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I’ve been going through a cycle of building up a nice selection of pedals and them ditching them as they seem to take something away from the sound. I assume this is signal loss due to passing through 7 or 8 different pedals and patch leads.
So, what’s the maximum number of pedals you would tolerate in a chain?
I’m thinking to restrict myself to just a few pedals or look into a switching device.
Interested to hear your thoughts / advice on this , …..
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I have no doubt there would be a small improvement in overall tone if I were to run them all through a switching system, but the key thing is that I’m very happy with my sound as it is so can’t justify the extra weight and board size. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I've had huge boards in the past and never had an issue with tone when running through loads of pedals. I'm not playing so much now so have a much smaller set up with only 9 pedals and it sounds good to me!
I tend to run Fender style amps and use them as a clean platform with my overdrive and distortions etc coming from pedals, but back when I was using Marshall’s and Mesa amps for their amp distortions I used to notice tonal loss a lot more. Back then I was playing a lot more heavy rock etc, now I’m mainly playing Neo-Soul/R&B, Pop/Rock and jazz/blues etc. So my tonal requirements and experience may be very different to yours.
If you’re really noticing ‘tone loss’, then the GigRig Quartermasters are excellent and won’t take up much space on your board or complicate your setup too much.
3 drive pedals and an AMT preamp.
currently . . . 20
This, obviously.
Currently nine, but adding more shouldn't hurt. Good power and good cable help keep it quiet and transparent.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
Unless all your pedals are true bypass only, chances are you already have a buffer!
Any standard Boss pedal will be buffered. If you have a Tube Screamer that will be buffered. The Klon is buffered, as are most Klones e.g. the Soul Food.
A lot of delays and Reverbs are buffered but they tend to go at the end of the chain. It is good to have a buffer near the start of the chain.
The Cornish buffer clone from Pedalparts is an easy build if you want to go that route.
When I was doing some experiments with buffers, I noticed the following:
Taking a short lead from guitar straight into the amp as the control tone, I noticed that without buffers (all pedals in true bypass) I lost the top end chime in my tone. With a buffer, I got back some top end frequencies, but it still missed the very top of the chime, which gave the tone a slightly artificial edge.
I came to the conclusion that it was all a compromise. If you play mostly with distortion, you might choose to go the unbuffered route, as the reduction in top end might actually be desirable, as it can tame some of the fizz.
If you play a lot of clean/edge of breakup stuff, and must use pedals, I'd settle for a buffer, although no buffer will give you the natural ring of a guitar straight into the amp.
Once had a board that had 15 or so pedals, 10 in front, 5 in the fx loop. Made the sounds I needed. Current one has 3 pedals with a boss es 5 all in the front. Makes the sounds I need.
If you have 36 true-bypass pedals, run them in six buffered loops and put the whole lot in a true-bypass looper.
Six times that lot and you need another buffer...
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