Empress Buffer+

[fulltone1989]

I'm thinking of picking one of these up, I have a chain of about 6 pedals but the cable runs are a bit long. Have any of you guys used this?

http://www.empresseffects.com/buffer+.html

[Hans Moleman]

I've actually been looking at the Empress Buffer. The boost option is cool, but the other additional features of the Buffer+ seem unnecessary, at least for my purposes. Another great feature is that I'd be able to fit the Buffer underneath my pedaltrain jr. If I pull the plug I'll be sure to post a review.

[fulltone1989]

I've actually been looking at the Empress Buffer. The boost option is cool, but the other additional features of the Buffer+ seem unnecessary, at least for my purposes. Another great feature is that I'd be able to fit the Buffer underneath my pedaltrain jr. If I pull the plug I'll be sure to post a review.

Please do. I only have HB equipped guitars right now so it's be a little silly to have all that as well but I may further on down the road.

Prymaxe has a 15% off discount going on right now. I just picked up the LP Zendrive too..dammit.

EDIT: Ordered one, I'll report on the differences!

[ColForbin]

Little late to the party here, but Chad at cmatmods makes  a buffer, it's super cool.  Really small foot print and Chad make quality gear.  Hard to go wrong for $70.00

[Heady Jam Fan]

There are tons of buffer options. Some guys on TGP seem to have spent a lot of time learning about buffers. Ultimately, Ibanez buffers are pretty good IMO, so I think I am ok without a designated buffer. However, a while back when I had a very different rig the buffer on my Fromel Shape EQ made a positive difference on the treble content in my signal. I know some people like the small, cheap T1M buffer, others complain about it.

[fulltone1989]

Little late to the party here, but Chad at cmatmods makes  a buffer, it's super cool.  Really small foot print and Chad make quality gear.  Hard to go wrong for $70.00

Hey man! I like Chad's stuff. Had a Signa, 2 knob comp, and now own the 3 knobber w/ tone control. Super quality and sounds delightful. I saw his small buffer, and I used the T1M buffer for awhile before slimming down to 3 pedals and ditching it. I used 6 now and with decent cable runs I think it wouldn't hurt. I used a Timmy as an always on, and although the Timmy is TB it acted like a buffer driving the cable. The only reason that the Empress caught my eye was the fact it is essentially an I/O box, providing a buffer at both the front and back of my pedalboard w/ a tuner out to get it out of the chain. I was planning on running my vibe and filter in front of it with the drives and delay in the buffers loop. I have about 35 feet of cable in all so I figured it wouldn't hurt to have one.

Heady, the Ibanez buffers are fine, and so are the Boss pedals for that matter. justnick has a very nice youtube video explaining buffers that, but it get's a little dry (no way around that though) With vintage PAF style pickups I think it wouldn't hurt to at least have some buffrage.

[fulltone1989]

Got the buffer from Empress over the weekend! Sounds fine, however the loop in and out jacks are a major pain in the ass and it takes a tetris genius to organize everything w/ premade cables. Soldering up some of my own this week and I hope to have the board and interface ready to use with the other jacks. Right now I just use it as a regular buffer after my vibe and it sounds just as fine. You can velcro a tuner pedal on top too which is nice.  Overall I like it and will hold onto it.

[Jkendrick]

So is my understanding of buffers correct? If you have a pedal that has a built in buffer that is always on you don't need a stand-alone buffer? How common are built in buffers?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Buffered]

So is my understanding of buffers correct? If you have a pedal that has a built in buffer that is always on you don't need a stand-alone buffer? How common are built in buffers?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

All Boss, TS9 for a few. If you have a pedal that's powered with you playing through it, unplug it and if the sound dies then I think the pedal is buffered.

I like the Empress because it makes stage setups and breakdowns really easy and I don't have to worry about placement as I only use a few effects anyways nowadays..

Basically, if you plug into your amp straight in, then AB it against you playing through your board->amp and you notice tone suck, then chances are a buffer will help. A True Bypass switcher will do that too for the most part, but I prefer the buffer as it maintains all the frequencies of your guitar instead of a looper which changes how many effects you run through without maintaining those highs. A buffered TB looper would be awesome. YMMV though, and there's a lot of videos, like justnicks that explains it much better than I did.

[Poster]

lol 

[Happyorange27]

A buffered TB looper.... My head just exploded.

[Buffered]

A buffered TB looper.... My head just exploded.

Hehe, think about it though. If you have a 15 ft cable to your board, then 6 pedals, then another 20ft cable to your amp (your lengths may vary), the buffer would help with the frequency retention and the TB would take the pedals out of the chain when not in use so as to avoid further possible tone suckage. Another addition is that the buffer is footswitchable, and you can take it out of the chain if it doesn't react with a pedal like a fuzz the way you like. The contrary is when a pedal is on it essentially is a buffer, thus negating my entire paragraph. However with a buffer your signal still has to travel through all those pedals albeit "restored" at the beginning and end, and with only a TB loop there's nothing to add those frequencies back (except pedals when they're on) Didn't Tiger have a switchable buffer?

It's so strange though, I was ABing my rig for this exact purpose tonight and the empress (and probably all buffers) colored the tone - so much so that I preferred plugging straight in using amp OD with a volume pedal and delay in the loop. Strange times indeed...

[Heady Jam Fan]

Haha, yeah, a Looper can either be TB or buffered (or switchable), but I get the idea: having a good buffer incorporated in a looper could be nice.

I just switched from my Buzz Electronics Programmable True Bypass Looper (which is for sale if anyone is interested) to a regular True Bypass Looper (ie, non-programmable) because I stopped using the programmable option and I found a cheap looper with a smaller form-factor. However, the point I was making is, the new looper I got is the last run of basic TB loopers from this company (they are based on eBay and called Loop Switchers), so they were selling them cheap. Their future builds will incorporate buffering and a volume knob on each loop with up to 20db boost.

For me personally, a regular TB Loop Switcher is ideal. It minimizes extra electronic components and the amount of cable between my guitar and amp, which are the things that will degrade tone. In my experience, even "good" buffers will damage your tone if you have too many of them between your guitar and amp. So with a short cable run and usually one or two pedals on in my TB Loop, which sufficiently drives (ie, like a buffer) my signal to the amp anyway, a buffer incorporated into the looper would just be extra circuitry between my guitar and amp. However, it would be useful if you were using really long cables with all your loops turned off (so no pedals are in the signal chain between the guitar and amp to drive the signal through the long stretch of cables). The only other situation where I think it would be useful is if your splitting signal between pedals - doing so passively (without a buffer) will almost certainly hurt your tone. But I guess some people find a strong buffer helps even when other pedals are turned on, particularly if they have a long cable run. YMMV. I had a buffer before my TS9 a few months ago and thought it diminish the feel and smoothness of the TS...