How to Connect a Guitar to Your Audio System

[chris661]

Sorry, but due to serious impedance mis-matches, this won't work well, if at all.

Electric guitars want to see an approx 1Mohm input impedance, and acoustic guitars with piezo pickups will want more like 10Mohm. HiFi equipment is usually somewhere in the 10kohm range, which is a factor of 100 out. The result will be very low signal levels, lots of background noise, and awful tonality.
Active pickups might (might) save you. Maybe.

It's possible to purchase the right device to do this job, but it is NOT as simple as the kludge of adapters shown above.

It's great that you're enthusiastic about sharing this stuff, but you've pretty much filled the forum with stuff which, having read a few, is often either incomplete or outright wrong.

Chris

 

[gasolin]

Why do you make all of these How To threads, is it important for you to let us know How To..... ?

Most easy way is to buy a studio soundcard like this

 

[chris661]

Yep, that Mackie one would do it - the high-Z bit is the important bit for guitars.

That said, I'd look at something like the Vox Amplug (other brands are available etc etc etc). They plug straight on to the guitar, and provide a 3.5mm headphone output. There's volume, distortion and tone controls for the guitar, and a 3.5mm input which is mixed with the guitar so you can play along to tunes.

Something like that would avoid all of the problems that Ruchi decided to introduce, and actually provide a useful level of control for the guitar.

Chris

 

[Gray]

It is beautiful that you are enthusiastic about sharing this material. However, you have filled the forum with mostly incomplete or completely incorrect material.

Which is why he was sent packing 3 years ago.

 

[Deliriumbassist]

Which is why he was sent packing 3 years ago.

This should absolutely be removed though - connecting the instrument when the amplifier is on is potentially speaker killing advice, for example.

 

[James105]

I used to have a microphone taped to my fathers old acoustic guitar plugged into the mic input on a tape deck, but I was only 13

 

[nopiano]

This should absolutely be removed though - connecting the instrument when the amplifier is on is potentially speaker killing advice, for example.

Completely agree. It’s utter bo11ocks. .

 

[Dom]

You could always use the computer's ADC inputs to record the guitar's sound. You could then output via the USB or optical jack of your computer to your DAC and amplifiers, but then you would then a program like Fruity Loops to record the wave data. This potentially could lead to lag issues but the computers OS's are faster now. Anyway, just a thought mate.

 

[John Duncan]

Just seen this and it’s about the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

 

[plastic penguin]

Just seen this and it’s about the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

Hi JD.

Agree it's ludicrous to even contemplate. Certainly has more than a whiff of 'Vanman' spring cleaning the internals of his plasma TV.

 

[John Duncan]

Hi JD.

Agree it's ludicrous to even contemplate. Certainly has more than a whiff of 'Vanman' spring cleaning the internals of his plasma TV.

Ha I’d forgotten about that 😀

 

[Gray]

Completely agree. It’s utter bo11ocks. .

Yet he probably got paid a fee for all of his expert advice.
(The expert that advises connecting inputs after switching on the amp🙄)

 

[Deliriumbassist]

Yet he probably got paid a fee for all of his expert advice.
(The expert that advises connecting inputs after switching on the amp🙄)

Much more likely he was brought on for SEO purposes.

 

[rainsoothe]

WT actual F ? ))

 

[Gray]

SEO purposes.

I probably should know what they are...

 

[Friesiansam]

I had forgotten about Ruchi Bhargava's psuedotutorials, now I've been reminded...

 

[Deliriumbassist]

I probably should know what they are...

Search Engine Optimisation, ping WHF further up the Google chain.