Pedal "coupler" question...

[Honch]

I must confess, I *was* in fact using a few couplers I lying around(also why i ordered them and thought running a bunch might be fail safe) and this looks like it might be damage from it being it won't plug in all the way(compare to where I plugged in my bass)View attachment 1038521

Just a thought, but what do you think??

If you can't hear it, and you can wiggle the cable and plug when its plugged in and no sound or scratches,pops, clicks are heard, it may just be nothing. There are some tolerances left. Frankly, this is the first time I've seen this. It can be the collar that is too shallow set, or definitely something inside the pedal case. But if it works it works, and don't tamper with it. You could test your coupler plug and check if goes all the way in.

 

[Honch]

My experience is much different from your own. Both myself and the guitarist in my band always use multiFX combined with individual pedals. Personally I currently always have flanger and chorus on for bass. She prefers BOSS where as I use Line 6 and ZOOM.
I agree that it's easy to over layer fx with these units and create a wash but they have great uses. We travel a lot, so none of us use traditional amp heads. This means playing on backline and borrowed gear where a multiFX allows us to create our tone with a small box. MultiFX are great for air travel which we do at least every few months.
Just my experience.

Yeah, I mean c'mon. Everyone saves themselves a lot of hassle. You don't need to keep track of how many patch cables, and which kind, and how long, as well as what current and power juice you'll need to power everything. And if space IS your main priority, AND ergonomics, hey, a Boss board, or Line6 Helix or Zoom is THE way too go. Even THE ONLY way to go. One power chord or adapter (one wall wart mind you, not seven..) and one input and one out. No dabbling with couplers, and stage space, and whatnot. Can't get simpler than that. And on some of these multi-fx you definitely has the advantages of making presets with them changing order of the effects. Try do do that with one pedal for each effect in the chain on a real pedalboard! You still have to use one of these patch pedalboard boxes - one of them from Disaster Areas - but these are pretty unwieldy, and if you want to save on cables, you're in for a real headache on these and have to use those multicables....yuck...

But generally speaking, from the mid/end of the 80s to the end of the 90s even, the full pedalboard with analog boxes was totally out of the soup. Really. People were a lot into the new fangled digital effects, rackmounted no less, and this is underpinned today by the amount of basement companies churning out their boutiqe analog handmade pedals dime a dozen. People wants huge boards these days, and swaps out their pedals all of the time. I mean c'mon, do the world REALLY needs another brand of dirt pedal?

 

[hintz]

It does seem more accurate. I was using it in the studio in conjunction with the studios tuner, which is supposedly HIGHLY accurate. The TU3 was matching it down to the smallest measure. I was impressed. Plus, my mini was causing noise on my board towards the end. Like white noise noise. It kinda sucked. I'm very happy with the TU3 now.

So TU3 at or near the end, yay or nay??

 

[Honch]

Tuner first, period. In the chain. Always and forever. It mutes the signal chain when swapping basses/guitars, ( i e you can pull the plug and cable without loud pops and thumps) and has the CLEANEST SIGNAL into the tuner pedal, not disturbed by any bypass in between or tone sucking patch cables. You may place it at the end, and start to tune, without checking that the Chorus pedal is turned off... or pitch pedal...
Or on the side chain of a Volume Pedal with tuner out may be one solution that is probable too, but still at the start.

 

[gregmon79]

Yes, + 2000 powers of ten. My experience too. I use George L's cables soldered onto someone elses plug. Mainly pancakes, and or Neutriks. Neutriks are large though, too large on boards, but perfect for instrument cables/plugs. However, when using bass, George L cables dimes the bass a bit compared to others. The only thing that George L cable "keeps" is the high end. Treble and high mids are great on these. But not at expense on bass.

Yeah that's why I love the DAs so much, super small jack heads. Honestly, especially live, who is going to hear a difference?! Besides, I happen to like my highs and high mids

Regarding tuners, yes, I've heard of many people moving away from TC's somehow. It's a fad, you get the hang of it, but after a while you'll start to think...what's the point, the other ones are more accurate anyway. Actually I am the one to avoid too accurate tuners on stage, like Petersons, and Sonic Research Strobe Tuners. At the repair desk, and doing intonation at home, there's simply nothing better, but it takes ages to tune up live on stage with too accurate tuners. Say, a Turbo Tuner, when that red "roulette wheel" stops spinning/rotating you're in tune. But as it spins up sharp at the beginning of the note, to slowly decay out to go flat, you're in for a major chore finding that sweet spot. It will never stop and freeze! I'll say anything at 0.1 cent, even 0.5 cent is ok...for me. On bass, and live.

Again, live, being that far "out of tune" isnt going to matter. In the studio, yes. Live, no one will hear a difference if you're .02 flat or whatever.

So TU3 at or near the end, yay or nay??

I almost always put mine first. But then again, my setups weird. I have that second/sister board. My TU3 is first on my mother board which is used at all times no matter what. The sister board has a comp and all my pitch shifting stuff. So when that’s added, my tuner is like 6th in my chain. And it tunes just fine. I have seen that before though where guys will put it last. That is so odd to me. In your case, I would def stick with first in your chain. I mean, why would you want to put it anywhere else?

 

[hintz]

I would def stick with first in your chain. I mean, why would you want to put it anywhere else?

Someone else on this thread reminded me of the whole problem with running all true bypass pedals and running a buffer or buffered pedal at the end to boost it back up, or something to that affect?!

The BOSS pedals are all buffered so I'm thinking by running it last would solve a few potential problems:

1. Having a buffer at the end of my chain(though I imagine this isn't ideal because its *not* getting the purest signal, I've seen lots of folks doing this)

2. Being able to use as short of cable as possible for the FX loop, rather than one a 12" and a possible 16 incher!

Do you get my logic behind this? Or am I wrong about any buffered pedal being able to help??

 

[gregmon79]

Someone else on this thread reminded me of the whole problem with running all true bypass pedals and running a buffer or buffered pedal at the end to boost it back up, or something to that affect?!

The BOSS pedals are all buffered so I'm thinking by running it last would solve a few potential problems:

1. Having a buffer at the end of my chain(though I imagine this isn't ideal because its *not* getting the purest signal, I've seen lots of folks doing this)

2. Being able to use as short of cable as possible for the FX loop, rather than one a 12" and a possible 16 incher!

Do you get my logic behind this? Or am I wrong about any buffered pedal being able to help??

IMO, short cabling and all that jazz really isnt that important man. Not to me anyway. Plus your board is going to have under 10 pedals total right? You should be more than fine as long as you're powering it efficiently.

As for the buffer, you can always run the Boss TU whatever first, then get something like the TC buffer or even a Built By Ryan one on Reverb. he just started building them and they arent that expensive. Great dude to do business with too. You can throw one of his at the end. Or something like it.

Here ya go

Built By Ryan Buffer Opamp Based Klonish 2016 Dark Purpley Space

 

[Aidenn7]

You gave me another idea! So I've *always * put the tuner first! But check this out....View attachment 1038520

I must confess, I *was* in fact using a few couplers I lying around(also why i ordered them and thought running a bunch might be fail safe) and this looks like it might be damage from it being it won't plug in all the way(compare to where I plugged in my bass)View attachment 1038521

You mentioned using a buffer of some sort at the end of my chain....What if I got another BOSS TU2 or 3 and ran that right before my compressor considering all of these are true bypass(I think they all are anyways?), it'd kill two birds with one stone!!(in theory anyways?!)

it'd definitely kill yet another with you talking about the dangers of running longer cables and the fact that I could move the Saturnworks loop where the SA PEQ is and that where the tuner is(I use this to ensure even output to my touch sensitive FX by feeding them equal levels)....

Just a thought, but what do you think??

Boss buffered outputs aren't the best. you can get a true tone buffer or a micro buffer cheap, but it would be up to you. I remember TU-2 have a leadbased solder.. improved the tone over the tu-3. Boss stuff is built tough. But like I said their bypasses seem to lose a little in functional tone. If you are in a band it doesn't matter what tuner you use as long as everyone uses the same one.. lol

 

[hintz]

Boss buffered outputs aren't the best. you can get a true tone buffer or a micro buffer cheap, but it would be up to you. I remember TU-2 have a leadbased solder.. improved the tone over the tu-3. Boss stuff is built tough. But like I said their bypasses seem to lose a little in functional tone. If you are in a band it doesn't matter what tuner you use as long as everyone uses the same one.. lol

Thanks so much, I'll check that Ryan buffer in a bit

 

[Honch]

Someone else on this thread reminded me of the whole problem with running all true bypass pedals and running a buffer or buffered pedal at the end to boost it back up, or something to that affect?!
Do you get my logic behind this? Or am I wrong about any buffered pedal being able to help??

One thing to keep track of, is that the only pedal in the world that needs to be placed first, even before the tuner, is the old analog Fuzz Face pedal. That is usually by guitarists. That's the only one that gets effed up by a buffered signal. On the other hand, when using Active Pickups like EMG's and low impedance, you almost just as well inducing a buffer anyway in the line because most buffers are to buck signal degrading, and you don't degrade anything through all these boxes, anyway, with a low impedance signal. It keeps its way and high end, and low end all the way through. You can just as well skip audiophile cables when using EMGs becasue there's no signal loss at all in any frequency, and no picking up of RF stray noises.

The infamous KLON Centaurs "new" red pedal the KTR (of which I provided a pic of above) has a bypass switch on the side which says:

He thought this was a better wording, that any of the TRUE bypass, or BUFFERED bypass wording. If you should use a buffered pedal, stick in onto the first of the chain. Only CIOKS, or Carl Martin (!?)* has this huge loop system with one box at the beginning and one other at the end. You shall place all pedals in between. Lehle is another brand with very very good buffer pedals at affordable prices. And frankly on any bass, and especially active, I don't really see the point in the long run. Just crank the master volume on the amp a little, raise the treble and raise the bass a bit...

Besides all this, here's a 101 on buffered, true bypass and anything in between, read, learn it by heart, and you could even do it in your sleep:


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True bypass? | stinkfoot.se

*EDIT: It was Skrydstrup... still Danish. But what a brand name, they need to work on that!

 

[Honch]

I'll quote the most "summoning" up from that site:

"Removing your pedals from the chain when they’re not in use will not only get rid of their tone sucking, it will also remove any buffering (the ability to drive long cables) they might do. This means that the amount and quality of cable between the pedals and amp will have a greater impact than before on your tone. When I was A/B testing a true bypass modded CryBaby recently, I was struck by the amount of treble I lost whenever I had the wah in the chain – quite the opposite to what the mod was all about… After a while it dawned on me that the difference in treble response came from me not only unplugging the wah to go straight into the amp – I was also unplugging some 5 metres of cable, giving me lots more treble.


The best compromise would be to have a really good buffer at the start of the chain (or as early in the chain as fuzz pedals will allow you to), with the rest of the pedals being true bypass. That will give your guitar pickups a consistent input impedance to work with, while the low impedance output from the buffer helps drive the long cable to the amp.

Keep in mind that you don’t absolutely have to buy a dedicated buffer unit (while they are generally quite good, they are also generally quite expensive) – if you have a Boss/Ibanez-type (electronic bypass) pedal that you like the sound of even when it’s turned off, it will do the job just as nicely. For a long time, I used an old Ibanez TS-9 as my main buffer… Then I moved to a TC Electronic preamp, then a custom built buffer unit, and then to a Korg DT-10 tuner in that position… I finally replaced the DT-10 for a T-Rex Tunemaster (another fully buffered tuner). There was nothing wrong with the DT-10, but I wanted to try the Tunemaster to see if it would do the job just as well. It’s still there, so apparently it does!"

So, be aware of a word of warning here
@hintz

If you use any kind of active pickups on you bass, like EMG or the like, all this thread is quite futile, and there's no discussion really, of what buffers to have, or what cables you've got. Other for than space and practical bending, flexing possibilities. EMG pickups are that buffer.

 

[hintz]

I'll quote the most "summoning" up from that site:

"Removing your pedals from the chain when they’re not in use will not only get rid of their tone sucking, it will also remove any buffering (the ability to drive long cables) they might do. This means that the amount and quality of cable between the pedals and amp will have a greater impact than before on your tone. When I was A/B testing a true bypass modded CryBaby recently, I was struck by the amount of treble I lost whenever I had the wah in the chain – quite the opposite to what the mod was all about… After a while it dawned on me that the difference in treble response came from me not only unplugging the wah to go straight into the amp – I was also unplugging some 5 metres of cable, giving me lots more treble.


The best compromise would be to have a really good buffer at the start of the chain (or as early in the chain as fuzz pedals will allow you to), with the rest of the pedals being true bypass. That will give your guitar pickups a consistent input impedance to work with, while the low impedance output from the buffer helps drive the long cable to the amp.

Keep in mind that you don’t absolutely have to buy a dedicated buffer unit (while they are generally quite good, they are also generally quite expensive) – if you have a Boss/Ibanez-type (electronic bypass) pedal that you like the sound of even when it’s turned off, it will do the job just as nicely. For a long time, I used an old Ibanez TS-9 as my main buffer… Then I moved to a TC Electronic preamp, then a custom built buffer unit, and then to a Korg DT-10 tuner in that position… I finally replaced the DT-10 for a T-Rex Tunemaster (another fully buffered tuner). There was nothing wrong with the DT-10, but I wanted to try the Tunemaster to see if it would do the job just as well. It’s still there, so apparently it does!"

So, be aware of a word of warning here
@hintz

If you use any kind of active pickups on you bass, like EMG or the like, all this thread is quite futile, and there's no discussion really, of what buffers to have, or what cables you've got. Other for than space and practical bending, flexing possibilities. EMG pickups are that buffer.

Going backwards through your message, I use only passive electronics. I cant stand EMG'S on my personal basses, even my old Bartolini HI-A's are passive....


I'll have to look it up, but I believe every pedal I have right now is true bypass which is why I asked about the BOSS TU2 or 3. Where before this setup, I always had a few older pedals throughout , which led to that whole question....not sure if this quote is from ovnilabs or not, but i might need to revisit it.

I'm still waiting on the loop and a new chorus to see/ hear how it all works together, so thanks!! I'd rather not buy just a dedicated buffer if say a BOSS will do it.

Thanks!!

 

[hintz]

I'll quote the most "summoning" up from that site:

"Removing your pedals from the chain when they’re not in use will not only get rid of their tone sucking, it will also remove any buffering (the ability to drive long cables) they might do. This means that the amount and quality of cable between the pedals and amp will have a greater impact than before on your tone. When I was A/B testing a true bypass modded CryBaby recently, I was struck by the amount of treble I lost whenever I had the wah in the chain – quite the opposite to what the mod was all about… After a while it dawned on me that the difference in treble response came from me not only unplugging the wah to go straight into the amp – I was also unplugging some 5 metres of cable, giving me lots more treble.


The best compromise would be to have a really good buffer at the start of the chain (or as early in the chain as fuzz pedals will allow you to), with the rest of the pedals being true bypass. That will give your guitar pickups a consistent input impedance to work with, while the low impedance output from the buffer helps drive the long cable to the amp.

Keep in mind that you don’t absolutely have to buy a dedicated buffer unit (while they are generally quite good, they are also generally quite expensive) – if you have a Boss/Ibanez-type (electronic bypass) pedal that you like the sound of even when it’s turned off, it will do the job just as nicely. For a long time, I used an old Ibanez TS-9 as my main buffer… Then I moved to a TC Electronic preamp, then a custom built buffer unit, and then to a Korg DT-10 tuner in that position… I finally replaced the DT-10 for a T-Rex Tunemaster (another fully buffered tuner). There was nothing wrong with the DT-10, but I wanted to try the Tunemaster to see if it would do the job just as well. It’s still there, so apparently it does!"

So, be aware of a word of warning here
@hintz

If you use any kind of active pickups on you bass, like EMG or the like, all this thread is quite futile, and there's no discussion really, of what buffers to have, or what cables you've got. Other for than space and practical bending, flexing possibilities. EMG pickups are that buffer.

Thanks really, I do appreciate all the knowledge and insight on this! Despite the fact I've used pedals on again/off again since I started 21 years ago, alot of this information is relatively new knowledge.

I remember when everyone was raving about true bypass maybe around 15years ago(at a point when I had two of those BOSS pedal board/suitcase things which I ran often ran through both with lots of issues), so I stepped away from pedals completely! I stopped this last time because of moving, having failures on gig's and the keybordist/BL complaining about me taking up *his* space sonically. Well, he's gone now so it frees me up and I got the bug again!

In short, I'm still learning and I've had worse luck than most with effects

 

[Honch]

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[Flabzilla]

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A familiar picture in that link.

 

[Honch]

I like the way he explains that if it should be possible to carry on that way, with hanging pedals in a line like that, it forms - eventually - a large circle over your head. While it will perform enormous stress on the lowest (first) ones on the floor they will probably break and crack, before they can take that weight all around. Offset ones doesn't help with this at all.

But the best sum up of it all comes at the end and this should be used as a sticky on here, to be the 11th amendment or something:

"And even though small short patch cables might cost a little more, spending all that money on pedals only to skimp on the cables (or use stuff - couplers - that might damage them) doesn’t make much sense…"

 

[Crazy Otto]

If anyone in Europe is looking at EBS cables, Thomann now carries Harley Benton versions, which are about 30% cheaper.

 

[Honch]

Really?
Like I said in bold in the last post, is it really worth it to be that stingy? One dollar here and there? I find it peculiar, those prices are lower than any single bass string out there, which you need too, to keep as spare and spend dough on. All of a sudden that price seems to be acceptable, but people wants to skimp at the patch cables. I would use Harley B as a spare only, and use EBS as standard on the board. You can buy a dozen of them, if some of them should crap out. I remembre buying a set of KORG patch cables in the 70s (yes, not a typo, the 70s) 10 piece used for their synths MS20 and so on. ONE of the cables crapped out on me at the end of the noughties, like in 2009 or something. They were molded, sealed to. "Cheap" plastic ones. They stood the test of gigs, disconnection and connecting, and has been rolled over many times by flight cases, office chairs and whatnot. I still have 9 functioning cables and they sound the same as any posh Lave, Evidence, or George L patch cable. They don't do cables as they used to...

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it's 4 USD

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it's 3 USD

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it's 5.9 USD almost 6...

Really?

 

[Crazy Otto]

You're welcome