Hi would appreciate some advice on the following from the gear experts, thanks.
On a pedalboard, is it best/advisable to only have the first pedal in the chain (which for me is my Peterson tuner) set to buffered bypass mode, and leave the rest of the pedals in the chain in true bypass mode (if selectable between true/buff)?
I have more than one pedal where I could set buffered bypass if I wanted. I don’t know if that’s preferable that as many are set to that as possible, or better that only one pedal (the first?) is set to BB?
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This is what I do but it’s not your only option. And technically isn’t needed for active basses anyway. But with a passive bass you’ll want one pedal in there somewhere to be buffered, if you plan on using several pedals.
I like doing it first because that’s my tuner and it has a famously clean buffered bypass. You generally want it early because the problem you are solving with it is signal loss from going through a lot of pedals.
The other reason you would want to put it first is that buffered bypass pedals are never truly off as long as an input cable is plugged in, and if you plan to use batteries, then you want to be able to unplug the input. That only works if it’s first. But if it is on a PSU it doesn’t matter.
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I don’t have the tuner, and if I get one, I will get a True Bypass. I was lucky enough to have this pop up on offer up for $50. they are pretty expensive otherwise, new and used. I love this thing, it does an amazing job if you chain it right and dial it in correctly.
This pedal runs an effects loop, so you go Bass to this pedal (well I go to a Bass Crybaby Wah pedal first), this pedal “loop out” to my noisy pedals, the compressors and hi gain pedals like over drives and fuzz, then back to this pedal to the “loop in” then I run out of this pedal in the standard out, and thru the rest of my pedals to the amp.
This is a noise gate that only affects the pedals that I want it to, like I said, the noisy ones. The ones that are loud when you stomp them ON.
I have all active basses, and they are buffered themselves, so I don’t really have to worry about it, and if you have too many buffered pedals in the chain, that can suck sound / tone also.
alll my other pedals are True Bypass (or at least claim to be)
when I turn on my compressor, and Plumes OD and Big Muff Fuzz, I don’t hear a sound. my pedal board is silent until I stat to play, it is amazing.
I really like this pedal to the point where I would highly recommend one, but not a standard noise gate, it has to be one with the loop out to chain the noisy pedals thru it. I will never go back now.
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Thanks @howard and @T_dub for the advice, much appreciated.
Never read anything about the noise suppression pedal you mention @T_dub or any others, but I’m intrigued to look them up now.
Talking about noise, I don’t have a big pedalboard in terms of numbers of pedals yet, but was considering getting a Truetone CS6 power supply which provides true isolated outputs. I know that’s best, but as a bit of an experiment, and for a fraction of the price, I went for the Truetone 1 Spot wall plug and daisy chain. About to switch it on and see if it is any good on the noise front like the marketing blurb and reviews claim. I view it as a cheap stop gap till I upgrade to the CS6 or similar.
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Well my conclusion is that it’s actually not bad at all for the price. I’m not exactly testing it with a dozen noisy digital pedals, but even so it’s a huge upgrade from the 9v wall plug and daisy chain cable I was using before made by Mooer. I was careful with the cable routing around the board, and as I had bought them previously anyway, I have placed clip-on ferrites on the daisy chain cable between each pedal. Don’t know if that makes any difference but I had them sitting in a drawer so why not.
Overall good enough till I feel like spending 5 times as much on an isolated brick PSU.
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Damn you @T_dub, now I’ve seen the NS-2 in action on some reviews, I want to buy another pedal! You’re not helping my bank balance!
Seriously, looks a good bit of kit. 
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I’d say that I would like to have at least one buffered pedal in the beginning of the chain (not necessarily the 1st pedal, can be the 2nd). the other can be true bypass for more transparency but that’s not so important.
if you have an active bass, you could have a full true bypass pedalboard without any problem.
it’s all about the current you will have between the pedalboard and the amplifier.
(and as always I said more or less the same thing that @howard said before 
)
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I am not sure what you paid for. your daisy chain PS, but I have two of these, and they work great for under $40.
I know @howard uses a budget PS, but I don’t know which one or how much it cost.
I believe that @itsratso also got this Caline PS.
I had bought one for about $22 first, but when I started to use it, I saw some things that I did not prepare for with my selection of PS, so I sent it back.
It was (or claims to be like many do) isolated outputs, but most all of them were 9v 100ma, 500ma.
At first, I was buying on price. I was looking for cheaper with most banks. after setting it up, I realized it was not gonna do the trick, so I packed it up, shipped it back, and I looked and looked and looked,
From all my looking, (couple days, couple hours per day, I hunted) this was it.
Price - excellent at $38
All banks are 300ma with one at 500ma
6 banks are 9v 300mz
2 selectable
9v/12v/18v - 300ma
9v/12v/15v - 500ma
Since I had two pedals needing 500 ma, and more than 8 pedals, I needed to get two.
JUST BE CAREFUL if you have a need to power an18V 500MA pedal. From what I have seen out there, most pedals that are 18v come with their own power supply, and it is probably best to use that
Caline Pedal Power Supply CP-202 (36W)
8 Isolated DC Output for 300mA 500mA 9V/12V/15V/18V Effect Pedal with Adjustable Voltage, Short Circuit and Over Current Protection
I did run into my first problem with that power supply, but I doubt if it would be a problem for anyone else. I ordered the awesome looking radial bassbone od preamp/di. It strangely is 15v and 400 mA. No problem, the caline can do that. Plugged in the pedal and…Nothing. Except a faint burning smell. Figuring I maybe got a bad pedal, I replaced it with another one. And, go figure, the same thing. So I won’t have a bassbones on my pedalboard it seems.
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Did you check if it was actually center negative? There are a few center positive pedals and you need to use a crossover cable.
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Pretty sure, in hindsight, that’s what was happening. Why the fuck would you make a polarity reversed pedal.
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UGH, yup, it’s center-positive:
sorry man. That would have bitten me too.
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Fuck I was about to post this. There is literally NOT ONE WORD in the manual about this, why would you make a pedal reverse polarity, is there some engineering point for this? Makes no damn sense.
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Even their TailBone takes center negative in and converts it to center positive out for the BassBone, LOL.
It’s funny because even if they had an engineering reason you would think that would be outweighed by the customer service nightmare.
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Anyways thanx again Howard. I have ordered this again, FOR THE THIRD EFFING TIME with a reverse polarity cable. If it’s what I think it is, it pretty much is a perfect solution for what I want.
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Sweet! Looks like a killer, killer preamp.
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Right, it looks like an excuse to sell you a polarity reversing box, even if they have to fix a thousand burned out preamps to do it. What’s the point? Supposedly there is a protection circuit to gaurd against reverse polarity but of course this does not have it.
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Actually I was going to mention this. Some pedals can accept basically any voltage and work just fine on it, why doesn’t everyone do this? Is this an analog vs digital thing?
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Probably just cost of putting a switching power supply in the pedal versus going with the standard everyone actually uses.
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