Relay Bypass clicking

[bert lams]

I use an acoustic guitar (LR Baggs Anthem active pickup) directly into the Eclipse, and out to a DI onstage to the mixing board. I control it with a midi pedal.

When bypassing effects I highly prefer the Relay bypass since it has a less colored sound and the guitar sounds fuller and more natural. I don't like the sound of the guitar through the DSP bypass.

I programmed a patch with bypass in relay mode. But everytime I hit it there is a loud clicking noise-going through the entire system–not great for the audience to hear! Is there any way to mute the clicking sound? Any tips or ways to deal with this? 

Love the unit!-bert

[nickrose]

Relay bypass is very dependent on what are you are connected to – if there is any DC from either the thing before it or the thing after you will get a click as it is interrupted.

Not much you can do without changing your rig – a relay bypass is just like a switch, and switches can click. My guess is that it is your active pickup – see if you get the same click with the guitar disconnected/switched off. Assuming your DI is a transformer type, it is unlikely to have any DC.

It is possible that for some reason there is DC on the output of the Eclipse – try disconnecting your guitar, then see if you get the same click when you plug/unplug the Eclipse output.

[bert lams]

Excellent-i will look into this as soon as I get home. Thank you.

My guitar pickup runs on a 9v battery-so that is probably what causes the electric click.

 I don't mind the relay bypass click on the unit itself-it's mostly the electric clicking noise that I am trying to work around in a live situation. I understand that I will probably have to get a mute switch or something like that-I don't think there is any way to get around the electric click since there is indeed going to be some DC coming from the guitar preamp running on a 9v battery. I would appreciate any tips you have to work with this in a live situation.

There is of course always the DSP bypass but the RElay bypass is a cleaner, more natural sound from the guitar pickup.

[nickrose]

Your pickup will probably have an output capacitor to isolate the DC – this is probably a bit leaky. You could either have it fixed, or put another one in series – given that you are feeding a high impedance input, any ceramic capacitor above 0.1uF should do the trick.

Or, the DSP bypass can't be that bad, and it does avoid any tone changes between bypass and active. But, your choice.

[bert lams]

Thank you Nick, this is going to help a lot. And you're right, the DSP bypass isn't bad at all. I will thoroughly test with your suggestions in mind.

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