ARRRRGh! Danelectro True bypass ?

[vhollund]

Hello !  
I just looked into my cool cat Chorus and found out the swithcing is integrated with the Print.
I hope you can help find a solution, its sucking serius signal when its off.
See you later!

[zenpeace69]

I would suggest a TB loop box.  They are very simple to put together and will be useable for multiple pedals.  Put your tone suckers in the loop and leave the one you are using for the song on and when you are ready just hit the switch on the loop box.

[vhollund]

Thanks , but Im still hoping someone has tried making a truebypass on it.

[sir_modulus]

Hey, I made a bypass on my Tuna Melt! Just short the normal switch, so that the effect is always on, then put a DPDT around the entire thing. That makes the internal bypassing useless.

[R.G.]

It may be that the pedal is defective. Danelectros are not getting a lot of bad press for tone sucking.

I haven't seen the inside of that one, but most Danos are CD4053 CMOS switch implementations of a "true bypass" that unhooks the input from the signal when the effect is bypassed, so there's no tone sucking in them.

Maybe this pedal is done differently, but it is not true in general that solid state switching must equal tone sucking.

[Rodgre]

It's a little bit harder to TBP a stereo pedal, no? I've actually never tried it, but when I try to conceptualize how to do it, my head starts to hurt. You would have to use a 3PDT switch, and use all three poles for the in and outs, without having an LED.

Anyone else have a better idea?

Roger

[Chris S]

I'd check the pedal. I've moded every pedal to true by pass that I own except the Dano Cool Cat because it was the only one that I didn't notice any tone sucking (and I like to think I'm reasonably fussy)

Chris

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

It's a little bit harder to TBP a stereo pedal, no? ... You would have to use a 3PDT switch, and use all three poles for the in and outs, without having an LED....Anyone else have a better idea?
Roger

Maybe not a BETTER idea, but if you put two 2PDT switches beside each other, with a piece of metal across the two footswitch tops, then you have a 4PDT switch, and you have a spare switch.

[Surferbette]

I had the same problem with a Tunamelt. I found a solder clot which short circuited the output cap, putting 4.5Vdc on the input of my Fender tube amp. Who does not have a input cap. With a lot of tone sucking as a result. Hope this helps.

[Mark Hammer]

Electronic switching, hell ANY switching, on a chorus pedal is often a source of  tone-sucking unless the input stage is well-designed and ideally matched to whatever you're feeding it.

Why?  Because commercial effects that use a dry+wet combo to produce their effect all too frequently use not a complete bypass of some sort, but simply a "wet-lift" arrangement where the wet signal is blocked at the mixing stage by a FET or other switch.  Once you block the wet signal then there is no audible effect produced.  It's easy to do, so they do it (incidentally, its also how designers bypass stereo effects without having *their* heads hurt).  In contrast, things like distortions or EQ or envelope controlled filters often have to switch things at the input and output of the actual effect circuit to make sure the effect does not infect the clean signal..

Check your schematic files and you'll see that it is what just about everyone uses, and I have little doubt that this is what Danelectro used on the Cool Cat and any of its other pedals that involve dry+wet.  What you hear is essentially the quality of the input buffer stage and output mixer.  Incidentally, this would be absolutely independent of whether that switching is a $20 Carling opening and closing a single connection, or a 4053 or other means.    RG is correct when he flatly states that solid state does not necessarily equal tone-sucking.  The corollary is that mechanical does not necessarily NOT equal tone-sucking, as millions of wahs and pre-1970 pedals have shown us.

It's not just about what you DO switch.  It's also about what you fail to switch.

[Chris S]

Make sure you don't get the switching curcuit of a cool cat mixed up with a tuna melt. The cool cat is the sturdy big diecast "studio quality" (danelectro's words I think) pedal not the cheap small plastic tuna melts etc... I bypassed my BPJ dealy and Chicken Salad vibrato, but not my cool cat. - Just don't want to see you hacking up a nice looking pedal when you might be able to take it back to danelectro and get it fixed - And i have some pretty high output pick ups which can often exagerate any tone sucking.

Chris