Guitar signal splitting

  • Thread starter Thread starter notCardio
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notCardio

I walk the line
Anybody got any ideas on splitting a guitar signal, pre-pedal and amp, multiple times for live use? I'm not talking about a simple A/B setup, I'm talking maybe 6 times. Not a recording software thing, where you can copy tracks, either. Live use. I could gang a bunch of a/b boxes, but then you'd lose significant signal. The only way I can think of is with a mixer with multiple submixes (which I don't have and sounds expensive). Do they make anything like an active multi-splitter?
 
Using a mixer as you described is the most cost effective and practical way to multi-split the signal.
 
ocnor said:
Using a mixer as you described is the most cost effective and practical way to multi-split the signal.
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My mixer has 2 monitor mixes and a tape out, so if I add those to the L & R outputs, I'd have 6, so I guess that's enough. But those would all be line level, and I need instrument level outs.
 
You could feed the output of a guitar pedal into a 6-way switchbox. It is no trouble for a pedal to drive six 1M loads . . . or six 100K loads, actually.
 
Who makes a 6-way switchbox, or are you suggesting I make one?
 
notCardio said:
Who makes a 6-way switchbox, or are you suggesting I make one?
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I think there are some pedalboard-type solutions that would work, but yeah, you could make one too. Just need a biggish diecast aluminum box, seven jacks, six footswitches (SPST will do), and some wire.
 
Search Ebay for "loop" or "looper". There are a couple of guys selling kits online for multi-channel loop pedals.
 
Do you want to run all six amps simultaneously, or one at a time selectively?
 
I was originally meaning simultaneously, though the ability to select would be nice too. And maybe six is a bit much. Wait, no it isn't.
 
mshilarious said:
I think there are some pedalboard-type solutions that would work, but yeah, you could make one too. Just need a biggish diecast aluminum box, seven jacks, six footswitches (SPST will do), and some wire.
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That sounds like work, especially considering how much I hate soldering.
 
You're gonna need some buffers / drivers if you're going to split that signal six ways.
 
mshilarious said:
A guitar pedal is an adequate buffer (provided it's not one o' them true bypass pedals).
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Sure - a Boss TU-2 tuner is a great choice, for example - but do you think it's enough to drive six signals out to six amps?
 
Zaphod B said:
Sure - a Boss TU-2 tuner is a great choice, for example - but do you think it's enough to drive six signals out to six amps?
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Oh yes. Just about any transistor is no more than 300 ohm output impedance or so, unless they did something weird like make the final stage a gain stage (which nobody in their right mind would do). Chances are it's an opamp, and the heaviest possible load would be maybe 50K. No problem at all, even at 10K or probably even 1K.
 
Would a cheap headphone amp serve the same purpose? I.e to split the signal and provide amplification to each of the output signals so the level doesn't get too low?
 
normington said:
Would a cheap headphone amp serve the same purpose? I.e to split the signal and provide amplification to each of the output signals so the level doesn't get too low?
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Headphone amps don't usually have a high impedance input. Otherwise, yeah it would work.

There is nothing really magical about "splitting" a signal. It's just a bunch of parallel loads. Once you hit a low output impedance buffer, you can pretty closely model the circuit as a simple voltage divider:

Rload = Rload1 || Rload2 || . . . Rloadn
(for equal loads, that simplifies to R/n)

Vout = 20 * log (Rload / (Rload + Rsource))

So for ten 1M ohm loads and a 100 ohm source, the signal loss is . . . -0.01dB.
 
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