In yesterday’s TTOTD, we discussed how to evaluate whether the stompboxes you’re using are affecting your guitar tone when they’re bypassed. But what can you do if you discover a pedal or pedals are causing tone depletion or adding noise to your signal?
1. Put the offending pedal into a loop. Devices like the Radial BigShot provide true bypass loops for switching one or two pedals in and out of the path.
2. Put your pedals into a loop switcher. Units like the Voodoo Lab GCX and RJM Music Effect Gizmo and RG-16 let you switch many effects in and out of the signal, singly or in any combinations.
3. Add a buffer. Sometimes a good pedal with a nice built-in buffer circuit can maintain the signal quality even through pedals that deplete tone. Examples include the BOSS and Visual Sound pedals (among many others), which have good buffers.
Which solution you should use depends on your situation. If you just want to “fix” one or two pedals, #1 works. If you want to isolate everything and also gain a lot of routing flexibility, #2 works. If you don’t want to change what you have, but want better signal, try #3.
