Does anyone build buffers into their stompboxes?

[AudioEcstasy]

I was just curious, does anyone around here build buffers into their stuff?

[R.G.]

I was just curious, does anyone around here build buffers into their stuff?

I know at least one commercial outfit that buffers every pedal.

[CodeMonk]

I was just curious, does anyone around here build buffers into their stuff?

I know at least one commercial outfit that buffers every pedal.

Cornish?

Or is it a company that I have never seen or heard of before?

[slacker]

Do you mean adding a buffer to do buffered bypass instead of truebypass? Or just chucking a buffer on the front or rear of the circuit.
I use buffered bypass on pedals that already have an input buffer, things like delays, choruses etc. I haven't added it to pedals that don't already need a buffer.

[nocentelli]

I was just curious, does anyone around here build buffers into their stuff?

I know at least one commercial outfit that buffers every pedal.

Cornish?

Or is it a company that I have never seen or heard of before?

BOSS, perhaps?

[GibsonGM]

I'd add one if my input impedance was low.  Other than that, not necessary unless one is doing REALLY long cable runs; in which case a stand-alone buffer would work well.   > or if feeding a computer sound card - nice to put one before its input...

[Jopn]

The Dave Hunter Guitar Effects book had a clip on the accompanying CD that demonstrated guitar -> amp vs. guitar -> 5 true bypass pedals -> amp.  It then demonstrated guitar -> amp vs. guitar ->Visual Sound's buffered bypass -> 5 true bypass pedals -> amp. 

The tone and volume drop on the first clip was pretty astounding.  The second was miles closer to an identical reproduction.  I keep meaning to get around to building a little buffer box, or incorporating it as an on/off toggle feature in something I know will be at the front of my signal chain.

The Bazz Fuss "deluxe" schem has an interesting idea for if you're needing to reintroduce pickup style impedance later on for effects that benefit from it.

[R.G.]

Cornish?

Hmmm. Them (him?) too.

Or is it a company that I have never seen or heard of before?

Probably you've never heard of them.  

BOSS, perhaps?

Hmmm.  Them, too.

I guess Ibanez qualifies, too. Well, and all those toob skreemer copies.

Hey, I guess there are a lot of them.  

I keep meaning to get around to building a little buffer box, or incorporating it as an on/off toggle feature in something I know will be at the front of my signal chain.

Hmmm. I know at least one commercial outfit that sells a buffer inside a small box, suitable for either clipping to your belt or putting on your pedalboard.

[defaced]

I was just curious, does anyone around here build buffers into their stuff?

I know at least one commercial outfit that buffers every pedal.

Cornish?

Or is it a company that I have never seen or heard of before?

BOSS, perhaps?

R.G. is Chief Engineer at Visual Sound, so I'd put my money on him referring to Visual Sound.  

That said, I'd imagine Boss does fall into that category along with most other commercial pedal companies.  

[midwayfair]

I've recently considered switching to a simple buffered bypass for all my stuff ... or possible optical ... but it's just easier and cheaper to do true bypass.

[Beo]

Seems to me that if you have space one the board, and there isn't a transistor or opamp working as in/out buffers already, it can only help to add buffers, a la boss/ibanez. Should make any pedal behave more consistently regardless of what other pedals you chain before and after. You can still keep true bypass, and only have the buffers in the active circuit, but then its good to have an always-on buffer circuit at the beginning of the chain, right after the guitar.

Seems like buffers have gotten a bad rap to me. Perhaps because of the association with the boss/ibanez non-true bypass designs.

[R.G.]

Seems to me that if you have space one the board, and there isn't a transistor or opamp working as in/out buffers already, it can only help to add buffers, a la boss/ibanez. Should make any pedal behave more consistently regardless of what other pedals you chain before and after. You can still keep true bypass, and only have the buffers in the active circuit, but then its good to have an always-on buffer circuit at the beginning of the chain, right after the guitar.

A buffer is best **right after the pickups as close as you can get it to them** in terms of not losing any of what your pickup puts out. In the guitar is the best place. If you like the treble loss or resonances you can reintroduce them later. You can never get back signal or signal-to-noise ratio once lost to attenuation and cable capacitance rolloff.
Second best position is right after the guitar, with as little cable between guitar and buffer as possible. Third is on the pedalboard. Fourth is in the pedals, fifth is no buffers.

There are some esoteric issues with buffers that I've delved into by necessity. To the best of my knowledge, these issues are never mentioned in the "buffers are the work of the devil" rants on the internet.      Leave it with these not being things most people would ever run into.

There is only one place where I think there's a good argument for not sidestepping signal loss by buffering, and that's in the Fuzz Face (and clone, or clone-ish) circuits where the guitar pickup impedance is actually part of the circuit itself. This is the scenario always used to say "buffers ruin your toooooone, dude!"

On a philosophical level, the fact that guitarists had to put up with the shortcomings of unbuffered guitar pickups and true bypass switching for so long has produced a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. They've worked around the problems so long that they think that the problems are GOOD and miss them when they're gone. 

Seems like buffers have gotten a bad rap to me. Perhaps because of the association with the boss/ibanez non-true bypass designs

.
It's funny. The "common wisdom" about things like true bypass, buffers, hum, cable length, and so on never seem to get looked at critically by the mass of either guitarists or effects builders. Good buffers, as opposed to something just tossed in, require some attention to design, but are by no means rocket surgery. But one bad buffer tars the whole class of things. It's like, upon seeing one homely guy, saying "all men are ugly".

But that's a rant for a different time. 

[Thecomedian]

I was just curious, does anyone around here build buffers into their stuff?

I've seen lots of amp and "pre" amp schematics that include buffering. There's some article on geofex or smallbear that discusses the merits of having buffering or not having it. It might be a good read if you plan to include buffers in builds. Knowing how your pedal will be used will help determine whether you want a buffer in it or not. If it's at the beginning of the signal chain, it'd be less useful than at the end of the signal chain.


http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=45273.0;prev_next=next
http://screaminfx.com/tech/why-and-when-to-use-a-guitar-buffer-pedal.htm
http://www.analogman.com/buffer.htm

here's a few links for figuring about buffers.

here's a buffer meant to emulate a guitar output impedance.

http://home-wrecker.com/wahmods.html

[artifus]

...Knowing how your pedal will be used will help determine whether you want a buffer in it or not

how about a switch? buffer in/buffer out - perhaps not commercially viable, but this is diy, right?

*also* a pot for variable impedance on pre amp input?

[Beo]

A buffer is best **right after the pickups as close as you can get it to them** in terms of not losing any of what your pickup puts out. In the guitar is the best place. If you like the treble loss or resonances you can reintroduce them later. You can never get back signal or signal-to-noise ratio once lost to attenuation and cable capacitance rolloff.
Second best position is right after the guitar, with as little cable between guitar and buffer as possible. Third is on the pedalboard. Fourth is in the pedals, fifth is no buffers.

Doesn't using input/output buffers also help ensure a good high/low impedance interface between circuits/pedals? Maybe if each pedal in your chain is designed well without buffers, each pedal should play nice, with good impedance interfaces. But if you stick an "unknown" pedal in front of a pedal, doesn't a good input buffer help ensure a good impedance level is seen going into your circuit? Likewise, a good output buffer should ensure the signal you're sending out has a good impedance level for your next effect (which may not have an input buffer).

I may be showing my ignorance here, and maybe there are better ways to address impedance seen between pedals than using buffers.

[tommycataus]

My thoughts are that every pedal board is different and that there are bound to be certain pedals that benefit from buffers, and those that don't. Having just started building I plan to construct a decent buffer in a standalone box and use it wherever necessary. If for instance I decide to have a few true bypass outfits on the board, I might use the buffer whereas if there are one or two buffered pedals it may not be required. It seems to me that having a mixture of buffered and true bypass in the signal chain is a good thing... or am I just spouting ignorance?

[Thecomedian]

You can never get back signal or signal-to-noise ratio once lost to attenuation and cable capacitance rolloff.

Funny, that's why I replaced the volume pot from 500k to 1meg. I'm also of that opinion, although I have to wonder how it might also impact the signal when plugged straight into amp.

[CodeMonk]

I was just curious, does anyone around here build buffers into their stuff?

I know at least one commercial outfit that buffers every pedal.

Cornish?

Or is it a company that I have never seen or heard of before?

BOSS, perhaps?

R.G. is Chief Engineer at Visual Sound, so I'd put my money on him referring to Visual Sound.  

That said, I'd imagine Boss does fall into that category along with most other commercial pedal companies.  

Hehe

Cornish?

Or is it a company that I have never seen or heard of before?

Someone got it

Oh, and for the record. I have a Liquid Chorus and it is THE BEST chorus I have ever owned.

[defaced]

That was a covert one.  I like.  Went totally over my head (obviously) 

[puretube]

measurements...
(courtesy of Jack Orman, 2012)