I have stuff. I have wires. I hook my wires to my stuff. The stuff lights up. My guitar makes noise. I like noise. Usually. I hook my guitar to my stuff with my wires. I make noise through my lit up stuff. It makes me happy.
Simple bit of advice: get a BOSS tuner. It has buffered bypass. Go one step further, get the BOSS looper/reverb/delay and boom you have a buffer at the beginning and end of your chain.
That would only give a buffered signal to the next pedal over soon as you turned a compressor or drive the rest of the board wouldn’t be buffered. You want the pickups to think it’s getting the same input impedance as an amplifier. Buffer interface is a better option something with a 1mg ohm input and a output
To all the people asking "where should I put my buffer?", stop typing and start switching your boxes around, then use whatever arrangement sounds best to you. Then ask your friends, just in case your opinion sucks.
What's ironic is that everyone complained about boss pedals being not tru bypass. So they modded all their boss pedals to be tru bypass, then went out and bought buffers for the pedal boards... Musicians eh
Boss buffers are great but you don’t necessarily want every pedal to be a buffer as this can also cause tone loss. If boss would just include an option to switch between buffered and true bypass mode that would be ideal but otherwise you do sometimes need to do true bypass mods on boss/ibanez pedals when you don’t want a buffer at that point in your chain and then need to buy additional buffers to ‘sandwich’ your board with buffers.
dude. you just completely saved my biscuits. i must have been crook the day "no buffer before fuzz" got taught at school. unbelievable difference to my fuzz face . thanks man
I always use a buffer, even if I’m not using my pedalboard, I modded one of your buffered splitters so I have individual active volumes on each so when I’m playing at a gig I put my bass direct to the pa and to the bass amp.
What is the benefit of the 'sandwich' approach to buffers? The way I understand it, putting a buffer between your first cable coming out of your guitar (cable 1) and the rest of your cables (cables 2, 3, 4, ...) essentially eliminates the 'darkening'/'tone suck' effect. I.e., the capacitance that would have built up from stringing pedals together using cables 2, 3, 4, ... is eliminated when you put a buffer in between them and cable 1. Based on this understanding, it would seem that putting a buffer at the end of the chain is redundant. All of the capacitance that would have built up form cables 2, 3, 4, ... is neutralized by putting a buffer between them and cable 1, therefore, your high-end should be retained. Why would I need to put another buffer at the end of the chain? What kind of effect would I likely hear as a result of utilizing the 'sandwich' approach? It seems to me like that is just wasted space. Not criticizing, just looking for an explanation. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Sure, it all depends on the size of the board. If you like your sounds with just one, then that is great! Try the test I mentioned in the VLOG and see what you hear.
The goal with the buffers is to decrease/eliminate the high end loss that occurs because of the length of the signal chain and the cabling involved AND to provide the proper impedance load to your guitar pickups and the amp. A buffer at the beginning of the signal chain and one at the very end is ideal.
You mentioned that Boss has a really good buffer. Is there any situation where that isn't the case or they don't perform well? For example, I run 2-6 pedals at any time. The first time I bought a boss pedal, I loved the sound of it, but when it was off my clean sound had this strange character to the midrange that wasn't there before. So while I was losing some signal with all true-bypass pedals, when comparing the clean sound of my amp to the buffer going through several different pedals of which I swapped around as well as changed the number of them in the chain, I was still getting something that wasn't there before. I've had this experience with every buffered pedal I've tried (though more noticeably with Boss) so I'd like to know why this is happening? I loved my Bluesdriver but I couldn't get on with the clean tone when it was in the signal.
I use a small board of RAT - Boss EQ - Boss Chorus - Boss Reverb, so, this guy's honesty has led me to the decision that I don't need a buffer and can save some money
It's funny that you say Jimi had no buffer and he had horrible signal loss because I have heard many people say that Jimi didn't have true bypass pedals, and he sounded all right.
I have my RC-30 looper at the end of my board. I'm glad I do now after watching this vid. Got about 6 true bypass pedals in front of it (including two JHS...Whitey Tighty, Crayon) so I hope it being at the end of my signal chain cleans any loss up good and proper. BTW, just some feedback on your channel. Your unbiased channel which features more product placement for your competitors, rather than your own product, has driven me to your products. You do a great job educating and showing love to all pedals, which in turn leads me to trust your products and designs. If a guy loved hamburgers as much as you love pedals, I'm sure he makes the best hamburgers kind of logic. The Crayon is ridiculous by the way. Just ridiculous. The Whitey Tighty with a clean boost are my always on pedals, going into an AC30. The compressor really makes a huge difference. You and your team do a great job. Don't know what my next JHS purchase is going to be. Still mulling that around. Cheers.
First! And I'll use this prominence to say, "Love JHS products, love the Vlog, hate the driving while Vlogging." Distracted driving kills. Please stop setting this example.
I had the JHS little black buffer on my mini pedal board a few years ago and it worked best at the front of the board. But then I got a TC Elec poly tune 3 tuner for that mini pedal board so I didn’t need the jhs buffer anymore. But for my main rock band (one gig per week) bigger pedal board w about 13 pedals on it, I didn’t have a buffer at the end of my board. Most but not all pedals are true bypass on that board so just the other day I thought I’d A/B the sound of my board as is - with no buffer at the end, vs the tone w the jhs buffer at the very end of the board. Note that I already have a buffer at beginning of the big board via a tc elec polytune 3 tuner. The results were very unexpected. Without the buffer the sound was weak and lifeless compared to the sound w the jhs buffer at the very end of my chain. Wow. More volume. More life. More top end. Sounded like I was plugged straight into the amp. I’m sold. I mounted the little black buffer underneath my pedal train Novo board last in the chain. What a difference. Had no idea I was missing what I was missing. Big fan of that little buffer!
Honestly I don’t own any JHS pedals but I’m addicted to this station. This dude is awesome. Recently i got a Fulltone Deja vibe and Realize i should have bought a unicorn if for no other reason than that i want to support this dude and this channel ... so now i have to find a reason to buy something else just to support jhs !
Does a Boss tuner (TU-2) have a buffer? Should my fuzz be before my tuner? I never thought about the tuner being anywhere but first. If I have a pedal with a tuner out, should I use that?
Yes, the TU-2 is buffered (i have one too). By the logic presented in this video, it seems that the fuzz should not get a buffered signal. Either way, you should probably test it out for yourself and see if there's any noticable difference. Every pedal/cable/guitar/amp/power supply is going to have some sort of impact on the tone.
Hello, I have a JHS Buffered Splitter and I would like to know what the input and output impedance are. I have checked the entire website, the manual, and the entire web, but there are no references. Thank you.
Buffered pedals are headache and true bypass pedals are headache too. It's always different tone than plugging directly into amp. But we need pedals. At least me on gigs. Life shouldn't be this much cruel.
One last comment. I am retired in Europe in a country with terrible grounding. I bought 2 very expensive Joe Bonamossa guitar cables. They made an incredible difference in the signal and the noise!!
majority of people wouldn't even tell a difference. Besides using your OWN equipment and seeing it for yourself like how he described it in the video is gonna give you an actual indicator on if you even need it. Its not for tone, so why would he feel the need to?
@@Beyoki maybe because, in some cases, the people watching the video are interested in the details and the workings of whatever the video is demoing/explaining practically, not just theoretically (i.e we get better/more information by seeing actual measurements and signals, not just a description of how said thing works.)
+ we don't always want to buy the thing or put it together ourselves just to test it (because it's too much of a hassle and it's easy to share information on the internet, not because we're entitled and don't want to put in effort...)
@@ramalshebl60 That’s a great point! i do appreciate your reply and get what you’re saying. Though what i’m getting at: is that you can demo to see if you need a buffer with your own equipment, because even if statistics were shown it would mean nothing because it’s not your pedal rig. On top of that, you wouldn’t need to buy a buffer in order to see if you need a buffer. If it’s muddy when plugged into the pedal rig, and if it’s bright/clear straight into the amp, then you need a buffer! If you see little to no difference then you don’t need one. :D I do agree it’s quite unusual to see more of a hear say video from JHS when they’re usually on top of the more nitty gritty details.
I just had a lightbulb moment. A buffer "buffs" the signal. I'm a software developer and a buffer is a temporary space to hold data, or space buffer. I was wondering what the hell that had to do with a guitar signal and why you would ever want to do it. Isn't that what delay is for? SMH...
a buffer in effect pedals is just an amp with unity gain, changing the impedance of the signal because e guitars have a very high impedance, which is not good to drive long cables and to enter effect section
Hi Josh, a quick question, does Boss Multieffects such as ME50 and ME70 have the same buffer system like with their stompboxes? Hope you would notice this 😊😊😊🙏
Great videos, thanks. :) One request : when your video contains a "Record Time" section, could you include the name of the band and album in the description?
Denis Diaz Heart Like a Levee by Hiss Golden Messenger. What a wonderful record! He’s got a more recent one called Hallelujah Anyhow that’s just as good.
Josh, if you're ever super busy and you feel you don't have the time for a new episode, just do a quick Record Time :D It's my favourite part of the videos, you've already showed me so many amazing artists I had no idea even existed!
The amplifier can only amplify what it receives. If signal is lost(e.g. the high frequencies get reduced) between the guitar and the amp, the amplifier can't magically renew the signal. Buffers help prevent signal loss; they don't cure it. I hope that helps. Cheers, Alan Tomlinson
@@diegorhoenisch62 I thiiiiiiink you’re missing the point. A. You could put a buffer in front of the amp jack and it could conceivably do the exact same thing as putting a buffer on the backside of an amp jack. I completely understand that the amplifier is only amplifying what comes through the jack, but that shouldn’t negate the ability to put a buffer in-line between the input jack and the rest of the amplifier. If the purpose of a buffer is to improve the signal and reduce loss, including it at the very tail end of your chain seems like it would be accomplishing exactly what it is supposed to do at a very logical spot. B. If what Josh (and most) say is true, and there is signal loss at the end of a 15 or 20 foot cable instrument cable, why don’t we see more buffers at the tail end of “out” signal chain? I can’t think of a single time I’ve seen a buffer sitting on top of an amp, or in-line with the amp jack. You’re talking to a guy who has two buffer pedals inside his pedal board, so I’m not like I’m anti-buffer, but some of the hot sports opinions on buffers seem to contradict each other IMO.
hm I run a treble boost into my fuzz............. I'm also wondering if some clean boosts (SHO, AMZ Mosfetbooster) which have high input impedance but low output impedance would work as a buffer.
I have a boss tu-3 at the front of my board, and a hall of fame 2 with the buffer at the end of my board. But i dont use 5 pedal total. So I sandwhiched a small board. I assume that give me more power right?
After watching a million videos on buffers in the last hour… ide love to see you and Mason from Vertex Effects debate the buffers in boss pedals. lol. Or just debate buffers in general.
Not problematic. I'm just not sure why you'd EQ your guitar tone before it gets to the fuzz, as you'll have less diversity. You're better off EQing the tone after, and if you keep the Boss EQ at the end of your chain to EQ everything, you're getting a buffer there.
The explanation is perfect and the issue of the convenience of the input and output buffer is very clear, but ... My question is; When on a pedal board there are 8 pedals (for example) with buffer, these would affect the sound between them? I mean, several buffers together can interact and negatively or positively affect the sound? Thank you!
Just was talkin about this with someone on here last week. I would like to see Josh's input. I was under the impression that you do not want 100 buffers either. I have one and am happy.
This is a pretty subjective thing. I can't say whether the sound its affected negatively or positively unless it's on my rig and I'm playing. You gotta just play around with it and see what sounds best to you!
You can have several buffers I guess sometimes you have to, the main thing is if they are radicaly different (differents brands may lead to different buffer coloration/quality). An interessant article from Pete Cornish about buffers and why all the pedals he makes have buffers : www.musicradar.com/tuition/guitars/effects-masterclass-with-pete-cornish-79234
Why the JHS "Active A/B/Y" is not buffered?? I wanted to buy the Buffered Splitter and then I saw the A/B/Y has more versatility, but I got confused when I realized they were different ways of splitting... Which one should I buy??? ahhh!!!
Interesting takes on Buffers and surprisingly some very different ones than Mason from Vertex Effects has. He says that Boss Buffers are not good and you shouldnt use them as main buffers and instead get a standalone one.
These videos are ALWAYS brilliant and one of the best things for me is the way you constantly talk about how good Boss pedals, MXR too, Danelectro, etc and really hammer home that you don't have to buy boutique stuff all the time and it's OK to get cheaper gear because there are some real gems out there. I did a lot of work on my board last year and ended up putting a few buffers in at various points to balance it all out - the TC Electronic Polytune 3 has a built-in buffer so I was able to get rid of my separate Bonafide Buffer then in my FX loop I have an MXR Stereo Chorus, Carbon Copy Deluxe and M300 Reverb which are all buffered. You really can hear the difference between that and the old all true bypass board that I used to use especially when connecting with two 20ft cables in the front end and two 10ft cables into the loop.
Yes, I've heard him mention a few times that Boss' buffers aren't great, especially compared to something from Strymon (paraphrasing). Here Josh says there's no such thing as a bad buffer. Controversy afoot. :)
I mainly play a Tele into and older Fender Deluxe-Reverb. I use a coily cable, haven't changed strings in a year and it's STILL bright as hell...don't ask me why I have a buffer on my board!!
Hi. I have a 4 channel amp. It occured to me I could use 4 different overdrives (or any effect) through their own pre amp channel. I started looking into 4 channel splitters. I found radial eng's shotgun but it's a buffer with 4 outputs, so can I not use that before the overdrives/fuzzes? Should I just use a passive splitter to the overdrives/fuzzes, and then use 4 individual buffers after the overdrives/fuzzes? Also I wanted to use a volume pedal before the overdrives/fuzzes (so before the splitter) so would that need to be passive, not buffered, as well?
Thanks Josh, very interesting. Prompted me to do some rig testing. Although it led me back to where I started, my understanding has increased for future reference and it means I don't have to wonder about buying a buffer (for now). If it helps anyone else, here are my findings: The board is 18ft from my Marshall amp & consists of 6 true bypass pedals & a Boss DD7. The guitar straight to amp compared to thru the 6 t/b pedals in front of the amp reveals a bit of volume loss (10%, maybe) but, happily, the tone shape/character is retained with only a tiny loss on the very low & high ends. I put the DD7 on the end of the chain to see what happened and found that it took a little bit from the low end: not in bad way/deal breaker, per se, but the I preferred the actual delay effect when it was in the fx loop. With the DD7 back in it's original place (and the signal passing thru 36ft of extra cable) I compared the tone with the fx loop on/off and found that having it on boosts the low end slightly. So the net effect of 7 pedals and a bunch of cable is a slight loss of treble, which, given that I set amp with the bass at 10 and the treble at zero, is something I can live with!
So, what if you have a Boss tuner (that has a buffer obvi) at the beginning of your rig but also have a fuzz? Should you put the fuzz first and then the tuner?
How right you are! I just bought my first JHS pedal...The Pollinator!!!! AMAZING!!!! But, definitely put my Boss Tu-2 After. Also have found that riding the volume now yields a truly amazing clean tone. So much so, that I feel like I’m never turning to my compressor “clean” tone anymore? P.S. thank you for all your blogs, and insights. I’m finally down with the Fuzz. A whole new world has opened up! Getting a multitude of sounds from one pedal.
@@christianconrad1792 I agree a buffer is a buffer, I guess what I was trying to convey with the term pseudo buffer was that a buffer pedal is just a buffer. But a boss chorus pedal is a chorus with a buffer second, if that makes sense.
@@lilcody69 If you don't use fuzz pedals, the buffer should be placed first in the signal chain. I use the boss cs 3 compressor, because the comp should also be placed first in the chain. The buffer is also on when the effect is switched off. An alternative is the boss pedal tuner and every boss overdrive pedal.
Yes you can, I put one Boss after my Big Muff and it preserved the high end that I always lost when connecting direct from the Muff to the amp with a long cable. Before that I had to use a super short patch cable from the Muff to the input of the amp, great sound but you can't put the pedal on the floor 😅
What if you need a buffer but you don't have a huge board? Where do you put the buffer? My signal chain is: Big Muff>EVH OD>Boss Metal Zone Waza Craft>TS808>Phase 90>MXR Chorus>MXR Carbon copy. Is the buffer in the Boss enough, considering it's placement? THANKS!
So now I’m confused. Currently, I’ve got my Boss TU-3 going into an always-on compressor > volume pedal > always-on EP Booster > Fuzz. Does this mean I need to have my Tuner after the Fuzz? And also don’t always-on pedals like my boost and compressor effectively act as buffers? My boosts and compressors are supposed to be after fuzz?
Every Child I actually went ahead and did it. Sounds great. Only my pedals are a bit interesting, not standard fuzz. Anyway, I took my tuner out of my tone chain entirely, have it out the dedicated tuner jack of my volume pedal.
And yup, I have a distortion first (it’s a Caroline Wave Cannon and Phillipe from them told me the pedal wants to hear the guitar directly as first pedal or true bypassed through other pedals if the feedback switch is gonna work. I love that switch and liked the idea of being able to hit it and push it into the next pedal so it’s first after volume. Then Plasma Pedal. Then a chorus. Then a cleaner drive pedal. Then Chorus. Then EP Boost just for color. Then Conpression. And then on to a modulated delay and my time based stuff.
The reason you don't want a buffer before the fuzz pedal is because the buffer converts the signal to low impedance, and most fuzz pearls need high impedance input to function properly So the question is how do you tell if your funds petal or distortion pedal requires high impedance input?
Helloo. Why does my amp not hiss when I plug my pedals through the front but It does when I use the fx loop? Is it because the fx loop is not buffered ?
5:03 made me go "NOOOOO". But to save all you metalheads with way too many different Boss Distortion pedals (cheers) those 5 or even 9 minutes. All boss pedals have buffer. You fine. Go shred.
I got a question! The only way I can get my wah (cry baby GCB-95) to sound good with my fuzz face (FFM3) is to run it before the fuzz, with a buffer between them (Boss TU-3). However, the buffer messes with the sound of the fuzz, and also makes it so it doesn't clean up when I roll off the guitar volume. The fuzz face sounds best when it has nothing in front of it, but if I put the wah after it, the effect is ear-splitting. Anyone got advice for me?
Hey! if you hadn't figured it out yet, usually putting the impedance sensitive pedals like a wah first, then a buffer, then any dynamic pedals, and then onto distortion pedals usually fixes tone best!! the higher the gain on the distortion pedals (fuzz, ect.) the closer you want it to the guitar, and the lower the further ect. could also be if you only have one buffer, having another output buffer pedal at the end of the chain cleans it up a bunch. hope this helps!
