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"Tone Suck" -- Real? Imaginary? Misattribution?

Bongolation

Bongolation

Nov 9, 2001
8,047
148
California
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#1
I really think this subject needs some thought.

This "tone suck" charge sure seems to be tossed around with what appears inadequate thought or methodology, particularly by people who don't seem to be technical heavyweights.

It especially seems to me that a lot of this is gratuitously applied to effects that didn't cost a lot, even there is no technical necessity for a cheap analog stomp to "suck tone" more than an expensive one, which is automatically "awesome."

What is "tone suck," anyway? Does it happens when the stomp is on or when it is off?

How much tone suck is imaginary and the product of suggestion?

How much is real?

If real, how do you know it's not misattributed from a coincident problem elsewhere in the signal path, like improper effect order or wrong use of effect EQ?

How did you test it? Is it based on fleeting subjective impression or serious testing with a proper A/B rig?

If it's real, can it be compensated for by adjusting something else in the signal chain?

Does it suck enough tone to even be an issue with groove bass?

I'm asking this because for whatever reason, I don't seem to notice any significant tone suck going on with the few effects I use, even with guitar, where it would presumably be more apparent.

What am I doing wrong? ;)
 
#3
Great question!

It's definitely real. Especially the longer the signal chain is. Run it through an effects loop and turn it on and off. There's definitely noise even with them all off. Depends what pedals of course.

I personally think it makes the most difference with a lot of effects. A few isn't big of a deal.

It won't ruin anything per se, but if you can turn the loop on and off, you may notice and opt to leave it off as much as possible until you really engage the effects.

Bongolation said:
I really think this subject needs some thought.

This "tone suck" charge sure seems to be tossed around with what appears inadequate thought or methodology, particularly by people who don't seem to be technical heavyweights.

It especially seems to me that a lot of this is gratuitously applied to effects that didn't cost a lot, even there is no technical necessity for a cheap analog stomp to "suck tone" more than an expensive one, which is automatically "awesome."

What is "tone suck," anyway? Does it happens when the stomp is on or when it is off?

How much tone suck is imaginary and the product of suggestion?

How much is real?

If real, how do you know it's not misattributed from a coincident problem elsewhere in the signal path, like improper effect order or wrong use of effect EQ?

How did you test it? Is it based on fleeting subjective impression or serious testing with a proper A/B rig?

If it's real, can it be compensated for by adjusting something else in the signal chain?

Does it suck enough tone to even be an issue with groove bass?

I'm asking this because for whatever reason, I don't seem to notice any significant tone suck going on with the few effects I use, even with guitar, where it would presumably be more apparent.

What am I doing wrong? ;)
Click to expand...
 
#6
Hey, if you're not noticing any tone suck, there might not be any. But maybe you're ears aren't good enough to hear it, or its minimal, or you haven't noticed, or you don't understand how to test it.

To answer your main question, tone suck is a change in gain and/or tonal qualities when a pedal is in bypass versus not in the chain.

Some cheapo pedals have great bypasses, some expensive pedals have cruddy bypasses, it depends on the design and components. Cheap pedals are ostensibly more likely to use components with larger tolerances/large differences in possible values from the marked value (because these components are typically cheaper). This is as much a problem as poor design because it only takes a little bit of extra resistance in the wrong area to drop volume or act like a passive filter: tone knobs on passive basses are passive filters, so going through a crap bypass can sound like you turned down the tone knob -- voila, tone suck.

There are other issues too, like impedance mismatching which I don't have the technical background to talk about in detail. Basically there are a wide variety of reasons for a bypass to be crappy, but they can be avoided with good design and low drift components. Whether or not you notice it is up to you. Also, just because some pedals in a manufacturing run have drifted to a new value and thrown off the bypass, that doesn't mean all of them have -- it's plausible to have a suck-less pedal from a line of suck pedals.
 
#8
Tone suck is a generic term to describe a) any sort of loss in the original signal (volume, frequency, etc.) or b) any sort of addition to the original signal that negatively impacts your "tone" according to your ears.

The caveat here is that if you don't actually notice it happening, it doesn't exist (whether it's happening or not).
 
#9
NKUSigEp said:
Tone suck is a generic term to describe a) any sort of loss in the original signal (volume, frequency, etc.) or b) any sort of addition to the original signal that negatively impacts your "tone" according to your ears.

The caveat here is that if you don't actually notice it happening, it doesn't exist (whether it's happening or not).
Click to expand...

Totally agree.
 
#10
I'm not sure my post will actually contribute any insight, but I did have a substantial tone suck problem last year. I was running eleven pedals in one chain, on my dearly-departed Amazing Technicolor Nightmare Pedalboard. I was getting a massive volume drop, which prompted me to buy an EHX LPB-1. While it did solve the volume drop problem, it did not play nice with my clean signal. Then I said to myself, "SELF! If left-handed people are more likely to die from freak electrical accidents than right-handed people, then your signal could do with a decrease in length. You see, your left arm is closer to your heart than your right, and electrons want to follow the path of least resistance. Your chest cavity, vital organs, and muscles resist the errant current going through your right arm, causing you to die in a very long, slow, extremely agonizing and gruesome manner (OSHA has some very disturbing videos about this very subject on their website), and a long pedal chain will require you to invest more money in an even more otherwise-useless boost. By contrast, a shorter pedal chain will require less of a volume boost to get the same results, and enough volts and amps through your left arm will, if lucky, kill you instantly. In short, you are probably going to die of electric shock before you hit 30, in what will probably be a very embarrassing situation for you and/or your father. It will destroy his marriage (probably your brother's, as well), your employer will be sued, and you'll have left a legacy of ruining other peoples' lives. You don't want that to happen, do you? Then shorten your pedal chain. No more than five at a time. Plus, it will free you from having to lug that damned Amazing Technicolor Nightmare Pedalboard every which way but loose." Fast-forward eighteen months, and I now run a light setup (usually four pedals, but sometimes three or five). I haven't had a tone suck problem since.

It is worth noting that I have sought psychotherapy for many of my undesirable personality quirks, including carrying on full conversations with myself - I had a debate this morning about why the DOD FX-series of pedals was superior to the Boss compact boxes, despite having the most unreliable switching system known to mortal man. I lost. After four hours. There was nobody else in that warehouse, which was little more than a refrigerator, full of old lead-acid batteries and bariatric medical equipment.

In closing, tone suck is real; it can result in pointless expenditures, and can cause you to grab 480v with your left hand. Or, it can necessitate a therapist that isn't bogged down with more issues than you. A nice, all-inclusive chain just isn't worth the risk. Don't be a victim of tone suck. This message was paid for by the supporting members of TalkBass, and not the Ad Council.
 
#11
My experience with tone suck has been with the buffer in a Zoom pedal. I don't think much if any frequencies were lost but there was either a volume level change or some degree of compression in the bypass mode vs being out of the chain. It made my compressor behave differently. Without the Zoom the comp worked better.
 
#14
i noticed quite a bit of high end loss with a 17' cable into a pedalboard with 6 pedals (all high quality and true bypass) into another 17' cable. my cable was all top notch including pedalboard patch cables (canare GS6). i put a high quality dedicated buffer in front of my pedalchain and i notice a whole lot less high end loss and more low end clarity.
 
#15
a/b any digitech xp series pedal in a looper then tell me if tone suck is real or not. no matter how awesome my space station's effects are a looper is a must with that pedal. the thing sucks tone like a black hole. but the effects are so drastic you only notice it when it is bypassed.
 
#16
Tone suck is a fairly simple matter but has lots of causes, and it really depends on the individual circuitry of a pedal.

Most buffered pedals (Boss, Ibanez, DOD) use bipolar junction transistors for their buffer circuit. Transistor buffers of any kind are going to have a gain of slightly less than 1, and that adds up. That's why you get volume drop when you string a bunch of Boss pedals together. The input impedance (read on, i'll explain) of these circuits is also pretty low, too-- anywhere from 500K to 100K. This only matters for the first one, though, since the buffered signals aren't going to have a problem with those lower input impedances. DOD has been known to use FET buffers at the input of the pedal, which allows a high enough input impedance that it won't load down your signal.

To explain input impedance in the simplest possible way... you know how you can put a higher value pot in a guitar to recover some treble and volume? There ya go, champ.

A lot of modulation pedals use OPAmps as buffers, which don't suffer from the slight volume loss, and have very low input impedances.

No buffer is 100% perfect, though. There's always going to be some negligible addition of noise, high or low frequency reduction, volume loss, etc that will add up if you string a lot of peals together.

True bypass also isn't perfect, because just having one pedal tends to make you double the amount of cable your guitar goes through. Longer cables will result in a loss of highs with a passive (high impedance) signal.

Older pedals were even worse, because the guitar signal would stay connected to the input or output of the pedal's circuit (again, low input impedance).

If you have an active bass, input impedance won't nearly as much (or really at all), but pedals that hate buffers will also hate your bass.

My favourite option would have to be true bypass, and a couple of well-placed, high quality, stand alone buffers.


Hopefully that clears up some of the mystery. Anything you add to your signal chain will have an effect (pun fully intended) on your signal.
 
#20
Tone suck is real, (mostly a loss of highs or "sparkle") but I still feel it is WAY overblown. First of all, I have never had an issue with any Boss pedals' bypass. I actually think Boss's buffer is pretty good, and have tried A/B'ing it several times with no audible difference. However, there have been three pedals where I have really felt it. The Digitech XP-series (and really, all their whammies to be honest), the Dunlop 105Q Bass Crybaby, and the EHX Bass Micro Synth. I had the BMS modded for true bypass, I put my XP-1000 into the loop of a Boss LS-2, and I ditched the Dunlop for a Wilson Freaker Wah, which is true bypass.
 

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