Road Rage True Bypass Effects Loop
Calendar? Overloaded. Barely enough time to sleep. I guess September is really the start of the new year for Canadians. After the relative calm of summer, everything starts with a vengeance in the fall.
What better time, then, to overhaul the pedal board, you ask? Exactly. Right now. Just as things have become really crazy. Tone trumps all other considerations. And, in the unending quest for tone, I decided that I absolutely had to redo the pedal board with a true bypass effects loop. Or TBEL for those really hip guitar players.
Mine arrived yesterday, although I will not be able to work on the board until later this week-end. This unit offers 7 loops for the effects pedals, one muted tuner connection, main in and out on the sides and a built-in buffer. That’s it.
Why? Well, there is a certain degree of tone loss that occurs when the signal is getting routed through a bunch of effects. A true bypass effects loop reduces that loss of tone and simplifies the access to pedals. The pedals are always active and the loop is used to activate the pedal(s) as needed. The buffer converts the high impedance guitar signal, which is prone to line loss at a very fast rate, to a low impedance signal with little to no line loss.
Here is a picture of my new pedal. I bought it from the great team at Road Rage here. The pedal is a work of art really. Beautifully constructed.
Number 9 of 50 shot at 50mm.
Hi, Richard, while I am not one to use pedals, this is an interesting device.
Does it have labelling capability so you know which foot button affects which pedal?
I suppose it would work well with rack mounted gear as well?
Hope all is well and Happy Thanksgiving! R
Hi Rob,
I will post a photo of the pedal board with the TBEL hooked up and labeled. I used a label maker to identify the source pedals.
Should work with any gear. I used the pedal on three gigs this week-end and it was a delight. I can hear the difference in tone 🙂
Hi, Richard – this is one tool I am going to have to look at closer. I read up on some reviews and it does seem to make a sonic difference, as you indicate.
I was thinking though that a value added feature would be to have some sort of built in labeling capability – one that could be re-used. Not sure what that might be, but over time, you are likely going to change the order, add different effects, etc, so a label which can be changed would be a good future development for this useful pedal board enhancement.
Looks fine too integrated with the pedals. Rob
I have not seen any of these types of pedals equipped with a labeling capability. For me, it is easy to remove the label that I applied to the pedal and to replace it with a new one when I change a pedal. That said, perhaps we will see one emerge with a digital scribble strip one day? 🙂