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EFFECTS PEDALS... WHAT IS A BUFFER?


Greg.Bassman
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Hi all. Hope you're well.

(Probably a dump question now but) What is a buffer?

I hear this term used frequently, especially now that I'm looking into effects pedals. What are their purpose and how would they apply to my pedal setup?

Cheers Greg.

Edited by Greg.Bassman
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This is a good read [url="http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.html"]http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.html[/url]

There have been a few similar threads in the past so you could search too

As I understand it, a buffer raises the impedance that the guitar "sees", so that the pickups behave as if they were plugged into an amp first, rather than a bunch of pedals first. They're good for reducing noise on long runs of cable etc.

In practise, you may or may not need a buffer. If you have an active bass, you almost certainly don't need any buffers in your chain, but they shouldn't hurt either

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Buffered pedals have been getting a "bad reputation" over the last few years, and the prevalence of "True Bypass" in pedals.

When a true bypass pedal is switched off, the circuit is bypassed, and you hear the unaffected sound of the instrument. With a buffered circuit, the pedal isn't necessarily bypassed when it's switched off, and you can still hear "artefacts" of the effect.

This is especially noticeable in modulation effects, like wah's, phasers, chorus, delay etc.

Remember one band where the running joke was "I can still hear that bloody (effect name), are you sure it's off?". Remember another band where I had to replace my entire pedal board with true bypass versions, as the artefacts from my pedals were getting seriously annoying.

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Over the last 5 years or so there definitely has been a air of "if it's not true bypass, it's crap" ethos, not really based on anything tbh.
Obviously silly when consider pedals like the Darkglass B7K is buffered,

Put simply, if you have a pedalboard with only true bypass pedals, the total length of all your patch cables is added to your instrument cable length to determine the total cable length between your bass and amp. Super long cables are the biggest cause of signal degradation. If you place a buffered pedal such as a Boss, somewhere in your chain, because the way impedance works, it effectively acts as if the start of your signal chain is from that buffered pedal, therefore reducing any signal loss etc.

Some people may happen to just have true bypass pedals on their board, and so it's possible to buy a little buffer pedal to put somewhere on your board. I've built a few of these, basically just the Klon buffer section stripped out into a 1590a enclosure. Pretty effective if you don't have a Boss Tuner to hand.

Si

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I've not read the Pete Cornish piece, and I've never used one of Pete's products. I am pretty sure that they do sound superb... however

I know that I can't afford one of Pete's pedals, and I don't know anyone who's ever even seen one, let alone tried one or owned one. Given the budgetary constraints and the kit available 10-15-odd years ago, everyone made do with what as available. If pedals were noisy while switched off, you either put up with it or moved it on to get something else that was hopefully quiet. Which is why True Bypass became so popular. Cable losses are also negligible these days too, due to far better quality leads being available at more affordable prices.

The Buffered pedal experience I mentioned has been experienced by many musicians over the years, and it is really annoying.

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cable losses wouldn't be effected by the quality of the lead. The length of the cable is what degrades the signal (although I'm sure a bad cable can do this too)

Obviously some buffers do sound noisy, I'm not denying that. However, most are fine, and they do bring some benefits.

The Pete Cornish piece isn't trying to sell you any of his pedals, it's just very informative about the subject

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