HELP ME! Pedalboard / signal loss

[abnerfm]

Hi, guys
I finished my pedal board. There is no hum or hiss, but now I have a problem: it seems there is some loss of high frequencies, which I don't hear when plugging the guitar straight into the amp.
What is driving me nuts is that I can't recover these lost frequencies by tweaking the amp (presence/treble)!
I would NEVER consider using an EQ to try to solve this problem; to me, this is not a good solution.
I'm using (short) Santo Angelo cables (2 meters from guitar to pedalboard / 3 meters from pedalboard to the amp), Switchcraft plugs, Voodoo Lab Pedal Power, etc.

The effects are:

1) Real McCoy Picture Wah
2) Analog Man Beano Boost
3) Fulltone Octafuzz
4) Fulltone '69
5) Fulltone '70
6) Fulltone OCD v4
7) MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay
8) Ibanez SC10 Super Stereo Chorus

The only thing that MAYBE COULD BE harming the signal is: I ordered the Switchcraft plugs from Small Bear, but the people there made a mistake and sent me stereo plugs. So, I had to do some more soldering on the plugs.

My questions are:

A) Do I have "too many" pedals?
B) Is it possible that my pedals are harming the signal?
C) I wonder if I can blame those little cables and plugs?
D) Is that "normal"?
E) Can I have 8 pedals (listed above) and get the same tone of the guitar pluged straight into the amp?

Sorry for my bad english, and please help me. Thank you all.

Abner

 

[Chadley]

Assuming that you have really solid connections between every pedal, I think you need a good quality buffer placed either at the front of your chain, at the very end or both. That will more than likely help.

Get yourself a true bypass loop. Take all your pedals off of your board and starting setting them up one at a time in the loop, switching between bypass and your effects. This will help you find out where the problem lies and where to best place a buffer in order to rectify the problem.

 

[zoooombiex]

Assuming that you have really solid connections between every pedal, I think you need a good quality buffer placed either at the front of your chain, at the very end or both. That will more than likely help.

Get yourself a true bypass loop. Take all your pedals off of your board and starting setting them up one at a time in the loop, switching between bypass and your effects. This will help you find out where the problem lies and where to best place a buffer in order to rectify the problem.

+1

assuming there's not a problem somewhere, you want a buffer or bypass loop. for a stand-alone buffer, do a search for "doobtone". tiny buffer for $40 that sounds very good.

also, a lot of ibanez pedals actually have a buffer built in. I don't know about the SC10, but you might trying putting it first in the chain and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Angle Loss]

Your chain isn't too long and you have a buffered pedal at the end (helps only your final cable to your amp).

1) Check each cable by switching it out with a spare
2) Switch out each pedal in the chain (sometimes footswitches go bad before they actually fail).
3) get a true-bypass looper as a tool to help you listen to the bypasses of your pedals
4) I like to buffer as early as possible (after wah and fuzz), but you have a lot of fuzz pedals, so that may not work out for you as it may interfere with fuzz face type circuits.

Definitely try the free options before buying anything. Might save some money, time, and hassle.

 

[this1smyne]

that ibanez chorus might be the culprit.... the rest of the pedals are true bypass already....

 

[abnerfm]

I don't know about the SC10, but you might trying putting it first in the chain and see if it makes a difference.

That would kill my fuzzes... and the germanium based treble booster...

 

[abnerfm]

Switch out each pedal in the chain

Hmmmm... what about the "hardwire true bypass" in the MXR delay?

 

[zoooombiex]

That would kill my fuzzes...

ahh, true. that wouldn't be a long-term solution - but it might help figure out if putting a buffer at the beginning (with all the pedals off) solves the loss of high end issue. if it doesn't then there might be a bad connection somewhere.

if putting the buffer up front solves it, then what you might try is getting small buffer like the doobtone and then a small TB box (can be had for about $40). put the buffer at the front and bypass it before you use a fuzz. once you turn on a pedal after the buffer, the buffer becomes pretty pointless anyway, since the last pedal on (or last buffered pedal, whichever is later) is the one driving the signal the rest of the way to the amp.

 

[abnerfm]

that ibanez chorus might be the culprit.... the rest of the pedals are true bypass already....

I took the Ibanez SC10 Stereo Chorus and the MXR M-169 Carbon Copy Analog Delay off of the pedalboard and THE PROBLEM IS STILL THERE! Maybe I don't have really solid connections between the 6 other pedals? I heard Santo Angelo cables are not good ones... what do you guys think?

 

[RussB]

check each interconnect cable