[sdiy] Silly Stompbox Question

[Dave Magnuson]

At 02:27 PM 9/17/02 +0200, Theo wrote:
>Slightly OT and probably no "right" answer available either
>but maybe some one with a six string fetish can help me in the right
>direction.
>
>I am building a guitar stomp box version of my wave shaper circuit.
>The input level has a rather large influence on the sound of this circuit.
>Therefore I like to know what the "typical" input level range for a stomp
>box effect is.
>Do I need to cover both "pickup" (mic?) and line level input signals or is
>just "pickup" level enough?
>Also how much Vtop/top is "pickup" level anyway.

Well, guitar pickups vary greatly in output voltage.  Active pickups put
out almost line-level signals.  Passive pickup output depends on quality of
pickup, and whether it's single coil or a humbucker.  For example, a stock
Fender strat pickup has a much lower output than a passive EMG custom-shop
humbucker

When I design stuff for guitar I usually assume a 250mV to 1V signal range.
 Use a very high input impedence (1M or more) to avoid loading passive
pickups.  

Dave Magnuson

Resonant Frequency:
resfreq at hoohahrecords.com
http://www.hoohahrecords.com/resfreq/index.html