True bypass vs. Buffered/regular bypass

[Worthless Willie]

School me on the pros and cons.

As I am unschooled.

[Hemisaurus]

one goes through bits of wire and suffers contact losses.

the other goes through transistors and suffers frequency distortion.

[spookstrickland]

What Hemi Said was right on the money.  As for what is better it's all up to taste.  Myself I like true bypass because when it's off it's not interacting with my other pedals and some pedals do not like buffers especially vintage fuzzes.  If you have to drive a really long cable you might want to just build a buffer to suite you because it seems most of the buffers that they put in pedals are pieces of shit and color the sound too much.

[Chovie D]

I take analogmans word:

Buffers vs True Bypass
Do I need buffers? Is true bypass bad?
There are various positions in regards to a buffer's use in a signal chain. Some seemingly opposing convictions are given by authorities who certainly can't be wrong, as their clients have awesome tone. Using a true bypass remote switching system or a full pedalboard of boutique pedals is one extreme, while a board full of Boss and Ibanez pedals, or a switching system with buffers on each switch is the other extreme.

My belief is that buffers can be used, and should be used in some cases, but the number of buffers in your signal path should be minimized.

A buffer is basically an active device which takes your somewhat weak guitar signal and amplifies it. Usually a gain of one (unity gain) is used so the volume does not change and your sound stays the same. However your signal is changed to a lower impedance so it can go through long patch cords without losing it's strength.

A buffer or buffered pedal (for example a Boss or Ibanez pedal that is turned off) will allow a good tone to make it through a cheap or long patch cord. Several years ago I sold several true bypass pedals to a player with a large pedalboard. He said it sounded terrible and that one of the pedals must have a problem. He brought the board to my shop and all the pedals checked out fine. We determined that his cheap patch cord from guitar to board was killing his tone, but he never noticed it as he previously had a few buffered pedals. Replacing the cord solved his problem and the new pedals worked great.

A buffer is often used as the first device in a board, to get the signal from your guitar into good shape early on. But this is a problem if using a vintage pedal like a fuzzface. A germanium fuzzface needs to interact directly with your pickups for the magic clean-up effect to occur when you roll your volume knob down. The pickup and volume knob become part of the fuzz circuit. Other pedals like a germanium treble booster/rangemaster style pedal will sound bad if any buffers are before them- they get bright and nasty sounding. So if you have one of these pedals, put it early in your effects chain before any buffers or buffered pedals.

One contrary pedal is a wah, which is normally used before a fuzz. A vintage wah will not behave well with a fuzz, losing it's tone and sweep. Adding a buffer inside the wah will allow it to function better with the fuzz when the wah is ON. Turning off the wah (with true bypass) kills the buffer so it will also work well when OFF. Foxrox electronics makes a wah retrofit kit which can be added to most vintage style or boutique wahs, and RMC wahs by Teese now include this "fuzz friendly" buffer circuitry.

The reason I do not like too many buffers in your signal path is that the tone changes are additive. Each one will change your tone slightly and can reduce the interaction with and liveliness of your guitar strings. Even though the tone coming out of a good buffer may be very nice, passing it through multiple copies can make it a bit sour. For example if a buffer's frequency response has a nice little peak at 700Hz, after five of these buffers the peak will be five times higher and may get annoying. Also each active component generates noise which also adds up.

I have one buffer (a delay pedal with a nice buffer when off) at the end of my pedalboard to send the signal to my amp on the rare occasion that I have no other pedals turned on. When something like an overdrive or distortion pedal is on, your signal is beefed up strong enough that no buffers are needed afterwards and a direct connection to the amp cannot be beat. As always, there are many variables so it is best to do some trial and error testing with your personal rig to find the best sequence of pedals and buffers for your specific setup. If it sounds good, you should.

[NoSleepTilSleep]

I wouldn't get too hung up on the brouhaha between them. If you're playing with a serious amount of volume and/or at jamming/gigging levels the differences are going to be negligible at best (especially if you've got a lot of gain or drive pedals ). The one asinine thing, as was mentioned above, is a buffered pedals interaction germanium fuzz... that can be a tortuous experience. Characteristics of gain pedals, especially emphasized frequencies, happen with both and you'll just have to hear it for yourself.. many are not bothered by the differences, which is why you'll see a shit ton of Boss pedals all over gigging boards. 

This is just one of those areas of gear that you don't even realize until you start reading about them, that quote comes to mind about TGP, "I never knew my stuff sucked, until I went on The Gear Page". There's probably something in that.

[ROWDYBEER]

I have all true bypass pedals and I also use a this1smyne micro buffer at the beginning of my chain. Mostly it seems to boost my interaction between my guitar and wah. It's very transparent. I have like 35 or 40 ft. of instrument cable and it does help drive my signal to my amp without any tOne change. I always have my rat or supercollider on so the buffer is probably not needed but for some reason Yamaha sg2000 pups don't work well with wahs and the buffer fixed that.