22 May
2025
22 May
'25
12:36 p.m.
On May 21, 2025 10:46:24 PM GMT+02:00, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
On 5/21/25 06:06, Will Godfrey wrote:
Sorry for top-posting. Phones suck ;)
Here's another "trick" that often enough works great: Use any _buffered_
guitar pedal in front of a line level input. Boss tuners or (pure) boost pedals are good
for this. Especially uf they are _not_ true bypass, i.e. the bypass goes through the
buffer. The buffer usually has enough juice on its output side to drive the low impedance
line-in.
The difference to going straight from the guitar is like day and night :) And having a
gain knob on a boost pedal is handy as well!
Regards,
FPS
On Wed, 21 May 2025 08:23:05 -0700 (PDT)
Len Ovens <len(a)ovenwerks.net> wrote:
Thanks for the explanation. It's not something I'd consider easy to do, my
soldering/electronics skills aren't up to that!
A friend gave me a DI box that has amp modeling and other capabilities, but it does have
one feature I've used many times. Gain control. Plug the guitar into it's guitar
input, leave everything else at neutral (no amp modeling), and adjust gain until it's
output is right for line input to my little USB card.
I bought a contact mic for the guitar that outputs electric guitar levels but haven't
tried it yet with my classical guitar. I wonder what a classical guitar might sound like
going through Guitarix?
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
Thanks for that. Very interesting and quite easy to do!