Guitar direct into powered speaker?

[Woody Sound]

Maybe a silly question to some, can an electric guitar go direct into a powered speaker (Example, Alto TS110A), no preamp pedal or anything? My question is not how it will sound, but will it at least amplify the guitar to about the same vol as with a preamp? Tnx.

[Cunamara]

No.

[Skip Ellis]

Ditto no. I tried it the other day with a Mackie Thump 12A. Got me through a rehearsal but wasn't pleasing at all. You need a pre of some sort - even a small mixer would work.

[Woody Sound]

Thanks all, that's what I thought. But how about a mic?

[sgosnell]

You could go direct to a powered speaker if you use a wireless system. They (all AFAIK, but I haven't used most of them) have a line level output, which is much hotter than what you get directly from a guitar pickup. I regularly go direct from my Line6 G10 to a PA with no amp, and it sounds good enough, IMO. I like running it direct to the effects loop in on my AI Clarus, which isn't possible with a cable, because the level is too low. But from the G10 receiver it's loud, and I have to reduce the volume on the amp when playing at home.

[KirkP]

I’ve used a Behringer powered PA speaker with a mic plugged directly into the XLR input. It only has a treble and bass controls, but other than that it sounds as good as if it had gone through a mixer. This will only work with dynamic mics since there is no phantom power for condensers.

An acoustic guitar with piezo and onboard preamp will also work fine with a powered PA speaker. But a magnetic coil pickup will probably sound poor plugged directly into a powered monitor, just as it would plugged directly into a mixer or hifi amplifier. You need to run it through a preamp that’s voiced for magnetic pickups. There are a number of pedals that will do the job.

I’ve occasionally used a powered speaker as a slave from my main amp when I needed more power. I took the direct out from my main amp and plugged it into the XLR input of the powered speaker. I had to roll both the treble and bass controls way back on the slave, but it sounded ok.

[rpjazzguitar]

I tried it using a regular passive humbucker into a Boss ME80 into an Alto 110.

It worked very badly. The guitar signal was too weak. That required that I turn the Alto up most of the way on the volume control (the one on the Alto). At that point the bass frequencies dominated and it sounded just awful.

If I created a very loud patch (inevitably with some distortion) with the ME80 I could get around that problem, but I wanted a cleaner tone than that.

I eventually learned that the Alto preferred a line level signal -- and that there are two definitions of line level, one louder than the other. The ME80 output is not loud enough.

I used the word "preferred". As I recall, the Alto claims to be able to amplify a microphone level input, which is very quiet (meaning, low voltage). Comparable to a guitar signal, I think. But, that required rotating the volume control on the Alto most of the way up. I didn't check it with a mic, but it sure didn't work for guitar/ME80.

So, I'd strongly suggest getting a return privilege if you try this.

BTW, I read several posts from players who loved the Alto for guitar, but they were preamping the signal more than I could with the gear I wanted to use.

[pingu]

It doesn't work very well usually .... it's about the impedance
a guitar wants to see about 10Mohms

but with pre-amp it can work

jack z does this I believe , maybe he'll chime in

[Little Jay]

If you put a Joyo American sound pedal and a reverb pedal between your guitar and the powered speaker then it sounds great!

I know from expericience: it's my backup setup for if my amp fails (had to use it once so far) and it sounds so good I used it for a recording session to go directly into the recording console (initially meant as guide-guitar for bass and drums but it sounded so good we decided to just use it and be done ;-).

[Doctor Jeff]

I think the Fishman preamps would work for that purpose...

Currently they offer the ProEq and StageEq—about $300 and $230 respectively. I have an older preamp, the ProEq2, which I think is similar to the StageEq. It can be found used for $100 or less.

I have used it with a floating (non-powered) magnetic pickup.

[icr]

An electric guitar probably won't sound to your liking through a hi-fi amp, but a Dumble combo amp with PAB engaged is essentially a powered speaker.

[DRS]

get a Sansamp or Tech21 Character pedal.

[patty]

get a Sansamp or Tech21 Character pedal.

I just got the Tech21 Blonde character pedal. I used to try using a SansAmp GT2 but it had too much hiss on the “clean” setting. I play in a duo with a bass player. I’ve only had the new pedal for a week. I loved it at home through my Bose PA. Got to the gig and all of a sudden my tele was throwing out more bass than the bass player. Had to notch it out on the P.A. I need to get this figured out because I am done lugging an amp to the gigs!