Output signal from Guitar into Amplifier

[jedisteve]

Hello,
I am trying to design my gain stage right now but I just realized I don't what know magnitude I will get out of my guitar (i.e. volts, frequency) so I don't know how large (or small) a signal I am recieving at the input of the amplifier.  Does anyone know what a typical output signal from an electric guitar is? (I am using a Fender Strat).  Thanks for your help.

[teemuk]

Usually anything from 0 to +-2V (peak), depending on the pickup. 20 - 200mV (peak) is the basic assumption of signal amplitude after the initial pick transient has settled - it is difficult to give any fool-proof measures as the output is a result of quite many factors. For a single coil strat pickup I'd go for assumption that the amplitude is pretty low.

Some pickup manufactuers publish "specs" of their products that you could evaluate to get a picture but some of them are gimmicks. Some of them... well, DiMarzio's output "153" and DC resistance "7,5" - what the heck? values with no units serve no-one. Browsing through their tech data guide (http://www.dimarzio.com/media/pdfs/tech_data-quick_guide.pdf) makes me think that the corresponding units could be (in order) millivolts and kilo-ohms. That makes sense at least.

I hope this answered your question.

[joecool85]

In my experience it has generally been that each coil puts out roughly 250mV.  So a single humbucker would put out 500mV, two humbuckers, 1v etc.