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Why and When to Use a Guitar Buffer Pedal – Improve Your Tone

Guitar Buffer Pedal Overview:

Ever plug into a pedal or long cord and feel like your sound got more bassy or muffled, even with the pedal off? This article explains what a guitar buffer pedal does and why and when you would want to use one to improve your tone.

Simply put, a buffer is a circuit that will exactly replicate what is connected to the input to the output and more importantly, be able to apply that output with no changes (be transparent) to the next guitar pedal in the line.

When used correctly, a properly designed buffer pedal improves the high frequency response of your overall pedal chain. The main times you use one is if you have a long cable between anything, if you have a guitar pedal with a low input impedance (fuzz face) or non true bypass (many mass market pedals, wah wahs are known for “tone sucking”) and if you have a lot of pedals connected in series and are losing sound fidelity.

To explain this, first I give a method to test if you might want a buffer, then I give some examples where you would want a buffer and then I show the circuit explanation. If you want, skip down to the end and you can visually see the difference in frequency response with and without a buffer circuit. I’ll add some sound clips when I get a chance.

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Main Places to Use a Buffer Pedal

Before Really long cable:

You might want to use a buffer before a long cable. The cable will reduce your higher frequency tones because of capacitance. More about cable capacitance later.

Many Effects in a Row with True Bypass:

You might want a buffer before a lot of pedals with true bypass. The reason is that all the pedals are essentially similar to a long cable, with true bypass you are connected multiple cables in series which could have a high capacitance and effect your tone.

A pedal with low input impedance or one which exhibits tone sucking:

Some pedals have low input impedances such as fuzz faces. There is a debate about buffers and fuzz faces which we won’t go into, but you will be losing tone. Wah wahs are also known for tone sucking. If you try test 2, see if you can hear the difference with and without your wah.

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