DIY or cheap onboard buffer opinions?

J

jwin615

Well-known member
Have a friend who's been on hard times and needs a loaner guitar. I have a late 90s MIJ Jackson Dinky that's beat all to hell and one of the emgs or it's electronics are shot. But the neck is straight and it intonates fine. No tears over the emgs. I don't care for emgs.
I'm going to outfit some other SD humbuckers that have been collecting dust into it. BUT, it already has a 9v battery cavity and it seems a shame to not use it.

TLDR:
Anyone have any recommendations for a diy buffer for high output humbuckers for mostly metal? Looking diy or sub $50. I have a @JTEX jobby in one of my baris but he's out of the protos and I don't want to invest to much in a guitar I'm not playing(though I can't recommend his products enough!). Don't need treble boost but some low end tightening may be good. Also don't want to drill new holes so no eqs. Just a quiet buffer with maybe a little gain. But not a bunch.
Anyone have a recommendation they have experience with?
thanks!
 
If you can wait a bit, I have something in the pipeline. A sort of DIP switch-configurable buffer/booster/eq, more or less the baby of the prototype buffer I sold you and a 2-band, potless, boost-only EQ. An "everything" front end for pickups, basically.

It will all be on one little board attached to a 3-way toggle switch when it's done:

PXL_20240302_203605028.jpg
 
JTEX said:
If you can wait a bit, I have something in the pipeline. A sort of DIP switch-configurable buffer/booster/eq, more or less the baby of the prototype buffer I sold you and a 2-band, potless, boost-only EQ. An "everything" front end for pickups, basically.

It will all be on one little board attached to a 3-way toggle switch when it's done:

View attachment 69844
Click to expand...
You're gonna make me spend $ aren't you. Damnit @JTEX :)
Are these using the new OPAs you were excited about?
 
Here's a quick DIY version if you can't wait or are broke. This one's buffer-only, no fancy versatile stuff. But it's about as good as a guitar buffer can be, and draws just 0.25mA. Looks a bit funny cause it's drawn in a circuit simulator. To do it justice, don't put it in a pedal - use it onboard, and ditch the original high value guitar volume pot in favor of the post-buffer volume. You can keep the standard tone pot, just place it pre-buffer.

Screenshot 2024-03-03 073204.png
 
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jwin615 said:
Have a friend who's been on hard times and needs a loaner guitar. I have a late 90s MIJ Jackson Dinky that's beat all to hell and one of the emgs or it's electronics are shot. But the neck is straight and it intonates fine. No tears over the emgs. I don't care for emgs.
I'm going to outfit some other SD humbuckers that have been collecting dust into it. BUT, it already has a 9v battery cavity and it seems a shame to not use it.

TLDR:
Anyone have any recommendations for a diy buffer for high output humbuckers for mostly metal? Looking diy or sub $50. I have a @JTEX jobby in one of my baris but he's out of the protos and I don't want to invest to much in a guitar I'm not playing(though I can't recommend his products enough!). Don't need treble boost but some low end tightening may be good. Also don't want to drill new holes so no eqs. Just a quiet buffer with maybe a little gain. But not a bunch.
Anyone have a recommendation they have experience with?
thanks!
Click to expand...
jwin615 said:
Have a friend who's been on hard times and needs a loaner guitar. I have a late 90s MIJ Jackson Dinky that's beat all to hell and one of the emgs or it's electronics are shot. But the neck is straight and it intonates fine. No tears over the emgs. I don't care for emgs.
I'm going to outfit some other SD humbuckers that have been collecting dust into it. BUT, it already has a 9v battery cavity and it seems a shame to not use it.

TLDR:
Anyone have any recommendations for a diy buffer for high output humbuckers for mostly metal? Looking diy or sub $50. I have a @JTEX jobby in one of my baris but he's out of the protos and I don't want to invest to much in a guitar I'm not playing(though I can't recommend his products enough!). Don't need treble boost but some low end tightening may be good. Also don't want to drill new holes so no eqs. Just a quiet buffer with maybe a little gain. But not a bunch.
Anyone have a recommendation they have experience with?
thanks!
Click to expand...
Bro,look by Amazon good pickups,low price(Wikinson) and very good sound.In my strat i have a Alnico5 HB from Thomann,price 25€.EMG,S.Duncan prices Wow.Metsl from Germany
 
rackumusik said:
Sorry my English is diy,you sad "my bridge pu is out of order"".Try the EMG buffer/boost.Schematic you find by freestompboxes
Click to expand...
Already set on swapping the pickups and already have them. I'm not crazy about EMGs and have a set in another guitar so they are coming out regardless.
Thanks for the input though.
 
@JTEX
What's the ETA on these hitting the storefront? Have you settled on an price point yet? Don't mean to rush you but I've got to get moving on this. Gonna be out of state for most of April and would really like to get that guitar in my friends hands before then if possible. :)
 
Days at most. I'd like to first try to write a half decent description for it, since it's quite versatile and I want to cover the various use cases (bass/guitar/maybe piezo pickups). What do you think I should I charge for it? Considering I'm hand building it in a high cost of living country, and it's quite likely the quietest buffer/booster/preset EQ on the market. Trying to strike the right balance so it's a good deal for both sides of the transaction. This is never easy...
 
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Yeah 100% not interested one of those, just always curious about how everything works. Noticed they "gooped" the hell out of their gear
 
DeadAirMD said:

An article just came out about a passive boost and overdrive/distortion.

Can someone explain to me how you can have a passive boost/overdrive?
Click to expand...
Actually, you can't. It's a smoke-n-mirrors article. The entirely passive "Black Ice" circuit has been around for years and is basically just some clipping diodes (or other clipping elements) inserted into the signal path to clip (distort) the signal in a lossy manner. With or without a transformer, it will be both lossy and misrepresent the signal.
 
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JTEX said:
If you can wait a bit, I have something in the pipeline. A sort of DIP switch-configurable buffer/booster/eq, more or less the baby of the prototype buffer I sold you and a 2-band, potless, boost-only EQ. An "everything" front end for pickups, basically.

It will all be on one little board attached to a 3-way toggle switch when it's done:

View attachment 69844
Click to expand...
Sign me up for 5
 
MBFX said:
Sign me up for 5
Click to expand...
Waaait, I have to get to building a proper batch. I've only finished one so far. Should be a few days. I still have to work out what I should charge for it. The closest thing I found to compare with is an EMG part (PA2). I'm planning to beat their price, that's for sure. As for comparative performance and features, I'm really not worried.
www.emgpickups.com

PA2

The PA2 is a boost preamp you can mount to your guitar and turn on/off via on a minitoggle switch. It's the perfect solution if you want to increase your instrument's overall volume for solos or push an amp on the edge of breakup into overdrive. It has a trim pot so you can preset the amount of...
www.emgpickups.com www.emgpickups.com

P.S. I'd really, really like to know how they came up with their -130dBV input referred noise spec. That's just massively not achievable with their TL062.
 
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