Photo 1
There are many different types of output jacks, including mono, stereo, TRS, barrel, and power types (Photo 1). Ultimately they all have the same job: transfer the signal from your guitar to the instrument cable. Output jacks can eventually wear out, causing the signal to be intermittent—usually at the worst possible time. Ever been onstage and heard a crackling sound or even silence when you jiggle your guitar cable in the jack? No fun.
When it's time to replace a cranky output jack, there are several things you need to know before firing up the ol' soldering iron. The first step is to identify what kind of jack you have and what will make the best replacement.
Form and function.
Almost every type of output jack used on both acoustic and electric guitars is referred to as "a 1/4" jack," but as gearheads we have to be more specific. Here's a list of the most common types of 1/4" output jacks:
- Mono: Used in most acoustic and electric guitars with passive pickups.
- Stereo: Used in acoustic and electric guitars with stereo outputs or active electronics.
- TRS (tip-ring-sleeve): Used with active electronics, active pickup systems, or acoustic-electric guitars with two independent sound sources (such as an under-saddle transducer and onboard mic).
- Power: This is usually a stereo or TRS jack attached to a preamp.
Each of these can be found in different forms, including the open or skeleton jack, the enclosed or panel jack, the barrel jack, and the flange jack. Let's take a closer look.
Electric guitars with passive pickups typically have open jacks. I prefer the Switchcraft brand, because they have heavy-duty construction.
When it's time to replace a cranky output jack, there are several things you need to know before firing up the ol' soldering iron.
Imported guitars, especially budget models, usually come with enclosed or panel jacks. Often encased in plastic, these jacks are inexpensive and tend to wear out faster than a well-made open jack.
Acoustic-electric guitars often have a cylindrical barrel jack that passes from the inside of the instrument through the tailblock. Secured externally with a nut and threaded strap button, this jack replaces the guitar's endpin. Barrel jacks can have mono, stereo, or TRS configurations.
Takamine acoustic-electrics, as well as some other acoustic-electrics, use flange jacks. These have integrated endpins and structurally resemble barrel jacks. They too come in mono, stereo, and TRS styles.
Guitar applications.
The most common output jack for electric guitars is the mono jack. It has two lugs: One is the ground, and it's part of the jack's interior or case. The other lug is the hot or primary lead. This lug is part of the long, bent flange that connects to the tip of your instrument cable.
A stereo jack is similar to a mono jack, but it's equipped with a third lug and a second (shorter) bent flange. The latter acts as a power switch for active pickup systems by connecting and disconnecting the third lug when a standard 1/4" plug is inserted or removed from the stereo jack. For example, when the black (negative) wire of a battery snap is soldered to the third lug, inserting a 1/4" plug into the jack engages the battery by connecting the negative battery wire to ground and completing the circuit.
The TRS jack functions like a stereo jack with the addition of a fourth lug and third flange that allow you to add a second pickup source. By using a stereo cable and TRS plug, you can independently control these two sources. This is useful when you want to send each to its own preamp, direct box, or amplifier.
A common use for a TRS jack is in an acoustic guitar that has an under-saddle pickup, as well as an onboard microphone or a body sensor. For electric guitars, the TRS jack works great for using magnetic pickups in conjunction with a bridge configured with piezo-pickup saddles, like the L.R. Baggs X-Bridge.
Power jacks attach directly to a preamp and can have either a stereo or TRS configuration, and some preamps are housed within a barrel jack. Power jacks are found in many different systems, including the L.R. Baggs Active Element, Fishman Matrix, and Taylor ES1 and ES2. Because most power jacks are soldered to a printed circuit board, they are difficult to replace without damaging the electronics. If a power jack fails, your best option is to replace the entire unit.
How do I wire this thing?
Photo 2
With the exception of the power jack, all of these are simple to wire if you take the time to map them out. All of them will have a ground and a primary lead, but they differ in other ways. Here's a breakdown of those details:
- Mono jack: The ground lug is attached to the case and the primary lead lug connects to the bent flange (Photo 2).
Photo 3
- Stereo jack: The ground lug attaches to the case; the primary lead is the short lug that connects to the longer bent flange, and the long lug is the power/battery switch that connects to the short bent flange. Photo 3 shows the wiring for a stereo open jack.
Photo 4
And Photo 4 is a stereo barrel jack.
Photo 5
- TRS jack: The ground lug attaches to the case. The primary lead is the short lug connected to the bent flange, and the medium power/battery lug connects to the short bent flange. The longest lug connects the secondary pickup to an isolated output (Photo 5).
Okay, got all that? Great—someday there will be a test ... and you'll be ready.
[Updated 9/9/21]
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We know Horsegirl as a band of musicians, but their friendships will always come before the music. From left to right: Nora Cheng, drummer Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein.
“It was kind of life-changing, honestly. It changed how I thought about womanhood,” Lowenstein says over the call, laughing a bit at the gravitas of the statement.
But the moment of levity illuminates the fact that big things are happening in their lives. When they released their debut album, 2022’s Versions of Modern Performance, the three members of Horsegirl were still teenagers in high school. Their new, sophomore record, Phonetics On and On, arrives right in the middle of numerous first experiences—their first time living away from home, first loves, first years of their 20s, in university. Horsegirl is going through changes. Lowenstein notes how, through moving to a new city, their friendship has grown, too, into something more familial. They rely on each other more.
“If the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band, without any doubt.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“Everyone's cooking together, you take each other to the doctor,” Lowenstein says. “You rely on each other for weird things. I think transitioning from being teenage friends to suddenly working together, touring together, writing together in this really intimate creative relationship, going through sort of an unusual experience together at a young age, and then also starting school together—I just feel like it brings this insane intimacy that we work really hard to maintain. And if the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band without any doubt.”
Horsegirl recorded their sophomore LP, Phonetics On and On, at Wilco’s The Loft studio in their hometown, Chicago.
These changes also include subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in their sophisticated and artful guitar-pop. Versions of Modern Performance created a notion of the band as ’90s college-rock torchbearers, with reverb-and-distortion-drenched numbers that recalled Yo La Tengo and the Breeders. Phonetics On and On doesn’t extinguish the flame, but it’s markedly more contemporary, sacrificing none of the catchiness but opting for more space, hypnotic guitar lines, and meditative, repeated phrases. Cheng and Lowenstein credit Welsh art-pop wiz Cate Le Bon’s presence as producer in the studio as essential to the sonic direction.
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little.”–Nora Cheng
“We had never really let a fourth person into our writing process,” Cheng says. “I feel like Cate really changed the way we think about how you can compose a song, and built off ideas we were already thinking about, and just created this very comfortable space for experimentation and pushed us. There are so many weird instruments and things that aren't even instruments at [Wilco’s Chicago studio] The Loft. I feel like, definitely on our first record, we were super hesitant to go into territory that wasn't just distorted guitar, bass, and drums.”
Nora Cheng's Gear
Nora Cheng says that letting a fourth person—Welsh artist Cate Le Bon—into the trio’s songwriting changed how they thought about composition.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Devices Plumes
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- TC Electronic Polytune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Phonetics On and On introduces warm synths (“Julie”), raw-sounding violin (“In Twos”), and gamelan tiles—common in traditional Indonesian music—to Horsegirl’s repertoire, and expands on their already deep quiver of guitar sounds as Cheng and Lowenstein branch into frenetic squonks, warped jangles, and jagged, bare-bones riffs. The result is a collection of songs simultaneously densely textured and spacious.
“I listen to these songs and I feel like it captures the raw, creative energy of being in the studio and being like, ‘Fuck! We just exploded the song. What is about to happen?’” Lowenstein says. “That feeling is something we didn’t have on the first record because we knew exactly what we wanted to capture and it was the songs we had written in my parents’ basement.”
Cheng was first introduced to classical guitar as a kid by her dad, who tried to teach her, and then she was subsequently drawn back to rock by bands like Cage The Elephant and Arcade Fire. Lowenstein started playing at age 6, which covers most of her life memories and comprises a large part of her identity. “It made me feel really powerful as a young girl to know that I was a very proficient guitarist,” she says. The shreddy playing of Television, Pink Floyd’s spacey guitar solos, and Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan were all integral to her as Horsegirl began.
Penelope Lowenstein's Gear
Penelope Lowenstein likes looking back at the versions of herself that made older records.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Westwood
- EarthQuaker Bellows
- TC Electronic PolyTune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex 1.0 mm
Recently, the two of them have found themselves influenced by guitarists both related and unrelated to the type of tunes they’re trading in on their new album. Lowenstein got into Brazilian guitar during the pandemic and has recently been “in a Jim O’Rourke, John Fahey zone.”
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument,” Lowenstein says. “And hearing what the bass in those guitar parts is doing—as in, the E string—is kind of mind blowing.”
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little,” Cheng adds. “And also Lizzy Mercier [Descloux], mostly on the Rosa Yemen records. That guitar playing I feel was very inspiring for the anti-solo,[a technique] which appears on [Phonetics On and On].”This flurry of focused discovery gives the impression that Cheng and Lowenstein’s sensibilities are shifting day-to-day, buoyed by the incredible expansion of creative possibilities that setting one’s life to revolve around music can afford. And, of course, the energy and exponential growth of youth. Horsegirl has already clocked major stylistic shifts in their brief lifespan, and it’s exciting to have such a clear glimpse of evolution in artists who are, likely and hopefully, just beginning a long journey together.
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“In your 20s, life moves so fast,” Lowenstein says. “So much changes from the time of recording something to releasing something that even that process is so strange. You recognize yourself, and you also kind of sympathize with yourself. It's a really rewarding way of life, I think, for musicians, and it's cool that we have our teenage years captured like that, too—on and on until we're old women.”
YouTube It
Last summer, Horsegirl gathered at a Chicago studio space to record a sun-soaked set of new and old tunes.
