Does having a preamp pedal make a huge difference in my guitar’s effect chain?

Posted by  in Wednesday, January 21st 2009   
Topics: Pro Audio    
tube preamps9 Does having a preamp pedal make a huge difference in my guitars effect chain? on Audiograveyard.info
Adam L asked:


I’ve been checking out the Electro Harmonix tube preamp pedal.

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2 Comments

lexo80 said in January 24th, 2009 at 7:50 am    

It will tend to make your amp overdrive, which is after all the point of having one. This will be more noticeable the higher up you turn the gain on the preamp. You will (at least you should) be able to get rich, fat, bluesy tones. I am not a fan of Electro Harmonix as I think their pedals sound tinny, are flimsily made and generally overrated, but that’s just been my experience.

saul_sabia said in January 27th, 2009 at 6:31 am    

In short, the answer is yes and no. You will boost your signal, which will increase overall gain, but may also increase noise.

You want to put a preamp pedal as closer to your guitar, cable-wise, as possible, as a preamp takes a quiet sound and amplifies it – the more cable in-between, the higher the chance of noise being amplified along with your signal.

The direction that I’ve gone is to have my tech install an onboard buffer circuit right into my guitar. What this does is takes my high-impedance signal straight off of the pickups and turn it into a low-impedance signal. This lets me drive long stretches of cable and multiple pedals with no tone loss (depending on the pedals, of course).

This guy built the buffer circuit by hand, so you won’t find it anywhere, but other companies make buffer circuits or on-board preamps that you or your tech can install right into your guitar. Or you can find a circuit over the net and make it yourself, if you are inclined in that direction. Just be careful if you do, don’t electrocute yourself or anything.

The benefit, again, is that you amplify signal, not noise, keeping your tone pure.

A low-impedance signal will make it sound like you have more highs than you did before, which may require some adjustments on your pedals and/or amp. It probably won’t raise your overall signal level much, so it won’t necessarily drive your amp any harder, but extra treble can be a very very good thing, as more treble makes it easier to hear you overdriving your amp with less gain, improving clarity.

You can also think about getting EMGs or other types of active pickups, like Seymour Duncan’s active pickups. Basically they’ll function like an onboard preamp, boosting the crap out of your signal and hammering the front of your amp with oodles of gain. With a good buffer circuit, you can combine the two for even better results….

Look into the onboard stuff before you look into an external pedal, at least if you have one “go to” guitar. I don’t think EH makes bad pedals, I just haven’t used them cuz they’re expensive and I really have to spend my “music money” as efficiently as possible.

Saul

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