Joben Magooch
Well-known member
I, like many others (I suspect) have had a bit of a complicated relationship with buffers and/or buffered bypass pedals. I spent a long time believing the school of thought that says "True Bypass or Die" and then swung the other direction and said "High quality buffers are good and can only help" and as with many things I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Anyways, I recently rewired my pedalboard up with Mogami 2314 cable, which has a capacitance of about 33.5 pF/foot. Previously I had it wired with Mogami 2319, which I believe has a capacitance of about 47.25 pF/foot. In both cases I had approximately ~20 feet of cable throughout my entire board, so I suppose in total I would be looking at about 670pF of capacitance with the 2314 and 945pF with the 2319. In other words, approximately 30% less capacitance with the 2314.
I noticed everything definitely seemed a LOT brighter. At bedroom levels it sounded pretty good and I assumed it was just getting back a bit of lost highs due to the slightly lower capacitance cable. But at "stage" level it was downright ear-piercing. I had to roll off my amp's treble considerably more than usual, and found myself playing with my guitar's tone knob set at like 4-5 (typically I would leave it around 8ish). In addition to being a lot brighter, the general "feel" could be described as more "stiff" or "brittle" and just harsh in general.
So, I don't know what got me on the topic, but somehow I randomly remembered reading YEARS ago an article from Analogman on Buffers and I went back and found it.... He says as follows:
I went back and tallied things up and found the following buffers active, along with their placement in my signal chain. Buffers (as far as I know) are bolded.
1. Guitar input to JHS Little Black Buffer
2. LBB to General Tso's Compressor
3. General Tso's to TC Electronic Sub N Up (switchable between buffered and true bypass; currently set to buffered. more on that in a moment)
4. TC Sub N Up to Pro-10 Dual
5. Pro-10 Dual to Informant (DRV) - I believe I did wire it with the buffered bypass as well.
6. Informant to Cleaver (Keeley Katana)***
7. Katana to VP
8. VP to Strymon Mobius (set on buffered bypass)
9. Strymon Mobius to Strymon Timeline (set on buffered bypass for trails)
10. Strymon Timeline to Strymon Bigsky (yes, also buffered bypass)
11. Strymon Bigsky to Strymon Iridium (I believe Iridium's outs are buffered as well)
So...that seems like a lot to me. Anyways, I'm sure it's a case-by-case thing and I'm planning on swapping some in and out/switching to true bypass but I'm curious if anyone else has experienced similar - where too many (or a particular type of buffer, or signal order/orientation) has resulted in a harsh sound? I know much has been said about the interaction between buffers and fuzzes, wahs, etc, but I've not heard too much on this particular scenario described.
***Cleaver/Katana***
This particular pedal has seemed to be a bit more sensitive than others for me...for some reason the interaction between it and my TC Sub N Up has been a little odd. With the Sub N Up set to true bypass (default) and OFF, unity gain on the Cleaver is about 9 o'clock (this was with the Sub N Up going into the Cleaver). But if I engage the Sub N Up and Cleaver at the same time there's a noticeable volume drop and I have to take the Cleaver volume/gain to more like noon to hit unity (This is with the Sub N Up dry signal at 100%). With the Sub N Up set to buffered bypass, and OFF, unity gain on the Cleaver is again about 9 o'clock and stays about this same setting with the Sub N Up engaged as well. It seems to me like this particular Katana/Cleaver works best when it is being fed a buffered signal - not sure if that is normal or not, but figured it was worth noting.
Anyways, as it stands I am planning on switching the big-box Strymons to True Bypass mode, switching the TC Sub N Up back to True Bypass, and potentially removing the Little Black buffer, leaving me just with the Informant's buffer as well as the buffered outputs on Iridium, but we'll see. More or less as before I'm just curious as to whether or not anyone else has experienced similar issues with multiple buffers in their chain.
Anyways, I recently rewired my pedalboard up with Mogami 2314 cable, which has a capacitance of about 33.5 pF/foot. Previously I had it wired with Mogami 2319, which I believe has a capacitance of about 47.25 pF/foot. In both cases I had approximately ~20 feet of cable throughout my entire board, so I suppose in total I would be looking at about 670pF of capacitance with the 2314 and 945pF with the 2319. In other words, approximately 30% less capacitance with the 2314.
I noticed everything definitely seemed a LOT brighter. At bedroom levels it sounded pretty good and I assumed it was just getting back a bit of lost highs due to the slightly lower capacitance cable. But at "stage" level it was downright ear-piercing. I had to roll off my amp's treble considerably more than usual, and found myself playing with my guitar's tone knob set at like 4-5 (typically I would leave it around 8ish). In addition to being a lot brighter, the general "feel" could be described as more "stiff" or "brittle" and just harsh in general.
So, I don't know what got me on the topic, but somehow I randomly remembered reading YEARS ago an article from Analogman on Buffers and I went back and found it.... He says as follows:
Now it is probably fair to point out here that this particular blurb is given in the context of why the Analogman buffer is a good one that you should buy, so maybe take it with a grain of salt, but to me this seemed to describe more or less what I was experiencing.Most buffers on the market are the simplest opamp circuit possible - one opamp stage with unity gain, just a few resistors and capacitors are needed. Even the KLON buffer is like this. Some are one transistor or FET with some simple power and coupling circuit. These do the job of having a high input impedance and a low output impedance to drive your signal to the amp nice and strong. But many cheap buffers like that just don't sound and feel the same as the original best tone described above - a good cord direct into your amp. Some buffers can send too much high end through, and sound brittle or HARD, not a nice feel.
I went back and tallied things up and found the following buffers active, along with their placement in my signal chain. Buffers (as far as I know) are bolded.
1. Guitar input to JHS Little Black Buffer
2. LBB to General Tso's Compressor
3. General Tso's to TC Electronic Sub N Up (switchable between buffered and true bypass; currently set to buffered. more on that in a moment)
4. TC Sub N Up to Pro-10 Dual
5. Pro-10 Dual to Informant (DRV) - I believe I did wire it with the buffered bypass as well.
6. Informant to Cleaver (Keeley Katana)***
7. Katana to VP
8. VP to Strymon Mobius (set on buffered bypass)
9. Strymon Mobius to Strymon Timeline (set on buffered bypass for trails)
10. Strymon Timeline to Strymon Bigsky (yes, also buffered bypass)
11. Strymon Bigsky to Strymon Iridium (I believe Iridium's outs are buffered as well)
So...that seems like a lot to me. Anyways, I'm sure it's a case-by-case thing and I'm planning on swapping some in and out/switching to true bypass but I'm curious if anyone else has experienced similar - where too many (or a particular type of buffer, or signal order/orientation) has resulted in a harsh sound? I know much has been said about the interaction between buffers and fuzzes, wahs, etc, but I've not heard too much on this particular scenario described.
***Cleaver/Katana***
This particular pedal has seemed to be a bit more sensitive than others for me...for some reason the interaction between it and my TC Sub N Up has been a little odd. With the Sub N Up set to true bypass (default) and OFF, unity gain on the Cleaver is about 9 o'clock (this was with the Sub N Up going into the Cleaver). But if I engage the Sub N Up and Cleaver at the same time there's a noticeable volume drop and I have to take the Cleaver volume/gain to more like noon to hit unity (This is with the Sub N Up dry signal at 100%). With the Sub N Up set to buffered bypass, and OFF, unity gain on the Cleaver is again about 9 o'clock and stays about this same setting with the Sub N Up engaged as well. It seems to me like this particular Katana/Cleaver works best when it is being fed a buffered signal - not sure if that is normal or not, but figured it was worth noting.
Anyways, as it stands I am planning on switching the big-box Strymons to True Bypass mode, switching the TC Sub N Up back to True Bypass, and potentially removing the Little Black buffer, leaving me just with the Informant's buffer as well as the buffered outputs on Iridium, but we'll see. More or less as before I'm just curious as to whether or not anyone else has experienced similar issues with multiple buffers in their chain.