Cornish Buffer

jonnygreentrees

So I can knock up a Cornish Buffer for about £20 (shhh don't tell Gassage!) but I already have some other buffers in my chain (EHX POG, VOX Delaylab, BlueSky, H9, RV5). Is adding a (presumably) quality buffer going to make any difference?

Jonathanthomas83

For £20 it's worth a punt!

At the very least you can tell us all that we're talking shit and it's all in our heads.

Wazmeister

Yep.... I've extensively tested the Cornish buffer... and I can tell you, it really does make a difference.

Always adds a little something to the sound.

Cornish stuff IS expensive, there is no doubt, but it stands up imho and is totally silent.

Cirrus

I made the fuzzdog (or Pedal Poodly as it was at the time) DIY version and I did think it was a pretty fantastic buffer - some get too bright, this one didn't and also did something nice to the mids, at least to my ears in my rig.

ICBM

I haven't seen the schematic, but isn't the key feature of this that it duplicates the characteristics of a typical amp valve input stage perfectly, so it maintains exactly the 'right' sound of a guitar plugged straight in?

By the way, I keep reading the thread title as 'Cornish butter' .

clarkefan

There's a layout for that on the net, can't remember the site, they do loads of reverse engineering of stuff.  Didn't look too difficult to put together.  Course you only have someone's word it is actually that buffer...

ruoma

Yes the buffer really is that good!

Octafish

clarkefan said:

There's a layout for that on the net, can't remember the site, they do loads of reverse engineering of stuff.  Didn't look too difficult to put together.  Course you only have someone's word it is actually that buffer...

There's a layout here... http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/cornish-buffer.html for building it on vero, a couple of quid max to build. Got me intrigued, might have to build one now. 

clarkefan

Yeah that's the one.  The comments could be useful as well.  Shame the site had a couple of photos which might have been important but they're gone. Least the layout's still up.

jonnygreentrees

Ordered the kit from FuzzDog, will build it this week and report back.

Any tips on placement?

Jonathanthomas83

I liked it after my compressor but before everything else.

Wazmeister

Jonathanthomas83 said:

I liked it after my compressor but before everything else.

X 2

Octafish

jonnygreentrees said:

Ordered the kit from FuzzDog, will build it this week and report back.

Any tips on placement?

I'm going to build the tagboard one on vero. Just waiting for a transistor and a few resistors I haven't got to turn up. Be interesting to see what components/values the fuzzdog has in comparison

mburekenge

Isn't the Cornish buffer the river Tamar?

crunchman

I built myself one.  It does seem to add something to the sound.

Octafish

Reviving this old thread as I finally got around to knocking up a Cornish buffer on vero. I also made a germanium buffer as well and stuck the two in a box with a toggle switch to flip between the two. I've tested the two against the buffer in my EHX Pitchfork, using an effects loop pedal to remove them totally form the signal chain, there were no other buffers in the chain.

https://i.imgur.com/ruCL0Ts.jpg

Straight away it's obvious that the Cornish, Ge and EHX all make a difference as you would expect. However, I'd be pushed to say I could hear any difference at all between the three different buffers with a clean sound. There was a just about perceivable bit of extra top end on the Cornish compared to the Ge if I ran them into a Fuzz face style fuzz, which i would not normally do anyway, but was useful way of exaggerating the effect of the buffers. Maybe if I ran longer cables I might notice more, although I was running through 15 or true bypass pedals and patches

Anyway it was an intersting exercise for £10 of bits and I now have a buffer I can use independent of the Pitchfork.

RandallFlagg

It's lovely on toast

ESBlonde

RandallFlagg said:

It's lovely on toast

Yeth.

aord43

Does anyone know how it compares to the Klon buffer?

ecc83

The circuit is a bipolar emitter follower with a boot -strapped bias supply to keep the input Z high.

I built several such circuits for front ends to ceramic PU cartridges (discos) but gave up such a complex design when the ubiquitous 28319 jfet became available!

Neither devices actually satisfy one of the definitions of a 'buffer' in that it should be 'transparent' . A TL072 or better IC will.

Dave.

Octafish

ecc83 said:

The circuit is a bipolar emitter follower with a boot -strapped bias supply to keep the input Z high.

I built several such circuits for front ends to ceramic PU cartridges (discos) but gave up such a complex design when the ubiquitous 28319 jfet became available!

Neither devices actually satisfy one of the definitions of a 'buffer' in that it should be 'transparent' . A TL072 or better IC will.

Dave.

Are you refering to the Cornish or Klon buffer?