Questions about the Sansamp Tri A.C.

I haven't used it but my amp builder friends highly recommend the G100

 

aah nice, i was hoping to do that rather than buy the sansamp because i don't really need all the distortion features of the sansamp, since i mainly need an overdrive and a fuzz for my distortion stage. plus it works out much cheaper too

 

actually how bad do these pedals sound direct to line?

I dont have any "normal" pedals so I have no experience with horrible-tone-goign-direct.

Can anyone give a sample?

 

ive heard a lot about pedals sounding horrible going direct. its something to do with the circuitry i suppose.

i've never tried doing it myself though.

 

You need to get the output impedence of the DI lower than the input impedence of the Line in jack. A good DI box should have a very low output impedence.

So check those specs of both the pedal/DI and your soundcard. Ideally you should use the balanced out of the GI100 to go straight into the mixer and then to your recorder.
That said I've used my friends M-Audio Ozone(USB) with some pretty cool results so that's another option worth considering, albeit expensive.

I'll just go for an M-Audio Delta 1010 at some point. I believe bajaao is selling those, and make my own DI box

 

you can get M-Audio Deltas for cheaper....bajaao is lil more exp

 

But how does impedance mismatch affect tone?

All it hsould lead to is lowering of volume.

 

Dude!
You are willing to spend 5-6K wihtout even chekcing if it actually sounds horrible?

And will the new piece of gear actually make it sound better ... ?

 

I run a Tube Screamer Direct into my comp. It sounds MUCH better than running it into a Stranger Cube 20.

I can also use it as a clean boost for use with Guitar Rig 2. Nice combination that. If only I could reduce the latency even more. I use ASIO4ALL and manage abt 8ms, can't go any lower without it making odd electronic sounds at random intervals. Any other Ideas?

 

Why dont you try making a nice passive DI box? Will be a good learning experience.

 

The difference in impedences here are significantly large to cause a huge loss of signal strength. Remember (AC) Impedence is Frequency dependent and thats why a huge mismatch will play havoc with not only the levels but also the tone. Different frequencies have different Impedences so the amount of signal loss is not constant across the frequency range of a guitar signal. Some frequencies get attenuated more than others. Hope that makes sense

 

Good pedals will typically have a high Input Impedence and a Low Output Impedence, which is what you want. You should check these specs for any pedals you buy, In fact many manufacturers list these now on their online catalogues (guess more people are becoming aware of its importance).

In a fact a simple DI box does just that. Lowers impedences. First person to list the number of times I've typed the word Impedence gets three cheers from me

 

Normal pedals get killed if used direct in or without cab sims. My Rocktron Silver Dragon sounds monster through my amp (guitar input). In my office gig, the sound guy refused to mic my amp and I had to use line-out of the amp to mixing board. The lack of cab modelling totally killed the sound making it muddy and ball-less.

Impedance increases with frequency for a guitar pickup(inductor). The input impedance of first pedal and the impedance of guitar pickup form a voltage divider. If this value is low, more signal flows to the ground. The highs are affected the most as they are cause the highest impedance in the pickup. If the value is large(say 1M), then negligible signal flows to ground, most of it going into the device.

Similarly if output impedance is low, the pedal can drive in most of the signal and highs into the next pedal. Certain circuits like the Rangemaster are designed to load the guitar a bit for rounder tone.

As for the Behringer GI100, it is offering a lot of features for $35.You cant make it for cheaper than that, so better buy it.

 

If you go straight without cab sim you would naturally want to do that in software before you commit your track to disk

 

okay one thing i need to clear up before all of you confuse the hell outta me:

im talking mostly about live gig situations.

@alpha1: the Behringer GI100 is a cab sim and a DI box and it costs 40 dollars new

ive read quite a large number of reviews about it, gotten opinions in a couple of more forums and lot of people recommend it mainly because of its cab sim. apparently it sounds quite close to a mic'd cabinet and since i wont be able to afford one of those for a while(although its quite dependent on our DI guru )

 

Hmmm, ok tell me going direct attenuates high frequencies more or low frequencies?

 

There's an equation to calculate which frequencies go to ground but I can't remember it off the top of my head, but I do know that it depends on the actual Input and Load Impedences so the resulting tone would depend on how far off the two values are from each other.
There's just way too much maths to keep track of in electronics. I just try to make sure that Input is lower than Load, works for me

 

If you are looking at just the voltage signal strength, the voltage that flows into the device is : Vd = V. [Input impedance/(Input impedance + Load)]
Thus , if Input impedance >> Load, Vd ~ V. This load varies with frequency. For a guitar pickup it increases with frequency.

When a speaker is bypassed and no cab sim is used - the tone is weak, muddy and trebly.

 

^ Weak, muddy and trebly?
Sounds contradictory :.

It can either by muddy + beefy (high frequency attenuation) or trebly + weak (low frequency attenuation).

 

semantics....