1974 Gibson Les Paul Recording Low Impedance Out

[Demented Avenger]

I have come into possession of a 1974 Les Paul Recording guitar. It has low impedance pickups. Since most guitar amps and stomp pedals are high impedance input, does anyone think I could use a Boss FV-500L Stereo Volume Pedal as the first pedal? I believe this was designed for a keyboard which is typically low impedance.

With the guitar selector on High output, the sound is pretty good. I would love to hear how this guitar is supposed to sound. I have a Mackie PA, but I'm not sure it has a Low Z input.

Thanks for any advice on this!

 

Demented Avenger

[Larryz]

Welcome aboard Demented Avenger! The Boss volume pedal will work. I would just leave it out of line for recording. You should be able to control the volume with your PA channel faders and/or guitar knobs.

 

All of your XLR mic inputs are Low Z. I have a 1/4" TRS to 3prong XLR cord which can be used for stereo or mono direct to the PA using the mic inputs. I only have one Taylor acoustic that is set up for stereo panning, etc. The other Taylor acoustics will work in mono with the same cord. For electric guitars it should work fine for recording just using the 1/4" line instrument inputs unless your "recording" guitar is set up with an XLR jack. If you do decide to go into the Lo Z mic inputs, be sure to turn off any phantom power on the PA. I'll let the other recording and PA savvy guys give you their input(s). Good luck with it...

[desertbluesman]

I have come into possession of a 1974 Les Paul Recording guitar. It has low impedance pickups. Since most guitar amps and stomp pedals are high impedance input, does anyone think I could use a Boss FV-500L Stereo Volume Pedal as the first pedal? I believe this was designed for a keyboard which is typically low impedance.

With the guitar selector on High output, the sound is pretty good. I would love to hear how this guitar is supposed to sound. I have a Mackie PA, but I'm not sure it has a Low Z input.

Thanks for any advice on this!

 

Demented Avenger

 

From The Gibson Forums;

 

Depends on the construction. Some low impedance have active circuits requiring

a battery. Low number of windings and low output impedance..typically 100 ohms

to 300 ohms.

You can also using matching transformers on standard 10k pickups to bring

down the unbalanced guitar output to 200-600 ohms. This eliminates

hum and you can run football field lengths (well almost) of shielded cable into

your amplifier, which should have a balanced input (signal transformer or differential

op amp) as well.

 

Usually you just use XLR (3 pin connector) that has signal/signal and shield.

The advantage in recording (studios) is that you can run the guitar right into a mixing board

directly like a microphone. We used to do that.

 

So unless your amp has an XLR balanced input connector, the lo impedance pickup

isn't going to be that effective. There are external low impedanced to high impedance

matching signal transformers, but these are very expensive.

[Demented Avenger]

Thanks for the advice Larryz. I will have to read up on all my 1/4" inputs for the Mackie PA and my 8 track Tascam recorder. I believe that Boss volume pedal will work.

[Demented Avenger]

Thanks desertbluesman!

I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I got lots of good information today. I look forward to getting some very clean sounds from this guitar.

[desertbluesman]

You can also plug in to a low impedance sound board even a Tip/sleeve guitar cord will work on a sound board input. So you can use a cheap PA board between your guitar and a standard guitar amp input.