Pedal chain - new to it

So, starting to get into the pedal vortex, and here’s my chain. But before I spell it out, my question is: to buffer or not to buffer?

Chain:
Ibanez SR1350B active bass (already a good start to signal boosting) → Peterson Strobe pedal tuner → Boss Compressor BC-1X → Zoom B1 effects pedal → Electro Harmonix Bass Clone chorus → adding a Jam Rattler bass pedal here → Boss FV-500H volume pedal (this is the mono high impedance one that could cause tone suck in this chain) → PA system (no amp in the chain currently)

All links between the pedals are very short, 27/pF capacitance patch cables. I have a 10ft Ernie Ball 30/pF cable between bass and tuner pedal.

So, buffer? In, out, or both? Buffer install in the Boss pedal? Power booster somewhere? Thanks for all your advice and help.

1 Like

No buffers needed.

The active electronics in the bass act as a buffer and your Boss pedals are both buffered.

There is trick to getting around the “tone suck” of a volume pedal. First, it shouldn’t be an issue with an active bass, because it has a buffer. If it causes a problem for you, put it after the Peterson tuner, and set the tuner from true bypass to buffered bypass.

Edit: My bad. I was thinking of the FV-500L. The 500H is designed to be the first pedal in the chain, coming from a passive instrument. When people talk about “tone suck” with this pedal, it’s a loss of high end. That may not matter with your bass, or you can compensate by boosting the highs on the bass. I wouldn’t worry about it until you put it all together and see how it sounds. However, if you don’t have the 500H yet, I reccomend the 500L.

I have a Rattler. It sounds so, unbelievably good. When JAM tuned that pedal for bass, they created something special.

1 Like

Thanks so much! I heard that the volume pedal should be last in the chain? They must’ve meant an active volume pedal, huh? Crap, have to re-route now. LOL But thank you SO MUCH for the answers to my questions!

1 Like

My pleasure. Let us know how it goes with the volume pedal.

1 Like

It wasn’t too tough to swap it around on my board. :wink: I’ll put the bass into the volume pedal, then the rest of the chain with the Rattler being last.

1 Like

How do you find linking separate pedals with the B1? Do you get much noise?
I have found that I do if they are daisy chained, but if the Zoom is on separate power it seems to stop that

2 Likes

Zero noise because I already power everything individually, including the B1 Four. I have a Donner power supply with their pedalboard, which works plenty good for my purposes. I also use very short (4-8") Boss BPC-4 patch cables between pedals to reduce the overall length. I don’t have any noise issues…yet :smile:

2 Likes