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"Unbuffers" and pickup simulators?

BassDaddySky

BassDaddySky

Jul 20, 2024
181
224
SWFL
#1
Recently learned about these simple, passive devices.

I have two issues I think one or more of these might solve, but I have questions...
Mainly, will one of these circuits affect the lower frequencies negatively ?
Most discussions ive found online are guitar centric.
My "vintage" fuzz pedals apparently dont like buffered signals, but you guys already knew that. Wahs can be problematic too!
But I want to keep my fuzzes in the noise gates loop.

The second issue is my otherwise rad Lace Alumitone pickups dont play well with certain pedals either. They are described as "voltage driven devices" . Will an onboard unbuffer/pickup simulator make the Alumatones react like regular passive pickups? And will the unbuffer be a "tone suck"?

Finally, I see several DIY and pcb kits available. Are there more Bass friendly ones y'all would recommend?
 
#2
Here are some links I've found

Guitar Pickups Simulation

Schematics & circuits for guitar effects with vacuum tubes and solid state electronics. FREE downloads of schematics such as TS-9, Fuzz Face and other classic rock devices.
www.muzique.com www.muzique.com
www.muzique.com

Pickup Simulation - AMZ-FX Guitar Effects Blog

A popular article on my web site is the one about pickup simulation, and questions come up several times every year about the transformers recommended for this project. One technique that works well is to get a cheap guitar pickup and use it as the input inductor. The black wire of the pickup...
www.muzique.com www.muzique.com

Pickup Simulator

Your Source for DIY Pedal PCBs and NostalgiTone! › GuitarPCB Forum › General DIY Pedal Discussion › Pickup Simulator This topic has 0 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 2 years, 9 months ago by Big O. Viewing 1…
guitarpcb.com guitarpcb.com

Pickup Simulator add-on kit

Learn how to build the QuickFuzz pedal with this Pedal Building book and the Beginner Pedal Kit.
masfx.io masfx.io
 
#4
Great read! I might not have put them in my PJ 5 string if I had known that.

Have you tried running Alumatones into a vintage fuzz?
Do you think an unbuffer would help?

I only have one bass with the Alumatones. Hope that doesn't distract from the main question;

Im still curious if there is any low end loss, or tone suck with one of these Un-Buffer circuits, regardless of the style of pickups.
 
#5
Alumitones are higher impedance than most regular pickups - if any pickups are in need of “unbuffers”, it wouldn’t be Alumitones.

The biggest difference with Alumitones may be their low end rolloff - normal magnetic pickups do not have any low end rolloff, but Alumitones do - the transformer that makes them high impedance isn’t big enough to pass the lowest fundamentals on a regular 4 string bass. If you play through an anp, and need a high pass filter in your chain, the alumitones give you one for free (albeit at a fixed frequency). For some rigs, that’s an advantage, for others, not so much.
 
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#6
Great answers on the Lace pickups!
Thank you guys.

What about the fuzz pedals???
My modern Fuzzes are pretty much happy wherever, but id like to know if anyone has experience or input on the UnBufffers :)
Do they let you stack your vintage fuzzes in any order like advertised?
Do they affect other pedals negatively?
Or signal/Tone loss with long cable runs?
 
#8
AXESS makes a unbuffer pedal.

I haven't tried it but ......it looks to do what I need to run a fuzz I badly want to get.
 

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#9
byacey said:
I have to ask: what is an unbuffer?
Either a pickup is directly loaded by the cable capacitance and the input impedance of the preamp, or it is driving a zero gain stage used for impedance conversion.
But what is an unbuffer?
Click to expand...
So vintage and vintage style fuzz circuits dont react well, if at all, to a buffered signal. Thats why its recommended to keep them first in the chain, sometimes even before a buffered tuner. And definitely before most compressors.

Have you ever played with pedal order and lost all yer fuzz? I have, and I thought it was all phasing mismatch at first. Then I read an article about unbuffers (which i posted a link to in my second post)
AkA pickup simulators.
Unbuffers "show" the fuzz a straight from a passive pickup type signal. The high impedance let's the fuzz react the way it was meant to.
Keep in mind not all fuzzes need to see an unbuffered signal. Mostly just the vintage circuits.
Thats the theory as I understand it anyway.
I was hoping for some input before I spend time and money experimenting with them.
Would be nice to have a small footprint pedal to add before any problematic effect.
Or maybe, I'll cram one of the tiny PCBs inside a known problem child.
Besides the basic do they/dont they work question at hand, im also wondering about signal degradation or loss of low end.
If I solder one inside a fuzz, will it still benefit if the signal in happens to be un buffed after all? Or would i need to add an external bypass switch just for the unbuffer?
 
#10
All an unbuffer could possibly do is offer a low/high/whatever-you-want impedance output to an input, it can’t magic up a reactive load back to the pickups on the other side an existing buffer.
So ironically it is a buffer. Interesting
 

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