West Coast Pedalboard Painkiller

The West Coast Pedalboard Painkiller is a guitar buffer pedal: a utility pedal that does not change your sound on purpose, but protects it. West Coast Pedalboard describes its circuit as a unity gain amplifier with high input impedance and low output impedance, and says the pedal will "immediately restore that original tone you're accustomed to when plugging your instrument direct"¹. In plain terms, a buffer like this is placed on a pedalboard to counteract the dulling of high frequencies that comes from running a guitar through long cable runs and many effects pedals.

What a buffer does here

The Painkiller is not a boost, an overdrive or any other tone-shaping pedal. Its job is to sit on the board and pass the signal through at its original level. West Coast Pedalboard's description of the circuit, a unity gain amplifier with high input impedance and low output impedance, is the standard recipe for that job: the high input impedance keeps the guitar's signal from being loaded down, and the low output impedance lets it drive the cables and pedals downstream without further loss¹. If you are comparing buffers, other dedicated units in this class include the Empress Effects Buffer, the JHS Pedals Little Black Buffer, the TC Electronic Bonafide Buffer and the Analog Man Buffer.

Power

The Painkiller has no battery power functionality. West Coast Pedalboard says it will need power, "preferably from a high quality isolated power supply", and that it "easily powers from a standard 9V Boss style adapter"¹. For a player building a board, that means budgeting a supply output for it; the maker also publishes a guide on calculating pedal power requirements and comparing supplies such as Voodoo Lab and Strymon units².

Enclosures run by unit number

The Painkiller has been built in a series of enclosure finishes, and the maker identifies each finish by the range of unit numbers it applies to. Later units also carry Pure Tone 1/4" jacks¹.

So a used or secondhand Painkiller's finish tells you roughly where it falls in the production run, and units from number 51 onward have the Pure Tone jacks¹.

Size, weight and price

West Coast Pedalboard describes the Painkiller as a "pedalboard friendly buffer circuit," a unity gain amplifier with high input impedance and low output impedance¹. The list price is $73.00 USD¹, which places it among the more affordable dedicated buffers next to units like the Mooer Microbuffer or the Xotic Super Clean.

The maker also states "Zero Failures" for the pedal, and notes one repair, for a loose wire on an output jack¹. The pedal ships in 24 business hours or less, according to the maker's product page¹.

Questions