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

[fons at kokkinizita.net]

On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 06:09:20PM +0000, Folderol wrote:

> 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.

DI boxes are supposed to have such high input impedance.
20 to 50 mv into a nominal -10dBm consumer type line input
feeding a 24-bit converter could work fine without extra
gain. You may need some extra 'digital gain' if the level
of the instrument needs to be quite high in the mix. 
Ardour doesn't provide 'input gain', and its fader has
only 6dB positive gain, but an amp or compressor plugin
will do the trick.
 
Ciao,

-- 
FA

There are three of them, and Alleline.