[LAU] checking passive input frequencies on non Hi-Z connection

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sat, 27 May 2017 09:39:37 +0000, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
>guitar preamps are not designed to 'perfect'
>(in a technical sense) either. Most will not have a flat response,
>add distortion, etc., all that to make the guitar 'sound good'. 
>Whatever specific frequency response a real guitar preamp will
>provide (e.g. due to input capacitance combined with the inductance
>of the pickup resulting in some resonance) can be had by classic
>EQ as well.

It's the whole point of a guitar pre-amp to bias the sound and no, an
EQ can't do the the same as a guitar pre-amp could do. There are
saturation effects, you at least would need a compressor, too and much
likely a good overdrive, even for seemingly clean guitar sounds. Some
guitar pre-amps provide a hybride of real guitar pre-amp and digital
virtualisation. I prefer a tube pre-amp over a virtualisation. Let's
ignore the the quality of the virtualisation and simply assume it's
very good, but then it still would add additional latency to the audio
interfaces latency and that isn't good. Don't get me wrong, I did most
of my recordings without a guitar pre-amp and often it's impossible to
notice this in the mix, but you notice it when playing the guitar. It's
more fun, to play using a guitar pre-amp. It's the same for good
virtual synth. Some emulations are amazing, but if you own the
emulation and the original synth, it usually makes more fun to play the
synth. It becomes audible that something is missing without a guitar
pre-amp as well as when comparing a very good synth emulation with the
original synth.

Regards,
Ralf