Why do effects pedals always tone suck?

[Joker]

I haven't used a pedal in fron of a real amp in a long time. I fired up my 100W Plexi and then decided to put a Chase Audio Secret Preamp pedal, which features true bypass, in front of the amp. The tone suck was very noticeable to my ears, even though the cable between amp and pedal is very short, and the guitar to pedal cable was the same one I used directly into the amp itself. I also tried a much longer cable directly into the amp, and the tone suck is almost imperceivable compared to the pedal in chain with the shorter cables.

The tone suck is not just about the treble, it impacts dynamics, too, and makes the tone overall more anemic.

I just cannot believe that a bit longer cable length can change the feel and tone of an amp in such a noticeable way. I tried a buffered Boss SD 1 pedal next in bypass mode, and the tone suck was evident in that case, too. In this instance, buffering isn't needed anyway, as I didn't have any other pedals or a much longer cable in chain.

A true bypass pedal should basically act as a prolonged cable when it's in bypass position, which it obviously doesn't. Is it all about the width of the cables inside the pedal? What else is there to impact the tone except these few wires that make the true bypass "circuit"?

 

[Muad'zin]

I've made send/return switchers, which I've wired to the classic true bypass wiring for 3PDT switches. I used one to mute my signal at the input before hitting the rest of the pedals, and to my surprise noticed that when the signal was supposed to go 100% to the non plugged in send jack, with 100% nothing coming back, a tiny amount of signal was still coming through. Maybe with more expensive high end switches this won't be the case, but I found it....., interesting. I reckon if a tiny amount of dry signal still passes through in effect mode, then a tiny amount of wet signal also still passes through in bypass mode. As for the SD-1, that's a fairly old Boss pedal that has never been updated or changed as far as I know. Pedals like those are only updated when certain components like IC's or transistors are no longer available. The early 80's buffers, not so much. Certainly not to the standards of the buffers that Boss currently builds.

Not that I gave a damn though. I am not cursed with the Golden Ears of the Gods, I never noticed any tone suck and would happily use massive pedal boards with 20+ pedals on them, with an AMZ buffer both at the input and at the end. And I usually never had a 100% true bypassed tone with that board anyway. For cleans I'd always have an EP-1 preamp always in the signal path to juice it up. It's so liberating not being a tone hound and instead be 'Does this sound good to me? Good enough!'