guitar amp to modular - a dumb idea?

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numan7
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guitar amp to modular - a dumb idea?

Post by numan7 » Sun Jan 06, 2013 4:20 pm

:bananaguitar: i would like to have some kind of attenuation module, or standalone device, that lets me take the to-speaker output from any guitar amp and patch it into a modular synthesizer without damaging any circuits...

something like drz z-airbrake, but designed so that signals are confined within +/- 10 volts and current is acceptably low, while preserving as much of the "tone" of the amp as possible (so minimal count of only passive and tube components).

:hmm: i guess if i had an amp that had an effects loop i could just use the effects send output and be done with it (although this would not include any distortions going on in the power-amp section of the guitar amp). but none of my amps have effects-loops....

:confused:

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metasonix
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Post by metasonix » Tue Jan 08, 2013 3:27 am

Yes, dumb idea. The speaker is a major part of an amp's sound.

Mic it.
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Dr. Sketch-n-Etch
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Post by Dr. Sketch-n-Etch » Tue Jan 08, 2013 1:50 pm

I built myself a preamp-envelope follower for plugging my guitar directly into my modular, and the crazy, fucked up sounds I can get by putting that through various filters, ringmods, wavefolders, etc, renders a guitar amplifier quite irrelevant.

Try it some time.
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numan7
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Post by numan7 » Tue Jan 08, 2013 11:09 pm

metasonix wrote:Yes, dumb idea. The speaker is a major part of an amp's sound.

Mic it.
yep, i guess what I was querying about would be a "speaker simulator" module.

my only problem with using a mic in this context is that i would then be hearing the guitar audio from both the monitors for the (live) modular mix and the guitar amp itself... i suppose i could use headphones to monitor, though, or put the amp inside a sound-proof enclosure.

anyways, thanks for the response!

cheers
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pulse_divider

Post by pulse_divider » Wed Jan 09, 2013 12:00 am

Palmer Speaker Simulator is great for this with a liner level output, you could then run into an input module/amplifier to get up to modular level.
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numan7
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Post by numan7 » Wed Jan 09, 2013 4:35 am

:tu: oh awesome, those look great, pulse_divider (thanks for pointing them out to me)!! :bananaguitar:

(and i'd obviously :love: to hear what a :metasonix: take on something like that sounded like, btw!)

cheers
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tablebeast
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Post by tablebeast » Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:24 pm

All of the amps I build do exactly this: attenuate the signal coming off the output transformer secondary so that it can safely go into headphones or the input another device. This tends to work better with lower wattage amps as there is less voltage and heat to worry about, but it is a simple circuit that should work on any amp as long as you scale up the parts to account for higher wattage.

For instance, with my "Plexi 8", which is an 8 watt SE amp, I connect a dummy load that consists of a simple 10 watt, 8 ohm, wirewound resistor to the shorting switch of the 1/4" output jack. That way, with no speaker plugged in, it shorts to a proper load. You can get more complicated than a simple resistor if you want to make a more speaker-like tone, but this works for me and is dead simple. OK, after the dummy load I run a 100 ohm resistor to the input of a 1k audio taper pot and then a pair of 100 ohm resistors to the output of the pot and wire them to a 1/4" TRS jack. Now this jack can be used to drive headphones, or if an unbalanced 1/4" cable is plugged in, a line level or hi-z input (all with or WITHOUT a speaker plugged in). The pot allows you to adjust the trim for whatever you may be running into be it a synth, tape deck, or the input of another amplifier. Here is a link to my blog post about the amp.

http://xfmr.blogspot.com/2012/07/akai-r ... exi-8.html
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