TONEX PEDAL • THE INPUT IMPEDANCE PROBLEM

The otherwise excellent Tonex pedals have a major drawback* when used to capture anything with an amp or more likely a pedal before an amp that has an input impedance of less than 1 MegOhm.

Whilst most guitar amplifiers have this 1MegOhm input impedance which is the same as the input impedance on the Tonex pedals, some overdrive and fuzz pedals do not. These can have lower or much lower input impedance which interacts with passive guitar pickups to roll of the high frequencies and lower the db of the resonant frequencies of pickups... this is very significant especially with some fuzz pedals which can have very low input impedance.

Therefore it is not possible for a ToneX capture to accurately be used for such a capture situation unless a lower impedance input device is before the ToneX pedal in the signal chain when playing that capture.

This is why Axe-FX, Helix, Quad Cortex, and Unison inputs are variable input impedance... input impedance and cable capacitance affect the tone very significantly.

Some fuzz pedals would be the biggest consideration, but other pedals like Ibanez TS808 and Boss SD-1 have lower input impedances also.

Recommendation: avoid capturing pedal before amp where the pedal has a significantly lower input impedance for ToneX pedals whilst they do not exhibit variable input impedance to match first in line captured item.

Consider: inbuilt ToneX modelling of such pedals will suffer the same problem as the pickup to input impedance relationship varies with pickups.

*This is an issue unique to standard common passive guitar pickups, and especially with single coils, not strong output active pickups.

See: Guitar Cable Capacitance and Resonant Frequency

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