Do you use a buffer?

cvogue

cvogue

Yes, that's Oolong. :)
So, does anyone out there specifically use a buffered pedal (Boss, Visual Sound etc...) to help with capacitance and high frequency rolloff?

I got my amp back from the shop and it's a lot louder and articulate and I noticed it's also kinda muddy... seems more noticeable now since it's been worked on. I realized that I have a lot of cabling in front of the amp usually, measured them today and at least 25 feet. According to the "conventional wisdom" out there, if you have over 18 feet of cable in front of your amp (including effects, patch cables etc...) you'll probably see a loss of treble.

So, given that I have no buffered pedals (yeah I've been a true bypass snob... guess I'm paying for it now!) I went out and bought a Boss DS-1 just for the buffering (cheapest pedal at GC that would do the trick). It actually sounds pretty terrible as a distortion unit, may use it as a bit of crunch for the clean channel.

Anyway I put it first in my chain right after my guitar and it does help. I was wondering if anyone else out there is doing this or maybe give it a shot if you are finding your tone with a lot of cabling to be too dark.

Edit - For the record I tried the amp with a very short cable from guitar straight in and it sounds really good. Fine for home use but when practicing/gigging with the band that's not feasible (need my tuner, OCD, wah etc...)
 
I use a Z-Vex Channel 2 to decouple my board from whatever rehearsal space amp I'm playing through. Otherwise, I have a mix of buffered and non-buffered pedals. But that's about what sounds good, and not what's buffered or not.
 
I think I have my Möbius set up to buffer my pedalboard. It's been a long time since I set it up but I think that's how my setup works,

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I've always had a buffer, simply because some of the pedals I have chosen were buffered pedals. It wasn't specifically by design, but once I read about the cable length impact on sound, I was sure glad I had what I had.
 
Stratguy said:
I've always had a buffer, simply because some of the pedals I have chosen were buffered pedals. It wasn't specifically by design, but once I read about the cable length impact on sound, I was sure glad I had what I had.
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Same here. I might have occasionally made some decisions to ensure good buffer placement, but I never got a pedal specifically for that.
 
My T Rex reverb has one, I realised a few years ago that a good buffer does exactly as they say it will.

I also want to point out that I'm sparing everyone my "Do you use a Fluffer?" parody thread.
 
My Gig-FX Frampton Wah is always the first thing in my chain and has a very good buffer. Most of my other effects are true bypass but having the Wah buffer half way between the guitar and the amp.
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
Your Echorec is buffered. Unless you flipped the internal switch for true bypass. I run mine buffered.
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I just checked the manual. I run mine in trails mode, but this is what the manual says:

"From the factory we ship the Echorec in "buffered" or "trails" mode. (It’s not really a buffer, it’s a juicy preamp, but non-true bypass mode is commonly called “buffered” mode. You will be able to run long cables without signal loss though in this mode!)"
 
Chad said:
I just checked the manual. I run mine in trails mode, but this is what the manual says:

"From the factory we ship the Echorec in "buffered" or "trails" mode. (It’s not really a buffer, it’s a juicy preamp, but non-true bypass mode is commonly called “buffered” mode. You will be able to run long cables without signal loss though in this mode!)"
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Preamp, buffer, whatever. It's on when you turn the pedal off, therefore it's not true bypass. Does the same thing.
 
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