True Bypass Vs. Non-True Bypass (Boss or Ibanez)

My thoughts and notes on True-Bypass vs Non True-Bypass (i.e. Boss/Ibanez pedals):

This discussion can go on and on. Some who are highly technical and trained in the field say that you can't use anything but True-Bypass for your pedals and some say the Buffers in the Ibanez or Boss pedals help keep your signal drop from having a long pedal board. I think its a matter of both, use your ears and use your judgment. I think 10 Boss pedals in a row results in loss of tone yes but I also think the same of a line up of any pedals. After all of those short cable hook ups you will lose some tone and even then you need to have high-end cables as well with some hefty hefty high costs!

The point is you need to make the call and be particular on what you put on your pedalboard. The buffers in the Ibanez and Boss pedals are well....a buffer! I do have Boss and Ibanez pedals and I can notice a drop in tone with Ibanez more than Boss. I have a Ibanez TS-9 and AD-9 and there is quite a bit of a drop in the highs and overall tone when the pedal is in the chain, now these can be fixed but I don't even like their switching system to begin with so that's another story for another time...It would take more than three Boss pedals to hear the difference in my opinion but I can hear/feel a difference with one Ibanez when they are turned off.

One way you can have more Boss / Ibanez pedals is by using a True-Bypass Looper. Lets say I have two or three effects I always use together or use very seldom. I can toss them in the looper chain and my pedal board that was 10 pedals now is only 8 total:

10 total pedals minus 3 in the looper (from putting in the looper chain) and then add one because we added the looper. 10 pedals goes to 8...or you can toss 5 in there and make it 6 total pedals in the signal chain when all are off...get the point?

I will be making a Custom Looper for the PepTone Electronics Custom line. It will be a rather inexpensive way to handle the true-bypass dilemma and can organize that mess of a pedalboard! It helped mine!