Turtlerock Forum

is there a way i can power a distortion pedal to a guitar cab straight up?? (wuthout using a guitar amp?)
Like a pedal sized /walwart powered mini amp??? i dont want anything with gain, tone, or EQ, just something to power the speaker correctly and amplify what the pedal is putting out.

im very bad with electronics knowledge, so no idea what's required....i could just plug my pedal into the cab and try it, but i dont wanna f@#$ anything up (doubt it will, but always good to ask).

this guy?

http://www.ehx.com/products/44-magnum

ah dude, yes!!! awesome, thanks for that why doth i suck at the googles.

I've found the Magnum 44 to be a bit dark going straight into my Mesa cabs.

I haven't picked one up yet, but I'll grab one of these sometime too:

http://www.surprisesoundlab.com/ssl-26_003.htm

http://www.frequencycentral.co.uk/?page_id=9

How about 'the stack'

grant at Valve Heaven is a very good guy too.

http://www.valveheaven.com/The%20Stack% ... eaven.html

i should say, i dont want overdrive at all, i literally want to take the pedal output, and amplify that enough to drive a speaker....

a 1 watt amp will ruin the signal from the pedal and make it too limp? wont it...? i just want to use the cab as a filter for the guitar pedal signal.

go to smackconverters and pickup a cheap hi-fi amp. Wire a rca to tip / sleeve plug for the amp to pedal connection and tip /sleeve plug to stripped wires for the cabinet to amp output. Adjust volume ,bass and treble to taste.

thanks for confirming that robm, i wanted to do that but had no idea whether i could. cheers!

oh...umm, i was at work before, one thing i forgot to ask about the Home amp scenario, is the guitar pedal will be outputting an oinstrument level signal, how does that interface with the inputs on a Hi fi amp?

It'll work fine, just turn the amp up.
Why not just use an emulator? H&K redbox, be!@#$%^& GI100, one of hundreds of plugins. (LePou LeCab is free and there are lots of impulses around for cabs)

yo kurt,
i've got a cab, i just was interested to run things from Pedal direct to cab, with some sort of amplification. I do use emulators... if you mean cab sims, i use them with guitar amps....they wont amplify the guitar pedal tho?

But if you want a clean but louder version of what the pedal is putting out, just DI the pedal's output and put it through a cab sim. It'll work. Can't vouch for how it will sound, but it will work.

jkhuri44 wrote:yo kurt,
i've got a cab, i just was interested to run things from Pedal direct to cab, with some sort of amplification. I do use emulators... if you mean cab sims, i use them with guitar amps....they wont amplify the guitar pedal tho?

jkhuri44 wrote:is there a way i can power a distortion pedal to a guitar cab straight up?? (wuthout using a guitar amp?)
Like a pedal sized /walwart powered mini amp??? i dont want anything with gain, tone, or EQ, just something to power the speaker correctly and amplify what the pedal is putting out.

im very bad with electronics knowledge, so no idea what's required....i could just plug my pedal into the cab and try it, but i dont wanna f@#$ anything up (doubt it will, but always good to ask).

Interesting ideas here - but of course any amp that you connect between the pedal and the cab (that works) is by definition a guitar amp as soon as you run a guitar through it. Even if it's wall-wart sized

But that 'minor technicality' aside, the main issue with the non-purpose-built solutions (including running the pedal) directly into the cab - apart from whether there's enough gain to deliver the desired level - is impedance. Most pedals are designed to drive high impedance inputs up to 1MΩ such as you'll find in any guitar amp and most other amps have lower impedance inputs either designed for mics or for line level. The worst mismatch would come from running the pedal straight into the cabinet (which will be 16Ω or less - a way lower load than any pedal will have been designed to drive).

Depending on the pedal (its output impedance and power) it'll likely work, but possibly (probably?) not as cleanly as using an amp designed for guitar signals, whatever its footprint.

Kurt wrote:But if you want a clean but louder version of what the pedal is putting out, just DI the pedal's output and put it through a cab sim. It'll work. Can't vouch for how it will sound, but it will work.

jkhuri44 wrote:yo kurt,
i've got a cab, i just was interested to run things from Pedal direct to cab, with some sort of amplification. I do use emulators... if you mean cab sims, i use them with guitar amps....they wont amplify the guitar pedal tho?

true true. and tbh another tone which would work.
i got a Amptweaker Tight Metal pedal, which is the best distortion i've heard for brutal metal by a long shot. It's pretty huge sounding...apparently its a 5150 in a stompbox...the designer worked for Peavey, etc etc.

Im not sure why you want to do this?
Are you after portability, or low watt option, or quiet option?
Why are you trying to put pedal into speakerbox?
Do you not have guitar amp?

i do have both.

its mainly experimentation....and just for shits and giggles really,

as i mentioned above, this pedal is the most incredible sounding pedal for metal i've heard. I plugged it into my DI, straight into my apogees with a 5K low pass filter, and it sounded huge. i wanted to do something similar, but with a speaker, which will do what that low pass filter was doing better.

I dont like the option of going into a clean channel on an amp....

Try as I suggested? What's the pedal?
On some amps you can bypass the preamp by going into the fx return.

jkhuri44 wrote:i do have both.

its mainly experimentation....and just for shits and giggles really,

as i mentioned above, this pedal is the most incredible sounding pedal for metal i've heard. I plugged it into my DI, straight into my apogees with a 5K low pass filter, and it sounded huge. i wanted to do something similar, but with a speaker, which will do what that low pass filter was doing better.

I dont like the option of going into a clean channel on an amp....

yeah i will do what u said kurt, as mentioned above. Its an Amptweaker Tight Metal...absoluetly fantastic for anything down tuned...obviously its no Peavey 6505....or similar, but as a pedal its damn awesome.

I'll have to check them out.

jkhuri44 wrote:yeah i will do what u said kurt, as mentioned above. Its an Amptweaker Tight Metal...absoluetly fantastic for anything down tuned...obviously its no Peavey 6505....or similar, but as a pedal its damn awesome.