Mono or Stereo Jacks

[Jahuli]

Is there a difference to the sound - i dont get it .
Which one should I get?
http://www.warmoth.com/hardware/parts/parts.cfm?fuseaction=include_jacks

[ThrillsNSpills]

Quadrophonic.

I think there's a future in it.
Then again I put frosted flakes in my ears when noone's lookin.

[BrownSound1]

You can wire a guitar in "stereo," and there have been several production guitars done this way. What you do is have the neck pickup run to one part of the stereo plug, and the bridge pickup go to the other. Then you take "y" cord that has a 1/4" stereo plug on one in, and two mono 1/4" plugs on the other and run them to two amps. Your neck pickup will come out of one of them and the bridge out of the other..and you get a "stereo" effect when you turn both pickups on at the same time.

Now the coolest stereo guitar was the old Kramer Ripley Stereo. Each string had its own pickup, and you had 6 pan pots on it to position where you wanted the string to be in the stereo mix. This guitar was true stereo, and you could get some HUGE sounds out of it. What we did once in a music store was run the Ripley into two stereo chorus pedals and then into four identical amps....one of the most massive sounds I've heard. do some finger picking and you had notes bouncing around you at dizzying paces.

[Nitro Express]

Yeah, the Ripley was cool and stereo guitars have been around for probably 30 years. Let's not forget the Roldand guitar synthesizer. LOL!

But really. Look at your favorite guitar heros and are any of them using this shit? Most of my guitar heros used basic simple guitars with a mono output. Most plugged into an early Marshall, maybe a Hiwatt or Fender. Really. They got huge magical sounds, even live.

Stereo guitars and such are kind of a gimmick. Andy Summers fucked around with some of that stuff. Maybe David Gilmour did too.

[BrownSound1]

You know, the only recorded example of a Ripley Stereo I can think of is the intro to Top Jimmy.

The Roland Guitar Synth...christ I hated those damn things. They never tracked right if you played too fast...plus, who in the hell wants to hear a piano tone when you're playing a guitar. :D

[ThrillsNSpills]

Originally posted by BrownSound1
You know, the only recorded example of a Ripley Stereo I can think of is the intro to Top Jimmy.



I think Vai used one on Ballerina, from Passion and Warfare. He's got delay on it and the notes are all across the stereo spectrum, sound much like what you described earlier.

[Nitro Express]

Yeah, those guitars were gimmicks. One of many new instruments that just didn't give the public or player a hard on. Kind of like the glass organ Ben Franklen invented. Kind of the first synthesizer in a way. It had a bunch of calibrated glass cups that rotated in a pan of water. You used your fingers to make them ring like how you move your finger along the rim of a glass. A good player could really get some futuristic sounds and probably blew people's minds in the 1700's but it never caught on. I mean, it never was a mainstream instrument. The guitar synth and stereo guitars like the Ripley are right there.

[GAR]

As far as just the original question: do the jacks matter if I get a mono or stereo?

No it doesn't matter.

Mono jacks have only the "tip" connection for the positive, "sleeve" connection for the ground.

Stereo jacks have the addition of a "ring" connection, the metal band in between. You can use it if you don't hook it up.

[GAR]

or just wire a ground to the ring..