Differential signal

[Pluk]

Hi,

After some years of playing bass, I started wondering about a technical aspect of bass signal 'pre'-amplification.

The output signal of electric basses and guitars are always (is it?) single ended (correct term?), I mean two poles, one is earth/mass and the second is the +/signal. In the professional music scene technicians prefer balanced connections, and differential pre-amplifiers, as used in microphone electronics. As far as basses/guitars are concerned, balanced connections are only used when a proper studio connection is needed at the preamp output. At least this is what I noticed.

Could someone explain why basses/guitars and preamps are not standard equipped with this balanced/differential technology, all the way up to the instrument pickups?

Pluk

 

[line6man]

Guitars are almost always passive, which is why they almost always have an unbalanced, high impedance output.
Basses, on the other hand, can be active or passive, but in the early days were always passive.

Most of the equipment used with guitars and basses is designed such that any guitar or bass can be used with it. It would not make much sense to be designing special balanced-input gear when 99% of the guitars and basses out there will not have a balanced output. Trying to set of trend of getting every manufacturer to give their instrument a low impedance balanced output would be equally absurd.

 

[walterw]

+1

it would mean wiring up a bunch of extra crap on your bass to no good purpose (and likely to tone loss to some people).

15-20ft of unbalanced shielded cable presents no problem to a pickup signal, especially an active buffered one.

anything longer and you can balance it at that point, with a DI box.