Z-TONE Buffer Boost

Preamp/DI pedal with advanced tone shaping

Guitar & bass pedalboards are all about exploring new tones & textures, creating a wide range of sound for your instrument. Z-TONE® Buffer Boost takes your live rig to a new level, letting you shape the sound of your instrument with the input circuits from our award-winning
AXE I/O interface.

Change the tone & feel of your guitar or bass, buffer your tone to survive even the biggest pedalboard, kick in the boost and supercharge all your existing gear with a powerful new front-end.

Key Features

Active/Passive pickup selector
PURE channel for transparent sound
JFET channel adds warmth & harmonics
Z-TONE variable impedance control creates
a wide range of tones
Buffers signal for longer pedalboards & cable runs

Boost circuit adds volume & drive
Alternate outs for mixers & PAs
Ground lift switch eliminates buzz & hum
Designed and made in Italy

The ideal front-end

Z-TONE Buffer Boost offers a high-quality instrument preamp with exceptionally low noise and wide frequency response, and multiple circuit topologies to adapt to any type of guitar, pick-up and style.

Pick your pickup:

PASSIVE: designed to accommodate everything from low-output vintage pickups to hotter modern humbuckers with ultra-low noise and extended frequency response.

ACTIVE: bypasses unnecessary gain stages when using active pick-ups, to keep your signal path as direct, transparent and clean as possible.

Choose your channel:

PURE: a completely transparent and ultra-accurate preamp
circuit that won’t color your sound in any way.

JFET: a Class A JFET input buffer for subtle harmonic
enhancement, midrange focus and warmth.

Tone and feel like you’ve never heard

Guitar pickups can dramatically change their character depending on impedance - many amps offer a load of 1 MOhms, while pedals can run much lower. That’s why the tone and responsiveness of your guitar can change when plugging into different gear.

Z-TONE Buffer Boost gives you the same variable impedance control as our groundbreaking
AXE I/O audio interface, from 1 MOhm to 2.2 kOhms. At the maximum impedance, you’ll find your sound tighter, sharper and more precise. Increase the load and the sound becomes thicker and more bold.

You can use this control to coax a wider range of sounds from a single guitar, experiment with how the rest of your rig reacts to these changes, or dial in exactly the right vibe regardless of what comes next in your chain.

Kick it up a notch

Use Z-TONE Buffer Boost to supercharge your sound. The included Boost circuit offers adjustable gain to increase volume & drive, hitting your amp or pedals harder.

Always sound your best

Long cable runs, low-impedance stomps and complex routing can degrade your guitar’s signal, causing muffled, bassy or lifeless tone. To ensure your signal always stays crystal-clear, Z-TONE Buffer Boost offers a transparent output buffer so you always sound your best.

And Z-TONE Buffer Boost offers a true bypass circuit, so it’s completely transparent when not in use.

More ways to connect

In addition to the “Link” amp & pedal output, Z-TONE Buffer Boost offers a balanced XLR output to connect to mixers & PAs. Skip the amp and perform direct, or mix clean and processed signals to create even more tonal options.

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Bypass ON/OFF

Boost ON/OFF

Boost control

Gain control

Patent pending Z-TONE impedance tonal control

Pick-up selection

Discrete JFET/PURE preamp selection

Instrument input

Link output

Unbalanced output

Balanced output

Ground lift

9V DC input

9V battery compartment

A switchable ground lift eliminates noise and hum caused by ground loops, and an unbalanced ¼” output offers additional flexibility. Now you’re ready to connect in any situation.

And Z-TONE Buffer Boost runs on a standard 9V battery, +48v phantom power from your mixer or 9V pedal power supply, so it’s easy to drop onto your existing pedalboard.

Improve your guitar track forever

In the studio, Z-TONE Buffer Boost also lets you record like the pros. Connect the balanced out to your audio interface and mic up your amp – now you can simultaneously record both your amp tone as well as a second DI guitar track. Now you can process and fine-tune at will with the included AmpliTube 5 SE – all without recording endless takes.

See all the ways to use
Z-TONE Buffer Boost

Learn how to get your best guitar and bass tone using Z-TONE Buffer Boost performing live on stage or recording in a pro recording studio or your home studio.

Home studio

Live

Pro studio

High-end guitar/bass direct recording in a home studio

High-end guitar/bass amp+DI recording in a home studio

High-end guitar/bass direct recording in a pro studio

High-end guitar/bass amp+DI recording in a pro studio

Live electric guitar rig

Live electric bass rig with pedalboard

Includes AmpliTube 5 SE

Z-TONE Buffer Boost comes with AmpliTube 5 SE, the hyper-realistic guitar and bass tone studio for Mac/PC that includes 77 models of must-have gear.

You can easily expand your sonic collection with IK’s range of additional amp and effect models – there are over 400 pieces to choose from, including officially licensed re-creations of gear from Fender®, Orange®, Mesa-Boogie® and other iconic gear manufacturers, as well as guitar legends like Slash, Joe Satriani, Jimi Hendrix and Dimebag Darrell, all available a la carte.

Your guitar’s golden channel

Want to add killer Z-TONE tone shaping to all your gear? Check out Z-TONE DI offering the same killer features in a convenient direct box for studio and stage use.

Or check out AXE I/O and AXE I/O SOLO, IK’s range of premium audio interfaces offering the same great tone-shaping features, and find out just how easy creating
best-in-class guitar recordings can be.