Are there any pedals which require no electricity or battery?

[Thecomedian]

I believe that the pedal circuits for distortion and other effects require some external power to drive those circuits and boost the signal to keep it from falling below a threshold or something.

I tried making a simple RC circuit to see if I could make a bass cut pedal, but if I turned the volume knob of the bass below 10, the whole signal would be lost and you'd hear the normal 60hz hum with some fast ticking in the background.

is this an effect of the resistance of the pot + the external source attenuating the signal too low to be reproduced at the amp? Does this also mean that bass boost/cut on board of your instrument also would require a 9v to pre-amp the signal, otherwise the boost/cut would kill the signal, like in this external setup I created?

[tink9975]

I cant answer the technical side of your question, but there are passive pedals out there

http://www.cavepassivepedals.com.au/

[Thecomedian]

I think the value of my coupling capacitor was far too low.

[NKUSigEp]

Mountainking Electronics PO Box (passive overdrive)

[metaball]

many "Bypass Loop Pedals" require no power.

[caeman]

The aforementioned Cave Passive Pedals has a line-up of passive pedals for bass. There are various tone control boxes that can found that are passive. I believe some volume pedals are passive. And already mentioned, bypass loop pedals and AB switches.

You can do slight overdrive without battery or wall-wart. The energy has to come from somewhere, obviously, so certain frequencies are probably being sacrificed to help along the passive overdrive.

[Thecomedian]

heres a bag of 100 tantalum caps for 15 dollars. Is it at all possible that this is legit?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NIPPON-0-47u...item1e72fce780

[bongomania]

Absolutely; tantalum caps are not expensive, and with any type of components the price drops drastically when you buy in quantities of 100 or more.