distortion pedals???

Laxkid88 · Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2005 5:31 pm Post subject: distortion pedals???

Well one day this idea popped into my head so I want to know if anyone with guitar experience will have any knowledge if this can work. I want to run guitar distortion pedals into the P.A of my drumset. I think that if they run through the mic cables it can create an entirely new sound for drummers everywhere....or it will just sound like garbage. Any opinions on if this can actually work???[/b] Confused

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Rob

rudigunn · Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 5:57 pm Post subject:

Im not real sure about this but Im pretty sure it would not work due to the fact a guitar pedal is made for a guitar which has a much higher signal than a mic. A mic has to go to a preamp before its usable. Theres a few other things that could cause it not to work as well but like I said, Im not an expert Im just starting to learn alot about audio and recording. If I am wrong I hope someone will correct me.
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Fight The Good Fight

JayCam · Alley Cat Joined: 10 Apr 2005 Posts: 192

It could be cool on the snare drum, the main problem is though that those little stomp boxes are meant for use with quarter inch jack cables not XLR mic cables. If you wanted to do it you would need to:

plug the mic into the stomp box using a female XLR to 1/4 inch jack cable

then

plug the stomp boxes output into a DI box using a standard 1/4 inch jack cable

You could then just connect the DI box to wherever you wanted the mic to go (mixer/pa/wallbox etc). The main problem here (despite having to make up some custom cables and buy a DI box) is that jack cables are unbalanced so potentially you could get some interference in your signal but if you keep cable runs short you would probably get away with it.

Ok heres the killer problem: I dont think a stomp box would be able to run on a mic level signal as they are designed for instrument level outs. ALSO you would only be able to use a dynamic mic as there would be no way to get phantom power to the mic.

There must be some way around the level issues, ill think about it some more.

J.