Do I still need a buffer?

lincolnblue

I have a buffer on my board as most, if not all, my pedals are true bypass.

However, I've just bought an EHX Soul Food which I know comes with a switch to go between true bypass and buffered bypass.

If I have it on buffered, can I do away with the buffer I have (first in my chain) and thus create space for another pedal?!

not_the_dj

Just try it and see.

Word of warning though, be careful with the screws on the back of the Soul Food. A lot of reports of people stripping the heads when they tried to remove the back plate. Might be different now but the early ones seemed to be over-tightened.

Dave_Mc

yep.

it's a good buffer in the soul food. i'm guessing it's the klon buffer (which is well-regarded to be one of the "good" buffers).

PureTonePedals

Always best to use a dedicated buffer to do the buffering job. 

Gassage

^ Alon Biodeck is on board! A friend of mine from Israel who makes damned good stuff

PureTonePedals

Thanks Gassage

Hi all!

Looks like a great forum, lots of catching up to do.

Hope I can contribute here...

Cheers,

AB

ThePrettyDamned

PureTonePedals;581321" said:

Always best to use a dedicated buffer to do the buffering job. 

Any reason? Pete cornish is happy putting buffers in his pedals, as are plenty of other manufacturers.

Surely a good buffer is a good buffer?

Dave_Mc

^ That's what I'd have thought. Granted, in practice an awful lot of the buffers fitted to mass-produced, popular pedals aren't great, but that's because the buffers are bad, rather than because they're built into pedals.

Right? )

dindude

ThePrettyDamned said:

PureTonePedals;581321" said:

Always best to use a dedicated buffer to do the buffering job. 

Any reason? Pete cornish is happy putting buffers in his pedals, as are plenty of other manufacturers.

Surely a good buffer is a good buffer?

Dedicated buffers give you a lot more (well, total) control over placement. 

Buffers are most often necessary in anything but the smallest board but I try to use as few as I can get away with. A great buffer in isolation may not play so nicely with different buffers either side of it. I'm not trying to answer for @puretonepedals btw, I'm sure he has his own reasons.

AbandonMute

PureTonePedals said:

Always best to use a dedicated buffer to do the buffering job. 

Not really. If the buffer in the Soul Food, or Klon, or whatever is good there's no point having a separate one. 

I can't see why placement would be an issue - if you want an unbuffered signal up to a certain point (ie after your Ge fuzzes) put the SF after the fuzzes. If you've got fussy fuzzes you wouldn't want to boost into them (that would of course be a buffered signal) so you're not losing anything.

The cheap buffers in Boss etc have made people a bit paranoid about this stuff and willing to spend more than they need to on them. It's a 1:1 device and not complicated. TheGigRig sell a tiny one for £69 so you can get an idea of the build cost, anyone charging more is charging a premium for fancy box or fairy dust...

 

Dave_Mc

dindude said:

Dedicated buffers give you a lot more (well, total) control over placement. 

That's a fair point, I suppose. The buffer in the decimator is pretty good, for example, but putting a noise gate up front sort of defeats a lot of its purpose )

PureTonePedals

dindude said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

PureTonePedals;581321" said:

Always best to use a dedicated buffer to do the buffering job. 

Any reason? Pete cornish is happy putting buffers in his pedals, as are plenty of other manufacturers.

Surely a good buffer is a good buffer?

Dedicated buffers give you a lot more (well, total) control over placement. 

Buffers are most often necessary in anything but the smallest board but I try to use as few as I can get away with. A great buffer in isolation may not play so nicely with different buffers either side of it. I'm not trying to answer for @puretonepedals btw, I'm sure he has his own reasons.

Sorry for the delay in answering. 

Had few problems to log in. 

dindude, you are right! 

Anyways, Buffer placement is very important in your chain. To understand that check out this video.

Also, there are various ways of building a buffer as there are of building an overdrive, so many of them are worthless and some are just ok. In my research I've seen only few that where good enough and about 2 that were perfect.