This is the basic configuration that should work for anyone:
Guitar —> Buffer —> Any pedals —> Buffer —> Amp
The first buffer is providing an interface for the guitar and its long cable to the pedalboard. The final buffer is a line driver for the cable back to the amp. In between, you can put any pedals you like.
The buffers can even be buffered bypass pedals and not specifically buffer-only circuits.
Like any rule of thumb, this one is subject to change based on your guitar, cables, pedals and amp. This is just a starting point: Let your ears be your guide.
Use good quality, low capacitance guitar cords!
What capacitance range should a ‘good quality’ guitar cable have?
This is the basic architecture I arrived at after much experimentation. I use a DIY dual-loop *true* bypass pedal to select between two *regions* of my board, all feeding into the AMZ Mosfet Boost/ buffer > into passive volume pedal > into amp. I then run most delay/ reverb/ loopers in the FX loop of my amp. The bypass loop allows me to run a germanium fuzz face in front of my board, and switch out everything but the volume pedal, if desired.
The problem is that you can have your front buffer preventing your pickups getting loaded, and your back buffer driving your cable and amp input, but you can still be mangling your tone with crappy bypasses inbetween. In my ideal pedalboard, there is a really good hi-z-in, lo-z-out buffer up front (only a true-bypass vintage-style fuzz can go north of that), then a lot of true bypass pedals–but in each pedal there is an output buffer, so that when the pedal is on, whatever is downstream still sees a nice, lo-z out, but when it is bypassed, there are no extra buffers in the signal path. Then, none of the pedals need to have input buffers, because they always see a lo-z buffered output upstream (unless you’re the lead dog, the scenery never changes
), and no block output buffer is needed, either.
What if you use a bypass loop switch such as loopmaster? Do you still need a buffer before the switch? Let’s take a 10 loop switch for argument sake… with bypass and non-bypass effects in the chain…
Please let me know your advice. Thanks.