VintagePlayerStrat
Silver Supporting Member
- Messages
- 2,580
I have more pedals on a board than I've ever had - 13 right now. I usually go true bypass, but figured it would be wise to give buffers a chance if I'm going to run more than a dozen boxes. Even with the best cables, there's got to be some signal loss.
Several of my true bypass pedals, including my tuner and looper, have built in buffers as an internal switch option so I gave them all a shot, sometimes just one, sometimes combined beginning and end of the chain, etc. All of them seemed to add a bit too much high end no matter what combo I tried. Individually, they seemed to do the same, whether these pedals were on or off.
On a lark, I decided to try the Xotic Super Clean Buffer, which is basically a dedicated buffer/boost: single gain knob and four DIP switches. I kept it on factory settings and put it at the end of my chain. I had already turned off any built-in buffers.
Wham, bang, boom. No weird high end added, but the signal is a tad stronger and richer from highs to lows without coloring it. The pedal is actually off as a boost with the buffer just doing its quiet work. It did exactly what I wanted a buffer to do. Made me wonder if a buffer should be, well, just a buffer and have no other job like tuner or looper or boost for that matter.
YMMV, but seemed to work in my case.
Several of my true bypass pedals, including my tuner and looper, have built in buffers as an internal switch option so I gave them all a shot, sometimes just one, sometimes combined beginning and end of the chain, etc. All of them seemed to add a bit too much high end no matter what combo I tried. Individually, they seemed to do the same, whether these pedals were on or off.
On a lark, I decided to try the Xotic Super Clean Buffer, which is basically a dedicated buffer/boost: single gain knob and four DIP switches. I kept it on factory settings and put it at the end of my chain. I had already turned off any built-in buffers.
Wham, bang, boom. No weird high end added, but the signal is a tad stronger and richer from highs to lows without coloring it. The pedal is actually off as a boost with the buffer just doing its quiet work. It did exactly what I wanted a buffer to do. Made me wonder if a buffer should be, well, just a buffer and have no other job like tuner or looper or boost for that matter.
YMMV, but seemed to work in my case.
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