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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 11, 2022 13:14:56 GMT -5
All my pedals are true bypass. I just ordered a J.Rockett Steampunk boost/buffer pedal. My layout will be:
Polytune > Barber Tone Press Compressor > Xotic SL Drive > Wampler Euphoria > Timmy > Volume Pedal > MXR Micro Chorus >Carbon Copy > HoF Reverb > JHS Tidewater Tremolo. I haven't ever had a volume pedal on board either and have heard some opine its good to place it after distortion pedals. I have also played around with trem placement and found I prefer it after reverb. All subject to change, of course.
So I'm thinking that maybe the boost/buffer should go after the tuner, before compression? Thoughts?
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Oct 11, 2022 15:25:50 GMT -5
I'd put it right before the volume pedal. That will even out the response you get between dynamics (signal strength) and the amp itself.
Also, consider placing the trem before the delay and reverb; that will give you the most 'realistic' sound because that's how sound works in nature. Unless, of course, you're going for that effect.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 11, 2022 15:41:19 GMT -5
Thanks Peegoo, it'll be open for experimentation I suppose. I had the trem before delay/reverb but found that it seemed to mask the reverb. I also had the OD's stacked low gain to higher gain but saw references to stack them the other way around. I'm not 100% sure the volume pedal is even gonna stay on the board because its seems to be more of a gigging convenience than a goober playing at home. My BIL gave me his old Morley pedal and I figured I'd put it to use.
Boy, have I crawled down the pedal bunnyhole. I'm seeing folks stating to put a buffer at the beginning AND end of the chain. I'll need a bigger pedal board and power supply to do that, so...no.
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Post by reverendrob on Oct 11, 2022 17:59:16 GMT -5
Unless you're using a fuzz pedal or something that's going to have impedance issues with the buffer (and sometimes, it's not an "issue" at all - it sounds better), early is usually better IME.
The quality of the buffer matters more than the placement the vast majority of the time.
I have a ton of fuzzes that are sensitive to buffers - about 60% sound better without, but 20% sound better WITH - and the others, it's halfdozen of one, half dozen of the other going on.
For them i have a Boss ES-8 switcher with selectable buffers that was very useful in determining whether it was my ears lying or not.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 11, 2022 18:32:57 GMT -5
There is not a lot of info on the J.Rockett unit, but for $50 I figured it was worth a shot. Being that it also works as a boost and can have the buffer part disabled by an internal dipswitch, I'll give it a go.
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Post by reverendrob on Oct 11, 2022 18:50:59 GMT -5
I've always been happy with the basic Boss buffers myself. No extra cost, did the job.
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Post by Pinetree on Oct 11, 2022 21:37:08 GMT -5
All I can add is plug them all in and make sure you're satisfied before mounting them on your board.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 11, 2022 21:42:09 GMT -5
Mounting on my board is with velcro, easy enough to move around.
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pdf64
Wholenote
Posts: 558
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Post by pdf64 on Oct 12, 2022 7:48:45 GMT -5
As you’re not using a vintage type treble booster, wah or fuzz, I suggest to make the buffer the first thing the guitar plugs into. Bear in mind that the Morley volume pedal may not be true bypass, and works using an optically controlled circuit rather than a pot, so it may already have a buffered input and output. I don’t see the benefit of the true bypass thing, especially for multi pedal boards; all those pedal to pedal interconnects, and the switching wiring inside each pedal, will add to the capacitive loading on the guitar, muffling its tone. So the net effect of the board will not be transparent, in regard of its effect on the guitar signal. See www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.htmlConversely, my Crybaby wah sounds much better since I removed its input buffer and made it true bypass. In that case, the loading effect on the guitar of the lowish input impedance has a beneficial effect on the resulting wah tone, in the ‘toe down’ setting. Clearly, it has to be positioned early in the signal path, prior to any non true bypass buffered pedals.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 12, 2022 8:15:12 GMT -5
"First thing" as in even before the tuner?
Are there even any production/boutique pedals being made these days that aren't true bypass? Even a cheap Joyo EQ I bought is labeled as TB.
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DrKev
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It's just a guitar, it's not rocket science.
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Post by DrKev on Oct 12, 2022 10:39:59 GMT -5
My two cents: Peegoo's point is a very good consideration if you find that the sweep of the volume pedal changes depending on what OD/boost pedals before it are switched on or off. If that's not an issue, then like Rob said you have no fuzz or vintage low input impedance gear that would react badly to a buffer up front, so I would put the buffer immediately before or after the tuner (doesn;t really matter which you choose).
The HoF is an excellent buffer at the end of the chain when in trails mode. That gives you good signal drive over long cable runs to the amp without degradation of high end loss, at least when the tremolo is off. (I don't know what the JHS output buffer is like but trem after reverb is how the vintage Fender blackpanel amps are built, so I'd probably do that too). If you run the trem in front of the HoF in buffered mode, you will always have strong consistent tone to the amp no matter what length cable you run, ya know for those times we're on a 300ft wide stage. :-)
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 12, 2022 11:50:10 GMT -5
The HoF is an excellent buffer at the end of the chain when in trails mode. I have the mini unit, if that makes a difference to the discussion. I see reference to internal dip switches for the full sized unit. I don't believe the mini has them.
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DrKev
Wholenote
It's just a guitar, it's not rocket science.
Posts: 425
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Post by DrKev on Oct 12, 2022 13:46:06 GMT -5
The HoF is an excellent buffer at the end of the chain when in trails mode. I have the mini unit, if that makes a difference to the discussion. I see reference to internal dip switches for the full sized unit. I don't believe the mini has them. Ah yes, that seems to be true. The mini is mono only, true bypass only.
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pdf64
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Posts: 558
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Post by pdf64 on Oct 12, 2022 15:59:57 GMT -5
"First thing" as in even before the tuner? Are there even any production/boutique pedals being made these days that aren't true bypass? Even a cheap Joyo EQ I bought is labeled as TB. I dunno anything that tuner, eg does it include a permanently on buffer? If yes then there doesn’t seem much point in another buffer.
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DrKev
Wholenote
It's just a guitar, it's not rocket science.
Posts: 425
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Post by DrKev on Oct 12, 2022 16:13:47 GMT -5
"First thing" as in even before the tuner? Are there even any production/boutique pedals being made these days that aren't true bypass? Even a cheap Joyo EQ I bought is labeled as TB. I dunno anything that tuner, eg does it include a permanently on buffer? If yes then there doesn’t seem much point in another buffer. Polytune 3 does (switchable), other versions do not.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 12, 2022 17:06:43 GMT -5
Yeah, I have the original Polytune.
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pdf64
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Post by pdf64 on Oct 12, 2022 18:12:25 GMT -5
Ok, before the tuner gets my vote then. I’m not up to speed with the current pedal market, but I suspect Boss are still a pretty big player and aren’t true bypass.
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Post by pcalu on Oct 12, 2022 20:44:07 GMT -5
It's my belief that "the optimum" is to have a mixture of "True Bi-Pass" and Buffered.
as for the buffer placement .. ether at the beginning or the end.
I tend to play with 20-25 foot guitar chords so the capacitance tends to be a factor on the overall tone so .... I use a Boss TU-2. Not so much because I'm old school (I am though) but because Boss pedals are buffered... and the TU-2 leads off on my board. I also use a TC Electronics Bona Fide Buffer at the end. Now days I don't run a huge pedal rig (Huge for me was around 10 effects) about 6-7 and I actually use them.. (so many just sat on my board and did nothing, never used them... )
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 13, 2022 15:45:25 GMT -5
So all three pedals arrived. Initial impression is:
The Rockett Steampunk seems to do its job as a buffer at the first position. Engaged in the boost mode it offers a ton of extra oomph. 👍
The MXR micro chorus does its thing. There's 1 knob with no ability to adjust the amount of chorus, only the speed. I've read it elsewhere and can confirm, engaged it bumps the signal noticeably. It'll work fine if I ever find myself playing BADGE or Brass in Pocket.
There seems to be a lot of overlap between the Euphoria and Timmy. I may switch the 2 around. The Euphoria has a ton of clean headroom in the open mode and under 18v power.
It's taken half a century, but I finally got my pedalboard config'd, lol.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 17, 2022 12:01:06 GMT -5
So my pedalboard sounds considerably better through my Princeton Reverb II than the VHT Special 6/Celestion Blue combination, which kinda bums me out. More experimenation is required. What I'm not totally digging is the distortion pedal stack order. Before getting the Timmy I had the Euphoria in the first slot and moving onto the SL Drive, so lower gain to higher. That seemed to work. Reversing it from high to low gain (SL Drive>Timmy>Euphoria) things sound a little insipid with all 3 pedals on. Again, more experimentation required, but curious how you guys stack your multiple distortion pedals.
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Post by Leftee on Oct 17, 2022 12:05:56 GMT -5
It’s that great speaker in the PRII. 😜
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 17, 2022 12:24:53 GMT -5
It’s that great speaker in the PRII. 😜 I think you're right. It has exceeded my expectations thus far. 👍
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DrKev
Wholenote
It's just a guitar, it's not rocket science.
Posts: 425
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Post by DrKev on Oct 17, 2022 14:02:22 GMT -5
So my pedalboard sounds considerably better through my Princeton Reverb II than the VHT Special 6/Celestion Blue combination, which kinda bums me out. More experimenation is required. What I'm not totally digging is the distortion pedal stack order. Before getting the Timmy I had the Euphoria in the first slot and moving onto the SL Drive, so lower gain to higher. That seemed to work. Reversing it from high to low gain (SL Drive>Timmy>Euphoria) things sound a little insipid with all 3 pedals on. Again, more experimentation required, but curious how you guys stack your multiple distortion pedals. It can change month to month or year to year. I naturally think of low to high gain but I try not to get too hung up on it. Sometimes I'll swap which pedal should take which role, e.g. maybe the SL drive would function better at a lower gain, earlier in the chain. Also, because I'm running into a clean amp, maybe the lowest gain pedal is my "edge of breakup" tone and may work better at the end of the chain getting pushed by the higher gain pedals, rather than at the front. Also I never have three OD pedals on at a time, just two. There are two reasons for that: first, it never sounds a good with three pedals; and second, I can hit two pedals simultaneously with one foot but never three! So I often arrange OD pedals in pairs that work well together rather than strictly by gain.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 17, 2022 14:22:56 GMT -5
Yeah, I'll play around with order and specifically designated function for each distortion pedal. I don't see my SL Drive doing anything but the higher gain slot, but the Timmy and Euphoria seem they could switch the lower/medium gain assignments. I find it interesting that the clip toggle on the Timmy seems to have little difference unless the gain is turned up higher. Also there's a huge difference with the Euphoria under 18v power.
All fun stuff to play around with, particularly in a "creative slump".
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Post by reverendrob on Oct 18, 2022 18:32:08 GMT -5
So my pedalboard sounds considerably better through my Princeton Reverb II than the VHT Special 6/Celestion Blue combination, which kinda bums me out. More experimenation is required. What I'm not totally digging is the distortion pedal stack order. Before getting the Timmy I had the Euphoria in the first slot and moving onto the SL Drive, so lower gain to higher. That seemed to work. Reversing it from high to low gain (SL Drive>Timmy>Euphoria) things sound a little insipid with all 3 pedals on. Again, more experimentation required, but curious how you guys stack your multiple distortion pedals. I have more gain pedals (and more amps running together - my basic normal rig is three amps at a time) than probably anybody here. What I've found vital to making the happy place is to have the ES-8 Boss ground control unit - it lets me move things around and do series/parallel plus the buffer swaps without rewiring...and I've expanded with a "no move around order" extender via MIDI for the time-based effects afterwards. The order isn't just amp specific - it's GUITAR specific, and for that, presets are king.
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