Buffer pedals are a fundamental part of a lot of pedalboards. After all, you can’t chain loads and loads of effects pedals together without suffering some kind of signal degradation. It’s unfortunate, I know.
If you’ve just plugged in that shiny new effects pedal and something sounds off. If your riffs have lost their punch. Or if those face-melting solos are sounding lukewarm at best, you might need a buffer pedal, my friend.
Putting a buffer pedal on your board can bring back that beefy low-end, crisp highs and give you enough output to rattle the neighbor’s windows once again. Sounds pretty good, right? It gets better.
With the right buffer pedal, you can run extra-long cables without losing signal strength. Stack all the effects you want without compromising your tone (too much). And take your guitar from sounding like you’re playing in a tin can to playing Wembley area with a roaring tube amp.
Disclaimer: no amount of pedals will get you onto the stage at Wembley Arena. I tried it.
A buffer pedal might be the kick up the ass that your tone needs. So read on to learn why you need one and how to use it to go from flabby to fab-tastic.
Key Takeaways
- Buffer pedals preserve signal strength and tone.
- They’re useful for rigs with many true bypass pedals or extra-long cables.
- You can use a buffer to reduce noise and hum in some setups.
- Some buffers have tone-shaping controls like EQ.
- It’s recommended to place buffers at the start, after fuzz pedals, or at the end of the chain. However, experiment with positions to find the best sound.
Table of Contents
What Is a Guitar Buffer Pedal?
A buffer pedal is a guitar effects pedal that’s designed to preserve your guitar signal. It converts the high-impedance signal from your guitar into a low-impedance signal before it hits your other pedals, cables, or amp. Low-impedance signals are less prone to signal loss and can travel longer distances without degrading. So this helps maintain clarity, dynamics, and tone quality that would otherwise diminish due to capacitance and resistance in long cables or long pedal chains.
In short, a buffer pedal strengthens the signal and reduces impedance, ensuring that your guitar’s tone remains consistent and clear throughout your rig.
How To Know If You Need a Buffer Pedal?
Here are a few suggestions for why you might want to include a buffer pedal in your pedalboard.
To Maintain Signal Integrity
A buffer pedal is useful when you have many true bypass pedals daisy-chained together. If you have more than 5 true bypass pedals, I recommend trying a buffer. You also might want to consider a buffer pedal if you’re using long cable runs of 20+ feet that notoriously can weaken your signal.
To Reduce Noise and Hum
A buffer pedal can also be useful if you need to reduce noise and hum in your signal chain. By boosting and “re-amplifying” the guitar’s signal, buffer pedals improve the overall signal-to-noise ratio. This is especially handy for high-gain setups or rigs with many pedals, which can often suffer from annoying buzz and hum. A quality buffer pedal acts like an audio “reset” to clean up your tone.
To Shape Tone
While the main job of a buffer is to boost the signal, some buffer pedals also come with tone-shaping controls like EQ or presence knobs. These allow you to subtly sculpt your overall guitar tone in addition to fixing signal issues. For instance, you could brighten up your sound before hitting an amp with a darker voicing, or vice versa. Having this EQ flexibility in the buffer section of your signal chain can be really powerful.
Where to Place a Buffer Pedal in Your Signal Chain
A buffer pedal can help to keep your tone strong and vibrant. But where you place a buffer in your signal chain makes all the difference. Let’s look at some of the options:
At the Start of Your Chain
Most guitarists agree that the buffer should be the first pedal in your chain, right after your guitar. This way, it can amplify and strengthen your signal before it hits any other effects. It gives you a solid foundation to your tone.
After the Fuzz
If you’re using a fuzz pedal, place the buffer after it. Fuzz pedals can be finicky, and a buffer before them can alter their character. Let the fuzz do its thing first, then use the buffer to clean up and strengthen the signal afterward.
End of the Chain
Some guitarists prefer to put their buffer at the end of their signal chain, just before the amplifier. This approach helps preserve your tone and dynamics, especially if you’re running a long cable from your pedalboard to your amp. It gives your signal a final boost before reaching its destination.
Experiment and Adjust
The most important rule is to not listen to anyone else. The best placement for your buffer pedal depends on your specific gear and preferences. Try out loads of different positions in your signal chain. Trust what you hear, and go with what sounds best to you.
Choosing the Right Buffer Pedal For Your Rig
My top tips for choosing the right buffer pedal.
Think About Your Needs
The first step in choosing a buffer pedal is understanding your specific needs as a guitarist. Are you dealing with long cable runs or a pedalboard full of true bypass effects that are killing your tone? Or perhaps you’re looking to drive your signal further to feed a complex rig while retaining clarity. Thinking about how you’ll use the buffer will point you toward the right one.
Transparent vs Colored Tone
Some buffer pedals aim for transparency, adding little to no coloration to your core guitar tone. Others give you a subtle (or not-so-subtle) boost or EQ shift. There’s no right or wrong approach here, it just depends on what you want. Transparent buffers let your guitar’s natural voice shine. Colored options like can add pleasing grit and harmonics.
Gain Matters
A buffer’s gain structure can impact everything from headroom to how it interacts with other pedals. Lower-gain pedals tend to be more transparent but often they struggle with long cable runs. Higher-gain ones can easily push complex rigs but could cloud your core tone. However, some buffers have adjustable gain so you can adjust it to find the perfect level.
Guitar Buffer Pedal Recommendations
So which buffer pedal is right for you? Whereas I don’t personally use a specific buffer pedal anymore (I use a switcher that takes care of this for me), here are some highly recommended options I’ve come across in the past:
- Suhr Buffer and Cristal Signal Buffer – Pristine transparent tone with zero coloration.
- Empress Buffer+ – An all-in-one buffer, dB cut, noise filter, and boost in one pedal.
- TC Electronic BonaFide Buffer – Budget-friendly buffer with a small footprint.
- JHS Little Black Buffer – Adds just a hint of grit and mid-range punch.
To Sum Up
There’s no one-size-fits-all buffer. But hopefully, you feel a little more confident now about why and how to add a buffer to your guitar rig. Think about what you want the buffer to do for your tone, and then narrow down your options from there. As always, it’s best if you can try these things out before you actually buy, but if that’s not possible, read and learn as much as you can – if you’re reading this, it looks like you’re on the right path.
Do you use a buffer in your signal chain? Let us know what you use and how it’s affected your tone.
