Active Or Pre-amp Circuit

[oldrocker]

I'm not sure if this is a stupid question or not. I have a pretty extensive background in electronics and have recently found a DIY project for an onboard electric guitar pre-amp. I built it and it works pretty well. It isn't mounted in any of my guitars yet. I'm using it as an outboard pre-amp at this point.

My question is. Are onboard pre-amps the same as an active pickup circuit? I was actually trying to build an active circuit and thought the onboard pre-amp was the same thing but now I'm not so sure. Does anyone know if there is a difference? What are the differences?

Edited April 24, 2006 by oldrocker

[George Brown]

I'm not sure if this is a stupid question or not. I have a pretty extensive background in electronics and have recently found a DIY project for an onboard electric guitar pre-amp. I built it and it works pretty well. It isn't mounted in any of my guitars yet. I'm using it as an outboard pre-amp at this point.

My question is. Are onboard pre-amps the same as an active pickup circuit? I was actually trying to build and active circuit and thought the onboard pre-amp was the same thing but now I'm not so sure. Does anyone know if there is a difference? What is the differences?

yeh there the same thing, by active pickup circuit i pressume you mean stuff like emgs. basicaly an active pickup is designed around a much smaller coil, this produces a low output but is then amplified by a pre-amp within the pick-up. hope that helps and it goes well with the instalation

Edited April 24, 2006 by George Brown

[oldrocker]

Thanks George, I assumed that they were the same but when some people said they were mounting the pre-amps in stomp boxes I started to wonder. The reason I asked is because I recently rewired a flying V I had from an active pup circuit to passive. Don't get me wrong as a passive rewire it doesn't sound bad but I'm thinking it might sound better if I put an active circuit back in it. I wanted to build the circuit myself instead of trying to put the old one back in. I couldn't find any DIY projects on the Internet that actually used the term active pup circuit. But when I did a search for onboard electric guitar pre-amp I found a few decent sites on the subject.

http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/

http://www.diyguitarist.com/

Edited April 24, 2006 by oldrocker

[George Brown]

diy guitarist is a very interesting site and ill check out the other one.

as for sounding better if you like high gain stuff then yes as obviously oyur driving your amps front end harder. also it can offer empedence advantages with the use of buffers. this will alow you to run long cables and effects pedals with less degrading of you signal. as you guitar previously had active electronics in it i presume there is a battery compartment if not there is a really good one here,i dont know about the double box but you may be able to wire in paralell for 2x the battery life. one last thing make sure you use a pot or switch pot combination (or even a push/push pot (i dont get why people use puch/pull)) as if you simply use a switch you serriously resrick its potential.

[oldrocker]

I do have a battery holder in the back plate of the guitar. Although if I add a preamp to other guitars in the future I will be looking into those battery compartments you showed. I have them on my acoustics with the eq's but I didn't know where to buy them. I heard that preamps help with long cord impedence so I hope it helps with my 30'.

[Paul Marossy]

Although if I add a preamp to other guitars in the future I will be looking into those battery compartments you showed. I have them on my acoustics with the eq's but I didn't know where to buy them.

Try http://www.stew-mac.com - look under "battery boxes".

I heard that preamps help with long cord impedence so I hope it helps with my 30'.

Yep, they can - if properly designed.