There are lots of guitar to USB audio devices out there and it seems they
have all done them wrong. I modified one of them and it actually sounds
very good. Perhaps better than plugging into the "high impedance" input of
many audio interfaces or using a DI box into a mic input. The result is a
much more open sound in particular with single coil pickups (or tapped as
I happen to have).
Why do I think they have likely all done them wrong? The Application notes
say: "Please follow the reference schematic for microphone section
design." So not only is it easy but it is recomended. I am sure it works
well for a computer mic.
Anyway, for those who want a good quility direct to usb guitar cable here
is my journey to fix a toy into something better.
https://www.ovenwerks.net/hardware/GuitarUSBhack/index.html
I find it amazing that the manufactures would not reduce their parts count
while making a better product.
Len
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
We’ve Got the Beat—in Our Genes
How much we enjoy music, and in what ways, is heritable
By Charles Digges May 19, 2025
https://nautil.us/weve-got-the-beat-in-our-genes-1211821/
Wouldn't surprise me. My parents both played instruments. Three of my
four grandparents played instruments, too. I suppose me playing
instruments was inevitable!
How about the rest of you?
--
David W. Jones
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://dancingtreefrog.com
"My password is the last 8 digits of π."
Nobody in my family played any instrument... my father loved operas though...
my own musical - äh, lets say: "wakening" was exclusively driven by Merceybeat and, who else: the BEATLES :-)
Am 21. Mai 2025 12:00:12 MESZ schrieb linux-audio-user-request(a)lists.linuxaudio.org:
>Send Linux-audio-user mailing list submissions to
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>Today's Topics:
>
> 1. We’ve Got the Beat - in Our Genes (david)
> 2. Re: We’ve Got the Beat - in Our Genes (Will Godfrey)
> 3. Re: We’ve Got the Beat - in Our Genes (Roger)
> 4. Re: We’ve Got the Beat - in Our Genes (Bill Purvis)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Tue, 20 May 2025 19:20:50 -1000
>From: david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com>
>Subject: [LAU] We’ve Got the Beat - in Our Genes
>To: linux-audio-user <linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org>
>Message-ID: <c5a96b28-d490-4c8b-8a36-d4f6c746720e(a)hawaii.rr.com>
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>
>We’ve Got the Beat—in Our Genes
>How much we enjoy music, and in what ways, is heritable
>By Charles Digges May 19, 2025
>
>https://nautil.us/weve-got-the-beat-in-our-genes-1211821/
>
>Wouldn't surprise me. My parents both played instruments. Three of my
>four grandparents played instruments, too. I suppose me playing
>instruments was inevitable!
>
>How about the rest of you?
>
>--
>David W. Jones
>gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
>authenticity, honesty, community
>http://dancingtreefrog.com
>"My password is the last 8 digits of π."
>
Turn up the noise: Why distortion in music is growing in popularity
by Ethan Kung, University of California, Los Angeles
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-noise-distortion-music-popularity.html
I guess I did my little bit part in the 1970s, running my Hammond organ
output through a wahwah pedal > volume control pedal chain to an amp and
making Hendrix guitar sounds.
Anyone else?
--
David W. Jones
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://dancingtreefrog.com
"My password is the last 8 digits of π."
There are a lot of "guitar" to USB "cables" out there. I picked one up
just for practice purposes: plug it in to my laptop and run it through
Guitarix.
My findings:
The board inside is a standard phones and mic usb dongle. So pipewire
will try to make the phones jack (which doesn't exist on these things)
the default output. Lucky for me there is an input only "profile" I can
set pipewire to.
Next thing I noticed was that my volume pot was scatchy... I just bought
this guitar and it is not scratchy on the amp or through pedals. Yeah,
the volt meter says 3vdc going to the guitar. The chip inside says it is
a C-Media HS-100B. The board inside is like I mentioned, meant for a
"computer" mic and seems to have followed exactly the schematic snip
in the c-media application notes:
Input has a varister and .1uf cap to ground and then goes through two 8.2k
resisters, one then goes through another .1uf to micin... so far ok.
However, the other 8.2k is followed by 47uf cap to ground (effectively
making the input 8.2k) and then through a 2.2k to vbias.
NOT a good input setup for a guitar at all. I could not find out what the
inout impedance is of micin is but if I can get the case open (enter the
dremmel) and remove the R12 to vbias, my input impedance will at least
double. I'll let people know how that goes.
So, 1/4inch to USB cable are not Guitar to USB cables.... put a preamp in
front.... a looper for practice in cludes an aways on buffer.
Len
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
Hello,
I spent some time researching Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) and Impulse
Response (IR) technologies. As I had trouble finding how are those
generated, I wrote a small series of blog posts with my findings. In
short, I wrote how to create NAM and IR files to emulate existing gear.
I am by no means expert in the field, on the contrary, this is the first
time I'm doing this. I hope there are more experienced people in this
field than me and if I made some mistake somewhere, they'll point it
out. Enjoy!
https://meka.rs/blog/2025/04/15/neural-amp-modeling/https://meka.rs/blog/2025/05/11/impulse-response/https://meka.rs/blog/2025/05/12/impulse-response-sweep/
Regards,
meka
PS. There are few comments on how to make FreeBSD perform better in
audio production, but it's all jack, ardour, audacity and lv2, so the
choice of operating system shouldn't be important.
