Don't MOST Pedals Qualify As Pre-Amps?

To me, a preamp needs to have some sort of EQ or tone shaping. A chorus pedal (just one of many examples) wouldn't be a preamp at all in my mind. They also don't necessarily push the sound out with more than goes into them

 

Most pedals are NOT pre-amps as they do NOT bring the instrument level signal up to line level.

 

My ears tell me otherwise. What do your ears tell you?

 

To you, Willing To Be Educated.
When you compare the sound of your effects pedal vs. a preamp, what differences do you hear (or are they the same)?

 

It's about voltage. Most poweramps need somewhere between 1 - 1.5 volts, consistently, on the input to "feed" them properly and drive them to their designed output. A lot of pedals can't do this, some can. Some newer poweramps have settings where they can get there off 775 millivolts. These can be more easily driven off a pedal.

 

I tried to power an amp with my phase shifter and got nothing. So no

 

I'm gonna say YES!

And to OP's quoted question, "Don't MOST pedals qualify as a pre-amp?"

I'd think that any pedal with a volume control can be considered a pre-amp. Maybe not to drive a power amp, but to drive something. I used to use my Ibanez PD7 in clean mode to drive and EQ the input going to my PC system. In that case it was DEFINITELY a pre-amp. Then theres pedals such as the VT Bass, that some people use as a pre directly into a power amp, and others (like myself) bring the volume down to unity or slightly above and feed it into the pre of the amp.

Then you have all the Boss pedals with the buffered whatsitcalled that re-amp your signal to send onwards (unlike true bypass pedals.) So they're pre-amping your signal on to the next pedal/amp/pre/etc.

So maybe its more in the dirt/gain world of pedals, but I'd consider anything that has the ability to output more than you input to be a pre-amp. Technically they're all amplifiers in gradual stages, right?

 

Tone controls aren't needed to be a preamp. That's just where it makes sense to put them. All amps are voltage multipliers. The preamp takes the little signal from your pickup or microphone and multiplies it until it's big enough to drive the poweramp. The poweramp takes that signal and multiplies it some more so it's big enough to drive the speaker.

Example: the ART TubeMP (nothing but gain knobs) is a preamp. A 31-band EQ (lots of tone shaping) is not.

 

A lot of them come pretty close, but even the Sansamp BDDI needed a mod to properly drive a poweramp IIRC.

 

Try a simple, high-quality preamp. You will be pleasantly surprised.

 

I have alway kind of thought of pedals as pre-amps. In the same way that basses with on-board EQs have pre-amps.

 

I would use a pre-amp even though the bass has a pre-amp on board. I have not had good luck with "active bass directly into power amp."

 

A preamplifier is a low-noise amplifier designed to take a low-level signal and bring it up to normal line level.

 

Technically, I guess you could call anything a "pre amp" the comes before the amp (pre) and makes the signal the slightest bit hotter coming out than it was going in (to amplify). But to me, it's only a preamp if it has sufficient output to be plugged directly into a poweramp and drive it properly. Anything less I'd call an effect/gain boost/tone shaper/whatever. Something other than a real preamp. The term does get used rather loosely sometimes. If I bought something labelled "pre amp", I'd expect it to drive a poweramp.....that's what preamps do.

 

Yes, in the technical sense any amplifier that is stuck in front of another amplifier is a "pre" amplifier.