Yes...and I'm sorry, too. Like Walter Matthau said as Albert Einstein in IQ: "Always remember why you are doing this."


EDIT: Why I Am Doing This

When are you going to get your Stick then? That is the question.
Then we can that dream rig you are going to build.

The only thing that remains consistent in my rig, so far, is my amp. I do so love my Behringer k900fx - but I think I will need to rethink my setup given the XLR inputs for the R-Block - which are insane BTW. These amps only have a single XLR in.

Prolly heading the way of a mixing board like so many others.

Can I ask an extremely 'newbie' question: What the purpose/result is of a preamp?

Randy

It's essentially to make the signal louder before making it louder yet again. It helps impedance matching and lowers signal noise.

The wikipedia article is pretty plainly written so have a gander there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamplifier

To adjust the signal for optimal fidelity when entering the next stage in the amplification process. If you look inside a classical guitar amp the first stage is the preamp (where you have bass n treble knobs n stuff), then comes the effect amp. If using anything else, than an instrument amp, you really need a separate preamp to go through, because electro magnetic pickups, like guitars and STicks have, do not deliver a signal at the nominal "line-in" level/impedance typically used in mixer consoles etc. Nor does the "mic input" work either as it is a balanced signal (standing current where fluctuations pass over the music) that also drives the mic by "phantom power". The new Railboard model seems to address this in a nifty way with its Villex PUPs.

Hi, Randy.

What the others have said about preamps is correct. I thought I would add a just a bit. Here is the link to the circuit that I use in the preamp I made for the Stick.

http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/

This is the famous Tillman circuit and it is used in a lot of DIY and commercial products. He has a good description of what a preamp is and what they are for in the text of the article. First, you only need a preamp for a Stick that has passive pickups, the Railboard and the ACT/2 do not need one. I have a Stickup and they really benefit from this circuit. The main issue for the Stickup is that an input impedance of less than about 2 Mohm will reduce the high frequency output from the pickup. This usually results in a more muddy tone. For instruments where the signal will be heavily processed, like an electric guitar with distortion, this reduction in high frequencies is not noticed as much and might even be desirable.

Most of us will want the full sound of the Stickup getting to our rigs, however, and a preamp will do this. If you have the preamp close to the Stick with a shorter cord, then the cord going from the preamp to the amp or mixer can be very long. The Tillman circuit should drive cables in the 25 feet (8m) range without any problem.

The next advantage of a preamp is that they can drive almost any input. This means you can plug them into instrument inputs like a standard guitar amp or into a line-in on a mixer. This opens up many possibilities for building a rig. You can use a small, inexpensive mixer without instrument inputs that feeds powered speakers, for instance. That's the setup I use and it sounds great.

The next advantage is that you can blend the output of two Tillman circuits into mono with a simple Y-adapter with no tone loss. This is very handy when you only have one input. Most commercial preamps have the ability to route the outputs in many ways, including a mono feed. Some preamps will add some tone controls, too.

Many of us feel the ultimate Stick preamp is the StepABout. It has all the features I've mentioned and more. It is very well made and sounds fantastic. It's only drawback is its price. I make my own preamps using the Tillman circuit for around $25 USD. It needs two separate versions of the circuit for a Stick and is still extremely small. I am planning on putting the next one I build into a container that fits behind the Stick on the belt hook. This would essentially turn a Stickup into an active pickup.

In the language of music electronics, this is more correctly called a buffer. There are many commercial buffers on the market and I have not tried many of them. They are usually mono and you would need two of them. If you are at all handy with a soldering iron, even at the beginning level, then building your own is not hard and is very inexpensive.

-Eric

Thanks Per and Eric. The Stick I have coming has the PASC-4 pickup. Is a preamp still optimal as with the Stickup?

I have the PASV-4 on both my Sticks. However, all my amp stuff support instrument level/impedance so I have no need of an extra preamp. The two usual amp systems I use are either a Fractal Audio AxeFX II or an RME Fireface800 computer audio interface. I must admit that I have actually never plugged it into something that isn't instrument level, so I don't know what you'd lose out on there.

Again, forgive my extreme newbie questions:

Won't standard amps from, say, Carvin, Fishman, Genz Benz, etc. support proper 'instrument level/impedance'?

I thought I understood from a post from Greg Howard that he uses his preamp mostly for routing and some tonal tweaking. Did I misunderstand?

Randy

Most inputs that are for instruments in amps and other devices are 1 Mohm. Many of us consider this to be too low for the Stick. That level is just fine for electric guitars and bases, but the Stick has a bigger frequency range. For Sticks a level of 2.2 Mohm or 3 Mohm sounds better. In fact an input that is designed for an acoustic guitar will usually be 10 Mohm to really bring out the highs. For me that is too high and makes the Stick too brittle sounding. The StepABout is 2.2 Mohm and the Tillman circuit is 3. I can't hear the difference between those two values. Regardless, a preamp will allow much longer cords. The longer the cord, the more you lose highs without a preamp.

-Eric