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dedicated buffer with active bass

fitz420

fitz420

Knows Lows
Oct 6, 2008
1,258
8
Pittsburgh, PA
www.facebook.com
#1
so i had a dedicated buffer built for me a while ago when i was using a passive lakland. i put it 1st in my chain of 6 true bypass pedals and it brought my tone back to life that was lost with a long cable run. i recently purchased a 2010 am dlx jazz with an active pre. my question.....can i still benefit from a dedicated buffer or is redundant with an active bass? also could i benefit by simply putting it at the end of my chain? i now use 5 pedals and VERY short george l's patches.
 
#4
It's hard to say without knowing more about the intimate details of your electronics. With an onboard preamp, you are less likely to experience tone coloring but the amount of immunity depends on the design of the preamp. Some preamps use a passive volume control as the last stage (Bartolini's for example, if the internet schematics are correct). What you'd like ideally is for the output of your preamp to be either the pure output of an opamp (with the appropriate DC blocking cap of course) or a small transistor-based output stage specifically designed for the task of driving cables.

If you can't get schematics and the help of an EE, use your current buffer and see if it makes a difference. If your buffer has adjustable gain, get it as close to no boost/cut (or unity gain) as possible. If it's a true unity gain buffer and easy to connect, just give it a try and see what you like.
 
#6
i'm not sure if i was clear before. i have a 2010 american deluxe jazz - all stock: passive pickups and active preamp. the next thing in my signal path is a small, transparent FET based buffer pedal with no pots, made by a reputable builder for bass guitar. it runs at unity off of a 9v power supply. i'm not sure if using the buffer is necessary with this bass. i will continue to use it with my passive basses but will remove it from my board if there is no advantage to using it with my work bass.
 
#8
Rob22315 said:
Then it's not a buffer, it's a preamp. Can you post the circuit design?
Click to expand...

All active preamps are buffers. From your previous post, I'd expect you knew that. :) Of course there's the question of whether the z out from the output jack is low enough for the preamp to have been a very good buffer, but even a mediocre buffer is still a buffer.

To the OP, here's an article that should help: http://www.ovnilab.com/articles/buffer.shtml
 
#9
I suggest you try using the buffer and if you don't notice any degradation of tone (hiss, distortion, high freq loss) and/or you notice a benefit (more clarity, less high freq loss) then go ahead and use the buffer.

Assuming the buffer is designed well, you may not notice much if any difference in your situation
 
#11
bongomania said:
All active preamps are buffers. From your previous post, I'd expect you knew that. :)
Click to expand...

I use the term buffer vs preamp to differentiate between having gain and equalization (preamp) or not (buffer). A buffer stage is intended keep one element from affecting the next in terms of impedance, here affecting tone. That's not the purpose of a preamp.

These are a perfectly reasonable and common set of definitions. Note there are different reasons for having each. Some preamps may have a final stage or output design that provides the features of a buffer but not all do and that's the source of some of the problems and confusion. But you already know that. :hyper::hyper:
 

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