Question about pedals? (Impedance)

[Boy_Narf]

Hello Everyone,

I have a question about running pedals with an Acoustic guitar. I here a lot of talk about impedance and how it can seriously affect tone and play-ability. I assuming pedals and cables for that matter alter the impedance of the signal, so I'm curious if there are better pedals for the job?

I currently run an Ibanez ADMINI always on for a hint of delay, and use the reverb from the amp. Would it make any difference if I was to upgrade to a higher quality pedal (with or without a buffer), or something "designed for acoustic"?

Thanks everyone.

[lschwart]

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking here, but a lot depends on what sort of pickup you're using. Basic rule of thumb is that if you've got an active pickup in your acoustic, chances are you can run it into any pedal you like. I won't matter whether the pickup is designed for acoustic or electric. If you've got a passive piezo style pickup, you'll need to make sure that the first pedal you go into has an input impedance of at least 1 megaOhm, and that will buffer your signal (most do anyway, but not all). If the signal isn't very strong (it varies pickup to pickup) you might benefit from plugging into a preamp with an effects loop first and putting the pedal or pedals in the loop. With passive magnetic pickups it's likely to be less of an issue, but you should check into what the output impedance is. My passive Baggs M1, for instance, benefits from going first into a preamp (I use a Radial PZ-Pre), mostly to get the signal strong enough to go through various pedals without generating too much noise.

Louis