Tone suck
The loss of high frequencies and liveliness that a long chain of pedals can cause when the guitar signal is loaded by too much cable and too many unbuffered bypasses.
A guitar pickup is a high-impedance source, and every metre of cable plus every unbuffered pedal adds capacitance that rolls off the top end. The result is a sound that is duller and less responsive after the board is connected than when the guitar is plugged straight into the amplifier. Buffers, shorter cable runs and true-bypass pedals reduce the effect, and the phenomenon is the main reason players care about what a pedal does to the signal when it is switched off.
Example: A rig that sounds noticeably brighter when the guitar is plugged directly into the amplifier than through the pedalboard is suffering tone suck.
See also
Related
- PageBuffer
- PageTrue bypass
- PagePedalboard cable
- Page18-volt operation
- PageAnalogue delay
- PageAuto-wah
- PageAaron Dessner
- PageAce Frehley