Preamp for guitar

Thread Starter

peter_morley

Joined Mar 12, 2011
179
I setup a circuit that amplifies the signal from my ipod/music device. I now want to be able to amplify my guitar signal from my pickups. I hook the guitar up to my circuit as if it was an ipod and I get a low volume sound out of the speaker. What I want to do is leave my ipod amp as is so I can use it for the ipod but if I want to play guitar all I have to do is hook up the preamp to the existing amp. I'm not really good with transistors yet because I have only done a few things with them. I tried using a darlington pair IC, the ULN2803APG chip but I couldn't get it working. Basically I want to amplify the guitar signal a bit more so the power amp has more to work with. Any simple ideas for my problem so I can understand how the pre amp works? I have looked online and most circuits are quite daunting to understand.
 
Hi there,

I haven't made an audio amplifier (I intend to do so for my various musical instruments in the future), but this was recommended to me by Lukasoft, here on AAC: http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/. It looks like it's a fairly simple circuit, but apparently it has a great sound. Try PMing lukasoft, I think he's made them and has advice.

Good luck,
Barnaby
 

Adjuster

Joined Dec 26, 2010
2,148
Hi there,

I haven't made an audio amplifier (I intend to do so for my various musical instruments in the future), but this was recommended to me by Lukasoft, here on AAC: http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/. It looks like it's a fairly simple circuit, but apparently it has a great sound. Try PMing lukasoft, I think he's made them and has advice.

Good luck,
Barnaby
This looks to be intended for a piezoelectric pickup, which requires a high input impedance, but not much voltage gain as the voltage into a suitably high impedance is actually fairly big.

That is OK if the OPs guitar has a piezo pickup, but the more usual magnetic pickups need more voltage gain.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
Guitar preamps are so easy compared to high current or high frequency or high voltage. I feel daunted that you feel daunted! A single 9V battery is plenty of voltage and it's almost impossible to mess up the layout.

There are so many examples available. Are you using wound pickups? (inductive) Piezo? Do you want to do a single transistor? an op-amp circuit? Can you do the metal work for the box? Can you make a circuit board? Give me some clues.
 

Thread Starter

peter_morley

Joined Mar 12, 2011
179
Hey #12 I have 2 alnico V humbucker pickups which are dual coil pickups I believe. I would prefer to do a one transistor pre amp for simplicity. I know only a little about transistors but I think you get a current gain by a certain resistor biasing setup.
 
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