VP JR "Tone Suck mod"

[insomniac2295]

So, This1smyne offers a "tone suck mod" for Ernie Ball VP JRs where they install a buffer for the tuner out(?), a DC jack, LED and a switch for turning the LED on and off. I'm thinking of using the AMZ IC buffer in the layouts section for this. How would one go about wiring an LED on/off switch? I can wire a standard bypass + LED switch if someone could compare it to that.

[Mark Hammer]

As I understand it, the EB-VPjr assumes you are feeding it with a low-impedance output.  This will normally be true if you feed it with something like a Boss pedal or any other FET-switched pedal that has a buffered output in effect at all times.  If you feed it with an unbuffered guitar directly, THAT's when you'll run into issues.  If it's situated on a pedalboard, then it might be good practice to simply make yourself a buffer that remains on at all times, regardless of what comes after it, so that your guitar is always buffered, and so is your pedalboard output.  That will take care of the VP.

[insomniac2295]

As I understand it, the EB-VPjr assumes you are feeding it with a low-impedance output.  This will normally be true if you feed it with something like a Boss pedal or any other FET-switched pedal that has a buffered output in effect at all times.  If you feed it with an unbuffered guitar directly, THAT's when you'll run into issues.  If it's situated on a pedalboard, then it might be good practice to simply make yourself a buffer that remains on at all times, regardless of what comes after it, so that your guitar is always buffered, and so is your pedalboard output.  That will take care of the VP.

So then the buffer is applied at the input of the pedal?

[Mark Hammer]

The goal is to always have it between the guitar and the volume pedal.  It could be in the guitar itself, built into a cable plug like Don Tillman did, in a box on your pedalboard, or in the volume pedal.  Wherever it ends up, you want it before the volume pedal so that the low-resistance pot used in the VPjr does not load down the guitar.

The other thing is that the tone sucking arises because the VPjr's pot value is predicated on expecting a low-impedance source.  So, you could simply replace the stock pot with a higher resistance unit, like 500k or 1M, which would be more compatible with your guitar as its input.