[LAU] OT(ish): Connecting balanced out to line in

[Folderol]

On Wed, 8 Dec 2010 16:01:40 +0000
James Stone <jamesmstone at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 3:49 PM, Gabriel M. Beddingfield
> <gabrbedd at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 8 Dec 2010, James Stone wrote:
> >
> >> I guess in hardware?
> >>
> >> Thinking more about it, do I need to plug the DI out into a preamp
> >> before it goes into the line in for the soundcard? (the instrument is
> >> a bass guitar unamplified).
> >
> > If you can, just skip the DI and plug the guitar straight into the sound
> > card's line-in.
> 
> I've tried that before, but (at least with an electric (non-bass)),
> the sound was rather woolly and lacking in treble - I though due to
> the mix of Hi-Z and line level input.
> 
> James


A guitar pickup sends out around 20 - 50 mV and wants to see between 470k and
1M. A sound card line input is typically abut 300mV and 10 - 47k so rather a
mismatch!

A DI box might not help much unless it specifically has a high impedance
input and has around 20dB of gain.

Sometimes you can cheat by putting a resistor (470k - 1M) in series with a
microphone input, but it will tend to be rather noisy.

-- 
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.