[LAU] Interfacing an electric guitar

Len Ovens len at ovenwerks.net
Mon Jul 20 01:44:37 UTC 2015


On Sun, 19 Jul 2015, fred wrote:

> Could you go further on this, please?
> How does impedance impact relative volume on input?
> If you see good input volume, do you have to care about impedance?
> And...?
> Thanks!

Volume is probably the last thing to worry about. All tone shaping 
(intended or not) is based on capacitance/inductance and resistance. 
Impedance is also a mix of the three at any one frequency. A microphone 
output is generally 150 to 600 ohms (except for special use or really bad 
sounding). That impedance is mostly inductance in the average dynamic mic, 
but not for a condenser which while based on a capacitor will have it's 
own preamp giving a more resitive output. A guitar has an inductance as a 
generator and that inductance coupled with an input resistance will make a 
filter. Normally a high resistance is chosen so that this filter is 
outside of our hearing range. In guitar amps, the input impedance is 
carefully chosen for "that sound".

Note this is a _very_ basic explanation. There is a lot more to it.


--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net



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