Transformers / Pickup Emulation

[Barracuda]

So I heard on a few posts around here that there are pedals that use a transformer at the beginning of a circuit to emulate pickups in some form. I'm guessing this is so fuzzes can't get messed up by buffers, which is a big problem for me in general that I want to fix. Just asking here to see if anyone can tell me about it and what to buy? I really no nothing of transformers apart from them multiplying DC haha.

Heres the site I buy from if anyone has some suggestions for me to trial
https://www.bitsbox.co.uk/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&zenid=ni316convmvagf9jhc2vj9v067&keyword=transformer


Thanks for any replies, guys!

[R.G.]

I think the pedals that did this used the transformer as an inductor, not a transformer. A transformer with no loads on secondary windings acts just like an inductor.

Pickups are inductors with big inductances, moderate resistance, and moderate self capacitance. The inductances range from about 1H for a single coil up to 4H or more for big humbuckers. Resistance for single coils runs about 8K for a single coil up to 18K or more for humbuckers.

The "fuzzes getting messed up by buffers" you mention is a highly limited problem. Pickups can't supply much current, and their inductance selectively makes it harder to get signal current with higher frequencies. Circuits with low input impedance load down pickups and roll off the highs. This was named "tone sucking" back in the reaches of prehistory. Buffers and high impedance circuits were the cure for tone sucking.

There are very few fuzzes that have low input impedance. The one notable one is the Fuzz Face and its unending copies and clones. Otherwise, remarkably few fuzzes have issues with buffers. The Fuzz Face sound is expected to have treble loss, so using a buffer in front of it makes its output brighter and more hard-sounding.

I'm curious - how exactly do you perceive buffers messing up fuzzes?

[Barracuda]

Hi R.G.
Thanks for Geofex your articles have been great help. Whenever I use my pedal board I tend to run modulation -> fuzz to distort the modulation (just a personal preference). So I'm trying to figure a way to solve the problem of the impedance from the previous pedal messing with the fuzz. It just sounds very harsh/twangy probably because it isn't tone sucking or something similar, I'm not too tech savvy so I wouldn't know the exact terminology or topology of the circuits. I heard that putting a transformer at the start of the circuit will help with the issue so thought I would ask about it. I'll have to read over what you put previously again haha, normally it doesn't sink in until I've read it a couple times and experimented with it.

[Hatredman]

I'm not as experienced as RG, but I'll offer my thoughts on that because it is something that bothers me.

In the beginning, people complained that fuzzes, bad cables etc sucked the tone, and so money was spent on magical buffers, NASA cables used on spaceflight and so and so and so, just to have "my sparkling tone back. And maybe it was worth it, because once you lose something from your signal, you're not getting it back.

Now, all of this is on the past, but people now complain that they want the dull sound back. Well, the sound you want is there, you just have to roll some of your highs off.

Have you tried to roll back the tone pot on your guitar a little? It may help.

Scarlett Johansson uses a Burst Box with her Telecaster.

[ashcat_lt]

A cap to ground is a heck of a lot smaller and less prone to noise and other issues compared to any transformer coil with enough inductance to help.  Literally all you need is a low pass before the fuzz input.