General Pedal placement/buffer musing

mark_jwedge

I had a free morning last weekend and can’t resist tinkering with my guitars, pedals etc. I have been happy with my pedal order for a while and use a buffer at the start and end of the board. However a lot of my pedals have an internal switch to go between true bypass and buffered bypass so I spent a long time experimenting between switching different combinations of buffer on/off in the different pedals. I was really surprised at the difference it made overall and the difference between the buffers. It was subtle but definite, particularly at around gig volumes.

Had to work hard to get past the mental block of not wanting to ‘over buffer’ the sound but really enjoyed the hours of endless experimentation and realised that in the end experimentation is key and outside of having a good quality buffer at the start and end of the chain, what happens in between i.e numbers of buffers on/off doesn’t really matter as long as it sounds good!

AxeWieldingBastard

Experimentation definately is key. I read on forums players saying where they prefer comp or phasing (before/after dirt etc). But i found even different pedals of the same type can benefit from different positions in the chain. Even if you feel like you got a good system going, it pays to try that new clean boost or mod pedal you just bought in a few different positions before you settle. Plus, tastes change and ears get fatigued. You gotta shuffle those little buggers about