Many A/B boxes on the market today don’t pull down, or ground out the un-switched channel resulting in intolerable levels of hum and/or hiss from that side of the chain. Among musicians you’ll hear the complaints about this in many A/B switches. Pico solves this problem in common, simple fashion. However, this un-switched channel grounding leads to other problems that Pico also solves.

1 - Protection of active electronics (guitars or effects) when using an A/B switch to select instruments and / or their signal chains going out to a single amplifier. Active electronics or a pedal going into the un-switched input (A or B) will see a direct path to ground which is also seen as a dead short. This dead short can damage some active electronic guitar circuits and some effects pedal circuits. Pico protects your active electronics and pedals with sensitive output sections.

2 - Lifting of the un-switched channel ground when needed. Many amps have a hi and lo input in a single channel. These inputs typically have different gain or EQ characteristics or both. When using an A/B switch to go between these inputs on a single channel, the un-switched channel ground causes many amps to short that input resulting in only one of the channels working regardless of which is selected with the switch. Pico allows you to lift the un-switched ground so that you can safely and effectively use it to switch between separate inputs on a single channel. Depending on the amp and the difference in gain or eq in each of its channels, you can actually use the Pico in conjunction with your amp as a clean boost.

Check with the other A/B switch box makers before you hook your gear up to just anything. Make sure you have these features in your A/B box no matter who makes it. Pico solves these issues so you don't have to worry about whether the expensive famous brand A/B switch you just bought will do what you need it to do. The Pico switch is electrically and sonically transparent. It will not induce a single tonal artifact to your signal chain and it will work flawlessly to A/B all your gear in either direction no matter what electronics are used with the switch - guaranteed.

Important note: Never use the Pico switch to A/B the outputs of different amplifiers to a speaker. The Pico switch uses a pre-switch common ground which cannot be altered. When output sections of different amplifiers connect to each other, bad things happen to those amps. Even if the unswitched send were ground lifted, the unswitched amp would see no load which is also bad for tube amp output transformers.