What is a Buffer good for?

[Zachman]

Some interesting videos with valuable info, from the rig builder to the stars Bob Bradshaw, discussing Buffers, Loops, Capacitance, Pedal order etc...

 

[Dallas Marlow]

In the 3rd video he says to do exactly what I'm doing with his pedals... and thanks to his tip I'm going to see if I can run my boss at a higher voltage hmm

 

[Giga]

I'm seriously not trying to question your choice of gear but I think you're making the mistake of assuming the Boss buffer is reminiscent of a "good buffer". In my experience it is not (although, to be honest, I don't have experience with that may Boss pedals). Try the same thing with a really good buffer and you'll get a totally different outcome I'm sure.

I greatly disagree with glpg80, all though respectfully.

Whether it's a matter of taste, ears, or opinions, it is my personal thoughts that a buffer is damn near a necessity.

I don't run a very long cable run in the front of my amps, it's a 20ft then pedals, then a 12 foot to the amp, this isn't HUGE, but there is 100% definite signal loss, especially on the high end, and the feel changes as well.

Even with all true bypass pedals, IMO it is greatly beneficial to have a buffer as the first thing on your pedal board. It basically greatly increases the signal strength of your guitar (by changing the impedance), but don't confuse this with boosting the output of your guitar. I've tested my rig with and with out the buffer and there is a very noticeable difference with out it, with the buffer quite honestly it sounds near identical to a 12 foot cable directly into the amp, there is a VERY VERY slight change, in the tone, if anything it makes it sound a little warmer... but with out it... it's just nasty.

And just to make everyone whos religious about TBP jump off the ledge, I actually use a boss pedal, in bypass as my buffer, I never actually use the effect... but here's the kicker, I have 3 boss pedals and they all sound different when being used as a bypass buffer. The super chorus is by far the best most neutral and warm sounding one, the TU2 sounded harsh, the compressor seemed to compress even when it was off as well... so neither of those were an option.

People really don't understand buffers, and don't realize they actually are a great thing when used properly. You don't want 10 of them in a row or anything, but IMHO they are truly necessary to retain a good signal from your guitar when running realistic cable lengths.

thats alot of opinions. and i dont disagree with any of them either

i will say that wireless systems get extremely expensive on this topic, dealing with modulation of the original AC in sidebands and using buffers/RF amplifiers to grab the original tone back again from the carrier.

anyone who uses the volume knob on a guitar or goes for a crunch type of tone will not like the "boost" of a bipolar junction transistor. they do not have infinite headroom and are highly limited by the 9V battery or power supply and its current supply, as well as the transistor type itself. my opinion: it will do nothing but hinder, not help, the original AC from your guitar pickup.

the 1M resistor going to ground in an amplifier is made to be in parallel with the impedance load of whatever you have out front, buffers are messing with this purposely imposed design.

if you are going for high gain and do not care about guitar pickup dynamics - then a buffer will not matter in the signal chain. if picking hard and soft or the type of pick does not matter, a buffer will not matter. if you prefer a wireless over a cable setup, a buffer will not matter. if you cant tell the difference in the type of picking angle you use, a buffer wont matter. if you cant tell the difference in the capacitance differences in cable length, a buffer will not matter. there are so many more variables that are going to ALL be opinionated.

i ran 3 pedals into a low gain/crunch type metroamp, the buffer from a boss flanger, after removing the flanger from the signal chain the tonal difference was night and day - simillar to a string change. a buffer in front of everything still acts as the weakest link.

back in the 80's, charvel used buffers and signal boosting to boost the AC signal in the guitars from the pickup and also add mid-shifting or mid boosting circuitry as well. there is a reason they are not used in every guitar today.

to the OP - in my opinion: buffers should be used for tone re-production, not tone production.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Hey Giga,

I'm seriously not trying to question your choice of gear but I think you're making the mistake of assuming the Boss buffer is reminiscent of a "good buffer". In my experience it is not (although, to be honest, I don't have experience with that may Boss pedals). Try the same thing with a really good buffer and you'll get a totally different outcome I'm sure.

I'm sure it's probably not the optimal solution, but let me tell you, it works and my tone is only effected in a positive way, I'd imagine the Dunlop line/driver booster, or one of the other pedals made specifically for this are better options... or at least different. But keep in mind I'm not even turning on the boss pedal, and as I said before they are all different sounding. I tried the 3 I have and got 3 different sounds... so I'm sure it's just a crap shoot you know?

I can't locate the article but I read it quite some time ago, and it was from some pedal board guru (no i can't remember the name) and they said the boss pedals in bypass work as great buffers, so I tried one out and had great results with it.

Not saying it's the best solution but it worked for me and I didn't have to drop any $$$

 

[edgeofdarkness]

I have a buffer in my area 51 wah.

"Buffer - This add-on circuit board allows you to run the wah in front of a fuzz face type pedal. Running them in that order gives you a more "natural" wah tone, rather than the nasally fuzz-wah tone that you get when running them the usual way. Normally, you cannot go from a wah to a fuzz - the low impedance of the fuzz "loads" the wah, causing it to not work properly - if at all. This board solves that."

 

[RockStarNick]

I'm with Dallas.

I run a 20' cable to my board, ALL true-bypass pedals, and then a 20' cable back to my amp.

Without a buffer, it's mud city. With a Axess BS2, or other high-quality dedicater buffer first in line before the TB pedals, it sounds as close to a 10' cable straight in as you can get.

A buffer, first in line, is a necessity for me.

 

[Giga]

Hi Dallas, thanks for the reply. It's funny, I was actually responding to Glpg's statement that his Boss pedal had an adverse effect on the overall tone. I should have been more clear I guess.. Sorry about that.

Giga

Hey Giga,

I'm seriously not trying to question your choice of gear but I think you're making the mistake of assuming the Boss buffer is reminiscent of a "good buffer". In my experience it is not (although, to be honest, I don't have experience with that may Boss pedals). Try the same thing with a really good buffer and you'll get a totally different outcome I'm sure.

I'm sure it's probably not the optimal solution, but let me tell you, it works and my tone is only effected in a positive way, I'd imagine the Dunlop line/driver booster, or one of the other pedals made specifically for this are better options... or at least different. But keep in mind I'm not even turning on the boss pedal, and as I said before they are all different sounding. I tried the 3 I have and got 3 different sounds... so I'm sure it's just a crap shoot you know?

I can't locate the article but I read it quite some time ago, and it was from some pedal board guru (no i can't remember the name) and they said the boss pedals in bypass work as great buffers, so I tried one out and had great results with it.

Not saying it's the best solution but it worked for me and I didn't have to drop any $$$

 

[duesentrieb]

a) And when is a Buffer useful? b) Do they change the sound?

a) Esp. when splitting the signal with passive pickups (multi amp setups).
b) Depends on what you use . . . they do sound different than 10 meters of cable, cause you will hear more treble, which is clear b/c the treble-loss is caused by a cable and high impedance, so this problem is eliminated with a buffer and you may think thats "unnormal" . . .

The "problem" with "built-into-fx-unit-buffers" (like Boss pedals) is, that you may notice a loss of bass, which isn't a good thing of course . . .

I'm using only Palmer (splitter) and Radial (their "headbone" has a built in buffer, cause it also splits the signal). Some people are using the MXR-CAE thing (the small) as a buffer too . . . I'm using it as a boost, I like that better.

 

[Holy-diver]

so say i want to run my rig as follows:
guitar -> y box -> mark iii, titan
fx send -> reverb, decimator -> return

should i add a buffer?

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Hi Dallas, thanks for the reply. It's funny, I was actually responding to Glpg's statement that his Boss pedal had an adverse effect on the overall tone. I should have been more clear I guess.. Sorry about that.

Giga

Hey Giga,

I'm seriously not trying to question your choice of gear but I think you're making the mistake of assuming the Boss buffer is reminiscent of a "good buffer". In my experience it is not (although, to be honest, I don't have experience with that may Boss pedals). Try the same thing with a really good buffer and you'll get a totally different outcome I'm sure.

I'm sure it's probably not the optimal solution, but let me tell you, it works and my tone is only effected in a positive way, I'd imagine the Dunlop line/driver booster, or one of the other pedals made specifically for this are better options... or at least different. But keep in mind I'm not even turning on the boss pedal, and as I said before they are all different sounding. I tried the 3 I have and got 3 different sounds... so I'm sure it's just a crap shoot you know?

I can't locate the article but I read it quite some time ago, and it was from some pedal board guru (no i can't remember the name) and they said the boss pedals in bypass work as great buffers, so I tried one out and had great results with it.

Not saying it's the best solution but it worked for me and I didn't have to drop any $$$

Giga no worries at all man! Sorry for the miscommunication on my part as well! I haven't been trying to knock anyone at all in this thread, just sharing my personal experience and what works for me you know?

Your statement makes applicable sense either way so no harm no foul thanks for the heads up on the quality of the buffer though!

Dallas

 

[Dallas Marlow]

a) And when is a Buffer useful? b) Do they change the sound?

a) Esp. when splitting the signal with passive pickups (multi amp setups).
b) Depends on what you use . . . they do sound different than 10 meters of cable, cause you will hear more treble, which is clear b/c the treble-loss is caused by a cable and high impedance, so this problem is eliminated with a buffer and you may think thats "unnormal" . . .

The "problem" with "built-into-fx-unit-buffers" (like Boss pedals) is, that you may notice a loss of bass, which isn't a good thing of course . . .

I'm using only Palmer (splitter) and Radial (their "headbone" has a built in buffer, cause it also splits the signal). Some people are using the MXR-CAE thing (the small) as a buffer too . . . I'm using it as a boost, I like that better.

Thanks for the info Olaf! I know what you mean about the loss of bass from the boss pedals, it's clearly obvious with some of them and not others, I don't know why they all sound different, you would think they would be standardized but apparently not?

Do you not like the MXR-CAE as a line driver/buffer, is it not transparent enough? I read something and quite a few people said it added highs... but reality it was probably just returning them to normal and not adding more than was originally there.

Great info in this thread!

 

[brain21]

Discussing whether buffers are good or bad is like discussing whether humbuckers are good or bad as compared to single coils.

Buffers can indeed color your tone. BUT that is NOT necessarily a bad thing, even when it is audible. Cables can attenuate the signal and roll off highs if they are long enough. Jimi Hendrix purposely used longer coils because he LIKED the effect. The same thing can apply to buffers. Furthermore if you do not LIKE lots of high-end roll off, well with lots of true-bypass cables you might get more than you want.

With certain exceptions, there are no hard and fast rules. Let your EARS decide.

Its good to understand how they work and what they can do. good and bad, so you can use them in the best way to support YOUR tones.

I've never had tone suckage issues with Boss pedals. I used to run (once upon a time ago) a vintage '65 strat through pedals into a clean JC-120 (I still havethat stuff, but don't run like that). If there is tone suckage, you can pretty much hear it. No gain to cover it up. There were some pieces of rack equipment where I noticed tone suckage, ESP. my Digitech IPS33B, but not really for the Boss stuff. Even my vintage EH Bad Stone, which was a little bit noisy when "bypassed" had very little tone suckage at all.

Now here is my question, is there something that UN buffers (properly)? I've seen schematics for a "pickup simulator" but I'm looking for something already built. I have pedals that are buffered that I would like to stick in FRONT of my Fuzz Face, not after it. And hell, some fuzzes don't even like buffered pedals AFTER it either (where the unbuffered pedal is the first one after the fuzz).

Anyone make an UNBufferer/Pickup Sim in pedal format?

 

[Zachman]

Discussing whether buffers are good or bad is like discussing whether humbuckers are good or bad as compared to single coils.

Buffers can indeed color your tone. BUT that is NOT necessarily a bad thing, even when it is audible. Cables can attenuate the signal and roll off highs if they are long enough. Jimi Hendrix purposely used longer coils because he LIKED the effect. The same thing can apply to buffers. Furthermore if you do not LIKE lots of high-end roll off, well with lots of true-bypass cables you might get more than you want.

With certain exceptions, there are no hard and fast rules. Let your EARS decide.

Its good to understand how they work and what they can do. good and bad, so you can use them in the best way to support YOUR tones.

I've never had tone suckage issues with Boss pedals. I used to run (once upon a time ago) a vintage '65 strat through pedals into a clean JC-120 (I still havethat stuff, but don't run like that). If there is tone suckage, you can pretty much hear it. No gain to cover it up. There were some pieces of rack equipment where I noticed tone suckage, ESP. my Digitech IPS33B, but not really for the Boss stuff. Even my vintage EH Bad Stone, which was a little bit noisy when "bypassed" had very little tone suckage at all.

Now here is my question, is there something that UN buffers (properly)? I've seen schematics for a "pickup simulator" but I'm looking for something already built. I have pedals that are buffered that I would like to stick in FRONT of my Fuzz Face, not after it. And hell, some fuzzes don't even like buffered pedals AFTER it either (where the unbuffered pedal is the first one after the fuzz).

Anyone make an UNBufferer/Pickup Sim in pedal format?

You mean other than a loop switcher, to eliminate the pedals from in front of your fuzz pedal, when not in use?

What pedals (before your fuzz) are you using?

 

[Zachman]

a) And when is a Buffer useful? b) Do they change the sound?

a) Esp. when splitting the signal with passive pickups (multi amp setups).
b) Depends on what you use . . . they do sound different than 10 meters of cable, cause you will hear more treble, which is clear b/c the treble-loss is caused by a cable and high impedance, so this problem is eliminated with a buffer and you may think thats "unnormal" . . .

The "problem" with "built-into-fx-unit-buffers" (like Boss pedals) is, that you may notice a loss of bass, which isn't a good thing of course . . .

I'm using only Palmer (splitter) and Radial (their "headbone" has a built in buffer, cause it also splits the signal). Some people are using the MXR-CAE thing (the small) as a buffer too . . . I'm using it as a boost, I like that better.

Thanks for the info Olaf! I know what you mean about the loss of bass from the boss pedals, it's clearly obvious with some of them and not others, I don't know why they all sound different, you would think they would be standardized but apparently not?

Do you not like the MXR-CAE as a line driver/buffer, is it not transparent enough? I read something and quite a few people said it added highs... but reality it was probably just returning them to normal and not adding more than was originally there.

Great info in this thread!

Agree

 

[brain21]

You mean other than a loop switcher, to eliminate the pedals from in front of your fuzz pedal, when not in use?

What pedals (before your fuzz) are you using?

Yes. Other than a loop switcher. Put a buffered pedal in front of the fuzz, even turned off, and it makes the fuzz spit and sound like its broken.

Before the fuzz I have a Dr Distorto (using the octave and infinite sustain features, no drive/distortion at all). It just doesn't sound very good after any kind of dirt pedal. I' am also considering modding and rehousing a Walco Note and Chord Sustainer, but I might just make that true bypass anyway. For the moment all of my buffered pedals I'd put after my fuzz.... for the moment.

And again if I put that DrDistorto immediately after the Fuzz, it affects the sound of the fuzz too, even if that pedal is bypassed. Not sure why, but that happens sometimes.

 

[Zachman]

You mean other than a loop switcher, to eliminate the pedals from in front of your fuzz pedal, when not in use?

What pedals (before your fuzz) are you using?

Yes. Other than a loop switcher. Put a buffered pedal in front of the fuzz, even turned off, and it makes the fuzz spit and sound like its broken.

So, what is the logic of having the buffer in front of your Fuzz pedal?

Before the fuzz I have a Dr Distorto (using the octave and infinite sustain features, no drive/distortion at all). It just doesn't sound very good after any kind of dirt pedal. I' am also considering modding and rehousing a Walco Note and Chord Sustainer, but I might just make that true bypass anyway. For the moment all of my buffered pedals I'd put after my fuzz.... for the moment.

Your Fuzz wants to see a High Impedance signal. You are the PERFECT candidate for a loop based switcher.

What buffered pedals are you referring to?

And again if I put that DrDistorto immediately after the Fuzz, it affects the sound of the fuzz too, even if that pedal is bypassed. Not sure why, but that happens sometimes.

Have you considered that not all buffers are equal. I am not sure the DrDistorto has a lame buffer. I am not sure if it's buffered at all.

Perhaps this video will help you consider the order of your series signal chain of events

 

[duesentrieb]

Do you not like the MXR-CAE as a line driver/buffer, is it not transparent enough? I read something and quite a few people said it added highs... but reality it was probably just returning them to normal and not adding more than was originally there.

Great info in this thread!

I like it as a boost, never really tried it as a buffer. I do know know that some guys are using it to buffer their line level, which to me sounds "funny", because at line impedance level you would need to run 100 meters of cable to get a loss. In front of an amp with passive thats a different story - yyou can't even split the signal without losing signal strenghts.

 

[duesentrieb]

so say i want to run my rig as follows:
guitar -> y box -> mark iii, titan
fx send -> reverb, decimator -> return

should i add a buffer?

I'm not sure why you are going with the guitar into the titan send . . . just try the thing with the titan switched off, I mean: split the signal going into the running Mesa and switched off Titan. If you compare that to just going into the Mesa you should hear a difference thru the Mesa, because it is feeded just with 50% of the original signal . . .

So yes, I'd get a buffer. Keep in mind that you could use the stereo outs of a - say - stereo chorus (being off) and using its buffer.

Personally I prefer "real" splitters with "good" OP-Amps for this application . . .

 

[Dallas Marlow]

Do you not like the MXR-CAE as a line driver/buffer, is it not transparent enough? I read something and quite a few people said it added highs... but reality it was probably just returning them to normal and not adding more than was originally there.

Great info in this thread!

I like it as a boost, never really tried it as a buffer. I do know know that some guys are using it to buffer their line level, which to me sounds "funny", because at line impedance level you would need to run 100 meters of cable to get a loss. In front of an amp with passive thats a different story - yyou can't even split the signal without losing signal strenghts.

Thanks for the info Olaf! Who knows why they are doing this, there is SOOO much misinformation in the guitar world as you and I know... a lot of people don't like stuff just because it's not supposed to be good, or buy stuff because they "need it" according to some guy at the music shop.

Hope all is going well in Germany!

 

[duesentrieb]

We're all fine, thanks for asking DM.