Pete Cornish Solid State effects board system

The Pete Cornish Solid State effects board system is a complete guitar effects board built by Pete Cornish, the UK maker known for his work on large professional pedalboards. Rather than a single pedal, it is a system: a board that contains a player's effects together with specially designed preamps, buffers and line drivers built into the signal path¹.

The point of the design is signal integrity. Pete Cornish states that the system eliminates the tone and volume losses associated with multiple pedal setups by completely isolating each pedal from its neighbor¹. In a long chain of pedals, interactions between units can dull the signal; the Cornish approach treats every pedal as its own isolated stage, with the built-in buffers and line drivers driving the signal between them. For players comparing this kind of whole-board solution against a single standalone unit such as the Empress Effects Buffer or the TC Electronic Bonafide Buffer, the difference is scope: those are one-box buffers placed at a point in the chain, while the Cornish system builds isolation into the board itself.

What it does

• Houses all of a player's effects in one enclosure: a solid wooden frame containing all the effects¹
• Uses Pete Cornish's specially designed preamps, buffers and line drivers throughout the signal path¹
• Isolates each pedal completely from its neighbors, which the maker says eliminates the tone and volume losses of multi-pedal setups¹

Background

The Pete Cornish Solid State effects board system is a guitar effects board built around specially designed preamps, buffers, and line drivers¹. Its purpose is to eliminate the tone and volume losses that come with multiple pedal setups by completely isolating each pedal from its neighbor¹. The effects are housed in a solid wooden frame that contains all of the pedals¹.