Buffer

A buffer pedal does not add an effect a listener notices when it is working correctly — its job is entirely electrical. A buffer takes the guitar’s naturally high-impedance signal and re-outputs it at a low impedance, which lets that signal survive a long cable run and a row of true-bypass pedals without the treble loss and softened attack an unbuffered long cable produces. Its presence is judged by what stays rather than what changes: a buffered signal keeps its top end and its pick attack across distances an unbuffered one cannot.

The types in this family

• Buffer (rank 20): A buffer restores what a long cable and a row of true-bypass pedals load down, and it does that best near the front. See the buffer-before-fuzz warning for the exception.

Where it sits in the chain, and why

A buffer earns its keep nearest the front of the chain, where the cable from the guitar and the first several feet of pedal-to-pedal wiring are the longest unbuffered run the signal will see. Placed here it restores what that run would otherwise cost before anything downstream works on an already-weakened signal. The one real exception is a vintage-voiced fuzz: many classic fuzz circuits are designed around seeing the guitar’s own high-impedance output directly, and a buffer in front of one changes its character and its cleanup response — the chain planner’s own buffer-before-fuzz warning exists for exactly this interaction.

Power notes

A buffer’s circuit is typically small and low-draw, closer to a tuner’s power needs than to a full effect’s. Some buffers ship built into another pedal — a tuner or a compressor with a buffered bypass — rather than as a standalone box, in which case the current draw is whatever the host pedal states. As with every family here, treat this as a general pattern rather than a number to design a supply around; read the specific pedal’s own rating.

General guidance for the family, never a specification for any individual pedal — always confirm voltage, polarity, current draw and isolation from the maker’s own documentation before wiring a real board.

Every rank and reason above is quoted straight from pedal-chain-planner.js's PEDAL_TYPES — the same taxonomy this site's chain planner runs and docs/gearwarrior-pedals-contract.md documents. No second table.