It started off as a sliding door...

Riaan · 2010-06-06T10:10:04+00:00

...and now it's my pedalboard - version 1 8). The whole thing is made of aluminium, which came from an old sliding patio door I took out during home renovations a few years ago. I figured that it would be ideal to make a pedalboard. It's all rivetted together as I don't have the means to weld aluminium, and painted with "bakkie liner", that rubbery paint they use on the back of pickup trucks. The top two slanted bars are hinged, and can be opened to get to the power supply unit, a BBE Super Charger. The pedals are what I gathered over the few months, mostly bought on EBay, with one or two bought locally from forum members. I'm waiting for an ABY splitter, to create two eletric guitar signal paths, one to each of my electric guitar amps (Roland Bluescube, and the Fender Super Cube I recently bought from MoJo Joe). A third signal will be acoustic, for the piezo's of my Godin and obviously for acoustic guitars - this goes to the Ibanez Troubadour via the LR Baggs Para-acoustic DI. I'm still experimenting with the pedal order, and I'm somewhat hampered with insufficient lengths of patch cables, but I'm learning as I go along! It's not the smallest or lightest of pedalboards, but then I don't gig so it won't be carried around much. But it can comfortably be pickup up, it's not that heavy. This is sheer indulgance...! :-[ See pics: http://www.box.net/shared/906kiz4q1j http://www.box.net/shared/bnu2zozp9u http://www.box.net/shared/lyyogdifiz

Jack-Flash-Jr

Just to set the cat amongst the pigeons... people worry about non-bypass tuners sucking tone... what does a whole pedal chain do?
(For the record I can't tell the difference)

aubs1

Hey Riaan, and all the time I was thinking your gear collection was quite conservative, but now I know you are a equipment junkie just like me!!!!! ?

Interesting board you have there. Good thing you don't gig (like me as well), so we don't need roadies............. ?

Jack Flash Jr wrote Just to set the cat amongst the pigeons... people worry about non-bypass tuners sucking tone... what does a whole pedal chain do?
(For the record I can't tell the difference)

Hahaha......I have thought about that many times, and am not convinced everyone can........ ?.

AlanRatcliffe

The whole true bypass thing is completely blown out of proportion. >☹ True bypass is particularly handy for pedals like Wahs, which suck tone badly if they are not bypassed properly.

Active bypass runs the signal through a little preamp first, which doesn't boost volume, but merely changes the signal from very high to a low impedance. A well designed and made active bypass is tonally transparent - it doesn't add or subtract anything from your tone or dynamics. Active is a bonus when you are running lots of pedals, as the low impedance signal is much less prone to picking up noise in cables, plugs and sockets and avoids treble loss when running long cable lengths (and all those short cables on a board add up quickly).

So if you have a more complex pedalboard, a good active bypass pedal at the front of your pedalboard will likely retain your tone better than a board populated entirely with true bypass pedals will.

The problem with active bypass is if it's a cheaply designed or made circuit which changes the tone or dynamics. Especially if you have a dozen cheap active bypass pedals in a row.

Of course, the active/passive/true bypass issue falls away when you turn any pedal on (even true bypass), because then you are bringing a circuit into play and it will have a low impedance output.

If you're worried about tone, either keep your board simple with a few true bypass pedals or if you go complex, make sure to have at least one great active bypass pedal near the beginning of your chain and keep as many of the other pedals true (or high quality active) bypass as possible.

MikeM

It's almost pointless to do this but giving you thanks Alan. I only recently found out how true that is, and how effectively it works.

Jack-Flash-Jr

Alan Ratcliffe wrote The whole true bypass thing is completely blown out of proportion. >☹ True bypass is particularly handy for pedals like Wahs, which suck tone badly if they are not bypassed properly.

Active bypass runs the signal through a little preamp first, which doesn't boost volume, but merely changes the signal from very high to a low impedance. A well designed and made active bypass is tonally transparent - it doesn't add or subtract anything from your tone or dynamics. Active is a bonus when you are running lots of pedals, as the low impedance signal is much less prone to picking up noise in cables, plugs and sockets and avoids treble loss when running long cable lengths (and all those short cables on a board add up quickly).

So if you have a more complex pedalboard, a good active bypass pedal at the front of your pedalboard will likely retain your tone better than a board populated entirely with true bypass pedals will.

The problem with active bypass is if it's a cheaply designed or made circuit which changes the tone or dynamics. Especially if you have a dozen cheap active bypass pedals in a row.

Of course, the active/passive/true bypass issue falls away when you turn any pedal on (even true bypass), because then you are bringing a circuit into play and it will have a low impedance output.

If you're worried about tone, either keep your board simple with a few true bypass pedals or if you go complex, make sure to have at least one great active bypass pedal near the beginning of your chain and keep as many of the other pedals true (or high quality active) bypass as possible.

What he said....

[deleted]

Alan Ratcliffe wrote If you're worried about tone, either keep your board simple with a few true bypass pedals or if you go complex, make sure to have at least one great active bypass pedal near the beginning of your chain and keep as many of the other pedals true (or high quality active) bypass as possible.

How many is a few? I have 5 of my 7 pedals that I am after... havn't noticed a problem with losing trebles just yet...

Would I have a problem, cause none of them are 'active bypass'... Just seems everyone these days are making true bypass...

You would think in the informative world of today, people would have thrown this true bypass craze out the window..

AlanRatcliffe

It depends on the quality of the interconnects. By a half dozen pedals I'd say you need lowZ. Even if your interconnects are the highest quality, they don't last for ever and plugs and sockets oxidise (particularly when not plugged and unplugged often). So it's never a case of "if" things deteriorate, but "when"

Riaan

Hey Riaan, and all the time I was thinking your gear collection was quite conservative, but now I know you are a equipment junkie just like me!!!!!

Hey Aubs! That's only because I've used software up to now, you haven't seen my software and plugin collection... Now, going the hardware route my addiction becomes evident!

Thanks for the info about true and active bypass Alan! There's something on the net that Pete Cornish has said about this also, it will show up if Googled. I will have to sit down and read it with attention sometime...

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