I don't know much about effects, so I hope yall can let me know what's up. I bought some pedals, and noticed a change in tone even when they are not on. Also I'd like to have an ABY box to engage multiple pedals at once. I say ABY, because I already have one. So here are my questions. What do you do to keep your tone? Especially when using multiple effects? For example, my clean tone changes when I plug into my envelop filter (even when off). Any way to avoid this? Also I only have 1 input on my shuttle 9.2. Is there a way to use that ABY box as I am wanting? I'd like to be able to stack effects, bit turn them on with one push. I don't think I can with this amp though. Hope I'm wrong. Sorry if I'm not explaining clearly, but I hope to get it worked out. Thanks in advance
What you sound like you need is a bypass looper. There are many kinds. Saturnworks and Loop Master come to mind right away. Check them out, True Bypass Multi Looper Pedal | Saturnworks Pedals Loop-Master Pedals - True Bypass Looper & Pedal Switchers
I use a bypass looper strip style myself. It helps keep your tone and signal strong and it makes operating multiple pedals easy as heck. You can avoid that tone suck from the filter by plugging it into one of the loops on a bypass strip. That way its completely out of your chain unless you engage that specific loop.
The tone suck might be related to lack of proper buffering. Is it an active or passive bass you're playing? Also what type of envelope is this?
Often when you use long cables from bass to a bunch of effects connected by smaller cables followed by another long cable to the amp you end up getting some loss in the high end of your bass tone because the way the electronics of the guitar and cable works creates a low-pass filter, and when the capacitance of the signal builds up as the cable length gets longer the more high-end you lose. Check out this video for a better explanation than I could ever provide: How would you describe the "difference in tone" that you're experiencing? Is it a loss of high end? Or could it be something else? Bad cabling maybe? How many effects are you running? Are they all true bypass? Are they vintage pedals and have crappy bypass circuits?
Hey thanks everybody! @Connormac123456 I'm using a G30 to the board, and a 6 ft cable from board to amp. @ProfFrink I have both passive and active, and the same behavior from both. But the tone suck I'm talking about is a darkening. To my ears, anyway. @gregmon79 thanks I'll check that out! BTW, the pedals are all MXR. I'm not an effects connoisseur, so the effects themselves sound OK. Looking forward to using them more! I have envelope, distortion, preamp stomp, and octaver. That Sweetwater easy payment thing sucked me in!
Oh @Connormac123456 I think they're all true bypass, and yeah its a loss of high end and a little punch. It's just kind of lame, but if it's a necessary evil I guess I'll just deal with it.
I know it is rather expensive, but I use the Lehle RMI Basswitch for this purpose. The other Lehle splitters are top quality, too. They've put a lof of effort into not letting pedals degrade the quality of your signal. Even "true bypass" pedals. They are not "witches": if a pedal is really degrading your signal, no matter what, and your signal goes through this pedal, Lehle can't prevent this from happening... The basswitch is a top-notch DI. And has a serial and a parallel-effects loop. The serial-effects loop can be set to off. You can decide if the DI-signal carries both effect loops and the EQ or just the boost or just the pure signal of your instrument. Here is a picture of the basswitch on Marcus Millers' board: {} What follows is an exerpt of the manual for the Basswitch. For sure it is marketing, but nonetheless I think it explains very well the problems with pedals etc. even if you are not interested in the Lehle pedal: "True Bypass and True Sound Today more and more effect pedals fea- ture true bypass switching to completely bypass the pedal in the signal routing when the pedal is switched off. The target of this design is to ensure that the pedal does not affect the electrical signal when it is switched off. This way the sound is left unaltered ‑ in theory. In practice, however, connecting several pedals featuring a true‑bypass design in series does not improve the sound or keep it unaltered at all. Long runs of cable and multiple connections lead to a weak and lifeless sound. On large pedalboards the overall length of the cable is enough for the capacitance of the cable have a negative effect on the sound. The capacitance of the cable acts as a low‑pass filter (= the low frequencies pass through the filter while the high frequencies are filtered out). The price and quality of the cable you are using will not change this physical phenomenon. A solution would be to use only devices with buffered bypass design instead of true bypass. This, however, is only a good solution if the buffer is of very high qual ‑ ity. If several units with buffered bypass are connected in series it only needs one buffer to be noisy, cut the dynamics of the sound signal or negatively affect the sound in any other way for the sound of the whole effect chain to be spoilt. As the saying goes „a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”. In addition, the noise of the individual buffers adds up to produce audible noise; it is a fact that every buffer produces some noise, even if it cannot be heard when only a single buffer is used. The ideal solution is to have a very high‑quality buffer at the beginning of the chain that brings the signal down to a very low impedance. This makes the sig ‑ nal insensitive to the length of the cable. It is important, however, that this buffer is of the highest quality with the dynamic range and headroom necessary to ensure that all the details of the bass signal stay are retained unaltered. The effect pedals in the downstream loops should then ideally have true bypass so that they will not have a negatively effect on the now buffered signal, as the true bypass design does not reduce dynamics and headroom or produce any noise. Conclusion: Having a True Sound Lehle buffer at the beginning of your effect chain combined with good true‑bypass‑equipped effects in the loop guarantees the best sound." Source: http://www.rmi.lu/assets/brochures_manuals/Basswitch_Manual_EN_(web).pdf
T1M Mini Buffer MB | Reverb Not mine, some reputation issues with the builder, but I have one and it works great!!!!! Fixes that wet blanket issue and its $30