I had my smaller board everything was good. But adding 2 more od pedals and a looper has caused the problem. I was hoping by using a buffer that everything would be fine.

ICBM

markj said:

2 metres each side of the pedalboard. When I had my smaller board everything was good. But adding 2 more od pedals and a looper has caused the problem. I was hoping by using a buffer that everything would be fine.

Sounds like the problem is one (or both) of those overdrive pedals, or the looper, or one of the extra cables you added when you re-did the board.

tone1

Tc tonesuck if the nova system is anything to go by