True vs Buffered Bypass on Wah Pedals

[Davis Webb]

Or any pedals for that matter.

I am madly A/Bing the crybaby vs the true bypass model looking for the dreaded "tone suck" and its like trying on a bunch of different colognes, they all start to smell the same. By 'tone suck' I mean the loss of certain high frequencies which dumbs down, in theory, the lovely glassy sound of my Strat.

I have seen youtube vid after vid on the true bypass vs the buffered bypass, some say true is best, others say buffered is best (makes up for cable capacitance or something by preserving the signal).

The difference seems subtle and I have ear fatigue over 2 days of testing.

I have an old crybaby, without the Fasel inductor. The Fasel inductor does produce a richer tone and less quack with better sweeps. The Fasel is part of the 535Q and the classic. I would lean toward the classic with true bypass and the Fasel, and its cheaper than the 535.

But if I just keep my crybaby its no more cost. Thing is, I can sell the crybaby for about $50 and use that toward the Fasel/true bypass model.

Question> do you think the 'true bypass' is worth the extra money, my ears are lying, they are tired.

Thanks

[BTF]

I think the true bypass is worth it in most pedals. In wah pedals without true bypass, an extra transistor is added to act as a high impedance buffer. This is perhaps why you're not hearing a great difference between the two. Were the non-true an original two transistor, the difference might be more dramatic. I modded my old two trannie Crybaby to true bypass. Before that, it rolled off the high end.

I like the true simply because the pedal guts are entirely out of the signal path when the pedal is bypassed. That way I don't have to worry as to what effect the circuit may have on a fuzz before or after it. Fuzz Faces in particular are sensitive to items in their path or in front of them.

I'm OCD! Good luck on the choice!

[Laurent Brondel]

Buffers in wahs make silicon/germanium fuzzes sound brittle, and quite awful.

[Davis Webb]

Yes I realized this as I compared and sold off the crybaby. I have rented the 535q for the month and will decide how much I favor the range of tones it offers vs the crybaby classic at 30 bucks less. Thanks for the input. Testing wahs is hard work. One mistake and you get a gritty, noisy sound without any vocal quality. The 535q seems to be just perfect, but all of its tweaks may be not so necessary in the long run.

[BTF]

Don't forget that whatever model you like, you can always put a true bypass on it!

Good Luck!

[Davis Webb]

That is true. The 535 is quite the seductive thing. Tweaking your frequencies on the fly leads to all kinds of ambient, synthy stuff....I don't even know if this has true bypass, but it sure sounds good when its disengaged, better than the crybaby 95.

[BTF]

Honestly, as long as you like it, buffered or true it ought to rock for ya! Regards!

[Davis Webb]

It certainly does...all about the wah........

[Dru Edwards]

Hi Davis. I have a Dunlop Crybaby (now called 'original') and I removed it from my pedal board a few years ago. I find it was a tone suck. I was only using it for 1 song in a 30+ song set so I didn't mind taking it off. If I had needed it, I would have opted for a true bypass pedal.

[BTF]

If that's an E series revision (look inside and see if it's got a caramel-colored board with two transistors), you can have it modded to true bypass and with a few tweaks it can be a ripping pedal!