Do pedals suck tone? (Trying to get into pedals)

[ariki]

Here may be an oddball question. But it's genuine.

I've recently bought a quite expensive pedal (TS808 clone), and I'm noticing the following.

When I play
(A) guitar > cable > amp
my tone is much much better than when I play
(B) guitar > cable > pedal (off) > cable > amp.

Configuration (A) is, for some reason, more "sparkly" and lively than configuration (B).

Is this normal?
Do pedals suck tone?

The pedal is true bypass.

Of course, when the pedal gets engaged, the (B) tone is something quite different because it's shaped by the pedal.

But this kinda defeats the purpose. I'd like to combine, say, a good "clean" tone a la (A) with a good boosted tone a la (B).

Is this impossible to find in pedal world?

Thanks!
Wim

[stinkfoot]

As the pedal is true bypass, it isn't there when it's off. So the difference between setups (A) and (B) is the additional cable. You'd hear the same thing if you used a single cable the same length as the two combined straight to amp.

What you need is a buffered pedal - its output will ignore the additional cable, making it sound like it isn't there. Ironically, the regular Ibanez TS-808 does that job just fine :)

True bypass is great for when you have many pedals - to get the signal flowing to the amp, you don't need a buffer stage in every pedal. But if you're only going to run one pedal on the floor, a buffered one will be a better choice.

[DemoColorScheme]

Question answered. ;)

[ariki]

Hmmm. Learned new terminology today...

"Buffered Pedal". Will try the search function.
Thanks for that!

Basically, I'm looking for a good clean boost to play with now.

But after my first pedal experiment where I thought tone was getting sucked, I was kinda holding back.

[Charlie_Pace]

Also - If you get a lot of pedals, I would recommend a mini buffer in your chain to keep amp clarity.

www.this1smyne.com (http://www.this1smyne.com) makes a great mini buffer for cheap.