Stereo to mono TRS cable

[Kray Van Kirk]

Has anyone ever seen a ring/tip stereo TRS cable that merges the two signals equally into a mono output? Trying to strip down my gear. Guitar has two pick-ups currently split into two mono outputs for the two-input DI; I'm wanting to simply combine both signals prior to the DI. One is a DiMarzio Black Angel, and the other is a K&K Pure Mini. (Full disclosure - I'm not familiar with the impedance, resistance, etc. specific to each pick-up.)

[MarkF_48]

I don't have a cable that does that, but in my collection of adapters I have a couple of these that sum a stereo signal to mono

https://www.amazon.com/Hosa-GPP-290-...s%2C553&sr=8-1

[sam.spoons]

Both your pickups are passive so you could simply use an adapter like the one MarkF linked to but personally I'd continue use a two channel DI. Combining the two won't harm anything but it may damage the sound. That said, it's cheap to try.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Kray Van Kirk

Has anyone ever seen a ring/tip stereo TRS cable that merges the two signals equally into a mono output? Trying to strip down my gear. Guitar has two pick-ups currently split into two mono outputs for the two-input DI; I'm wanting to simply combine both signals prior to the DI. One is a DiMarzio Black Angel, and the other is a K&K Pure Mini. (Full disclosure - I'm not familiar with the impedance, resistance, etc. specific to each pick-up.)

You can certainly just blend them. You could make a custom cable, use an adaptor, or even wire them both to the tip of your endpin jack. But if you use a 2 channel preamp, you'll be able to adjust the relative volumes to taste, and EQ each one. A common thing with that setup would be to use the mag mostly for low end, for example, and roll off lows on the K&K. But it all depends. On a quiet gig, you might want the K&Ks to handle the bulk of the sound, while with a louder gig, you might want more mag, less K&K. Hard wiring them together loses a lot of flexibility. A really good preamp like the Grace Felix, even lets you optimize the way the 2 interact by adjusting the phase between them, as well as optimizing the input impedance for each pickup separately.

[Mobilemike]

IMHO if you’re just blending them equally without the option to adjust relative volumes or EQ then there’s really no point to having two pickups. Just pick which one you want to use (like Doug said, use the K&K for quieter gigs and the mag for louder gigs), and take the mono output of just that one. Much simpler.

If you want to blend the two, then I would use an actual blending preamp, not just a cable. No harm in trying the cable, but just be careful as it will probably produce a very hot signal to the next piece of gear.

[jonfields45]

In my opinion, without an active mixer or both pickups having their own powered preamps, this is not going to work well. Magnetic and Piezo are entirely different impedances and passive mixing of these passive pickups is very unlikely to produce good results.

[Kray Van Kirk]

Thanks for all the inputs!! Very much appreciated. At the moment, I run both out of a stereo cable into separate outputs on an MDB-2P DI, with two XLR outputs; the mixing is done either on the house board or on my Bose Tonematch.

I'd love it if I could afford the Grace Felix!! I just noticed that when running through the Bose I tend to use very close to the same mix settings for both lines; just thought I might be able to reduce some gear.

THanks!!

[jseth]

My Bose T1 has an incredible amount of flexibility; if you have the channels available, I'd jettison the DI and go right into the Bose mixer, setting thee gain properly for each pickup, then going from there...

Although there are a lot of varied presets on my T1, thus far I've been most satisfied with the "overall" flat setting (as opposed to the flat setting in the acoustic guitar section - don't know why they would be different, but they are!). I have only had to tweak the 3 band EQ slightly to get a great tone through either my L1 Model II or my AER Compact 60.

If you're dealing with a long cable drop to an off-stage mixer, I suppose you do need the DI... but, otherwise, I wouldn't have it in the signal chain.

Simpler is better!

[Mandobart]

Similar to some earlier posts, here's one from last year.

Specifically, this was my advice then:

Originally Posted by Mandobart

I haven't tried a passive blend, and here's why:

Magnetic pickups and piezo pickups have very different (1000X different) impedance values. Mags are in the kilohm (1000 ohm) output impedance range. All piezoelectric pickups (UST and SBT) are in the megohm (million ohm) range. They don't mix well in a passive device.

On my Eastman archtop I mounted a Kent Armstrong floating neck magnetic pickup, and a twin head JJB passive piezo under the soundboard. I wired both to a TRS endpin jack. The magnetic pickup goes to the tip and the piezo to the sleeve (but it doesn't matter which goes where, other than which one you want if you plug in a mono cord).

From the output jack I run a short TRS cable to a Baggs Mixpro preamp on my belt. With this I can blend the two pickups or go all piezo or all mag. The preamp output is a standard mono (TS) 1/4" jack.

There are undoubtedly better, more sophisticated ways to do this. There are also simpler ways to do it - just send the instrument output on a TRS cable and split it into two channels at the amp with a TRS to 2 mono Y splitter. But when one can only spare one channel, or you want the capability on your belt of changing the EQ, volume or mix without going back to the PA or pleading with the sound guy to do it, the Baggs Mixpro is just the ticket.

I still have the same advice.