Amp/Sound Terminology

[thedentaldude]

Hey Guys,

I am new to the world of electric guitars and would appreciate some explaination of the terminology used in describing sound and amp controls.

These are the folowing I'm not so sure of:

Gain-

Crunch-

Dirty-

Clean-

Overdrive-

Presence-

Attenuation-

I think thats about it for now. Thanks in advance!

 

[LoKi]

Gain is used to describe the preamp volume on Master Volume amps. 'Gain' is how hot your input signal is going into your amp. It is also used on pedals sometimes instead of the more common 'Drive' control, which controls how much distorted or hot signal gets produced.

Crunch relates directly to gain. Too much gain and your signal gets crunchy. This is preferred by a lot of players.

Dirty is any sound that has some crunch.

Clean is a sound that has no crunch, just pure straight guitar signal into the amp and out of the speakers. Fender Twins are probably the most famous 'clean' tone amps. Roland Jazz Chorus being a close second.

Presence is the 'fizz' above your treble frequencies. Presence has different effects depending on whether or not you're using a high gain or clean amp. A good example of a fair amount of presence, and not too much treble on the EQ is Slash's tone. He uses a lot of mids, a little bass, hardly any treble and a fair amount of presence to fill in the signal. Presence can also be used to allow your guitar to be heard over a band. Too much presence can create squeeling, feedback and other undesirable noises in the high frequencies.

Attenuation in reference to amps is the reduction in amplitude and increase in signal. An Attenuator is used between the head and cabinet of a tube stack so you can crank the volume of amp to really get the power tubes hot *which adds a little more gain to the signal, but its more pleasing than preamp gain* but still keep the volume reasonable by using the control on the attenuator.

Hope some of that helps!

 

[thedentaldude]

Thanks LoKi! Makes sense to me now.

 

[gravmy0]

Gain is used to describe the preamp volume on Master Volume amps. 'Gain' is how hot your input signal is going into your amp. It is also used on pedals sometimes instead of the more common 'Drive' control, which controls how much distorted or hot signal gets produced.

Crunch relates directly to gain. Too much gain and your signal gets crunchy. This is preferred by a lot of players.

Dirty is any sound that has some crunch.

Clean is a sound that has no crunch, just pure straight guitar signal into the amp and out of the speakers. Fender Twins are probably the most famous 'clean' tone amps. Roland Jazz Chorus being a close second.

Presence is the 'fizz' above your treble frequencies. Presence has different effects depending on whether or not you're using a high gain or clean amp. A good example of a fair amount of presence, and not too much treble on the EQ is Slash's tone. He uses a lot of mids, a little bass, hardly any treble and a fair amount of presence to fill in the signal. Presence can also be used to allow your guitar to be heard over a band. Too much presence can create squeeling, feedback and other undesirable noises in the high frequencies.

Attenuation in reference to amps is the reduction in amplitude and increase in signal. An Attenuator is used between the head and cabinet of a tube stack so you can crank the volume of amp to really get the power tubes hot *which adds a little more gain to the signal, but its more pleasing than preamp gain* but still keep the volume reasonable by using the control on the attenuator.

Hope some of that helps!

thanks LoKi that's really helpful

anyone tell me a bit more about

"mid" ?

 

[lp59aholicDon]

Gain is an over all lift of both signal intensity as well as sensitivity , Its why when you crank up gain even smaller secondarly noises get amplified , Volume is just the rise of the intial signal in its intial form with little or no rise in actual sensivity Hence Fender Twins are NOT Gain monsters but tube volume monsters
in many modern amps a overdriving pre amp is created to give a simulation of what a smaller tube amp may give when its tubes have become over saturated with signal , that gives you " distortion" then that signal is amplifed through the main power supply, a larger post tube and or solid state amplifer
Attenuating an Amp Loki had pretty much dead on, This is taking a non master volume high gain amp and cranking it to maximum signal strength oversaturating all tubes to their break up points, then running that signal thru power resistors or a speaker driver to " Step them down " in wattage output without sacrificing much from the tones created by the over driven amp
These are very broken down and simplified answers ,
types of amps, Class A, Class A/B. Hybrid Amps, having both solid state and tube elements, and solid states solid states with digital pre amp processing and now digital pre amps with tube power amps , from Line Six ? Bogner

 

[LoKi]

thanks LoKi that's really helpful

anyone tell me a bit more about

"mid" ?

Mid is the frequencies between the low and high end. A guitar is a mid range instrument, so having mids adjusted well can make or break your guitar tone.

I prefer a lot of mids in my playing. Heavy metal, and nu-metal guys cut the mids out altogether and boost the bass and highs for that 'scooped' sound as they call it. Its very thick and has presence, but not full and hard to hear over a full band.

Some Class A amps cut out the mid control, leaving just bass and treble.

A little tip about EQ'ing... Cutting *or turning down* 1 value is the same as boosting another. So if you want more treble, or mids, you don't have to turn those knobs up, what you can do is actually turn the bass down and have the same effect.

A lot of guys forget this when they are mixing songs... and guitar players always think that more is better, so we tend to crank our settings as high as possible, even though the same sounds/tones can be had at lower settings, often with more control.

 

[gravmy0]

Mid is the frequencies between the low and high end. A guitar is a mid range instrument, so having mids adjusted well can make or break your guitar tone.

I prefer a lot of mids in my playing. Heavy metal, and nu-metal guys cut the mids out altogether and boost the bass and highs for that 'scooped' sound as they call it. Its very thick and has presence, but not full and hard to hear over a full band.

Some Class A amps cut out the mid control, leaving just bass and treble.

A little tip about EQ'ing... Cutting *or turning down* 1 value is the same as boosting another. So if you want more treble, or mids, you don't have to turn those knobs up, what you can do is actually turn the bass down and have the same effect.

A lot of guys forget this when they are mixing songs... and guitar players always think that more is better, so we tend to crank our settings as high as possible, even though the same sounds/tones can be had at lower settings, often with more control.

definitely going to keep that in mind
Thanks LoKi!