How To Get Agood Clean Sound On A Solid State Amplifier

Amplifiers and effects: how to go the best interactions

The same guitar and the aforementioned pedal sound in a unlike style depending on the amplifier they are plugged in!

That statement tin can seem obvious, but our sound expectations can actually be disappointed or satisfied based on how we amplify our instrument and effects. In this article we are focusing on the relation between amplifiers and pedals for electrical guitar, assuming the reader knows the topics covered in other articles of the Soundsation weblog about: effect chain organisation, involved electric quantities , kinds of buffer e bypass .

We are going to bargain with the matching of pedal effects (also called stompboxes) and guitar amplifiers in a succinct and comprehensible fashion, assuming the reader already knows the differences among the several pedal effects for guitar and bass players.

In this article we are going to focus on dynamic effects such as compressors, boosters, equalizers, overdrive and distortion boxes.

Big families of amplifiers

With regard to effect matching we can subdivide amplifiers in iv large families:

• Tube amps i: Fender Tweeds (Bassman) and early on Marshalls (JTM, JMP)
• Tube amps ii: Fender Blackfaces, Mesa/Boogie Marking series
• Multi-aqueduct amplifiers
• Solid-state and digital amplifiers

Premise

Earlier we keep, there are a description and a recommendation to exist done: a lot of guitar players, peculiarly hobbyists and collectors, tend to spend much more than coin in guitars than in amplifiers. Well, in my stance information technology would be worth adapting in our field an erstwhile adept HiFi dominion: the upkeep should be approximately divided fifty-fifty betwixt the player + amplifier pair and the speakers pair ( or monitors or playback , if y'all prefer). Carrying the concept to the electric guitar, let'southward spend on our amplifier (or caput and cabinet) a sum that is comparable to the i we take spent for the guitar! Always remember that a great amplifier makes a poor guitar sound adept, whereas a cracking guitar does not brand a poor amplifier sound skillful. Non only: the electronic part of the amplifier should be proportionate to the speaker (or cabinet), considering it affects about 50% of the total amp sonic outcome. Besides, a poor amplifier takes advantage of an splendid speaker, and an excellent amplifier is penalized by a poor speaker or ane that is unsuitable for our sound purpose. Extending the expressed concepts, using a pedalboard that is far more valuable than our amp is crazy: rest is the key to a quality sound, unless you are a creative musician out of every rule and context! Therefore, in this commodity I shall assume that your amplifier has an adequate quality to the guitar and effects that are connected to it.

Tube amplifiers - 1

The key concept to keep in mind from at present on is that some amplifier circuits have the equalisation section downstream from baloney, such as the ones I shall describe in this paragraph; other amps have the equalisation department upstream from baloney, such equally the ones in the next paragraph. This implies a substantial difference in audio behaviour and in the relation with event pedals.

Fender Tweed Bassmans and early on Marshalls broadly share the same circuit design, with tone controls later on the gain stage.'60s and '70s Marshall amps are ready apart for choices of closed cabinets with 12" speakers and EL34 power valves, that defined the British sound .

These amplifiers, their likes and derivates are cracking in digesting consequence pedals! Actually, we tin can say that pedals were born and developed with them in listen. If we connect a good booster , an overdrive , an analogue modulation effect nosotros will get a fat, warm, pervasive sound.

Managing filibuster and reverb effects can more troublesome. After all this was non planned past the fourth dimension these amplifiers were built-in, when delays came from tapes and reverbs from springs and plates. Permit's add to the cursory list the British very clean Hiwatts and warm Voxes.

Tube amplifiers – 2

Arriving to Fender Blackface amps (Twin, Palatial, Princeton, etc.), the choice of dynamic effects becomes a piffling more delicate. Ear wise these amps are divers by a cool content of bass and loftier frequencies, while mids are a picayune cut; their appreciated tone clarity is mostly due to this design. Their natural distortion thus tends to heighten bass and high bands, with the run a risk of loss of definition in the first range and harshness in the latter. A boost pedal will stress this basic features. Connected overdrive and distortion furnishings must have a warm and easily adjustable basic tone of ain. Remember it is always possible or appropriate to add the underrated EQ and pinch pedals to the effect chain.

The Mesa/Boogie Marker 1 was derived from the Blackface design (originally, a Princeton) with an adjustable gain circuit added, so the considerations I did can be applied to the Marking Series and to like two channel amplifiers (clean + cascade gain stages). Keep in mind that we have to dose the effects depending on the used aqueduct: overdrive and modulations are good on the make clean channel, and dynamic effects are generally fine if used on both channels, but always think there is a deviation. No wonder brand founder Randall Smith equipped some Marker models with a post-gain solid country graphic EQ; even if it works earlier the gain stages of the amp, a good equalization pedal is useful in defining a distorted bass range that tends to slump and a middle range that tends to alluvion.

Multi-channel amps

Modern multi-channel tube amplifiers usually offering a good all flavor compromise. The platonic affair could be a Greasepaint way clean channel, a Tweed/Marshall crunch and a Mesa (modded Blackface) or Soldano (modded JCM800) way atomic number 82 channel; or even far beyond according to personal taste, upwards to farthermost metallic. Given the higher up, it is easy to sympathize there is no single or easy solution.

Besides, you have to consider that preamp channels are not the just things that define the overall sound of our rig. It will alter according to the kind of ability amp (class, tubes, rectification) and speaker!

Permit's go along in mind that nosotros should have the possibility of checking guitar, amp and effects all together before making a choice. This is not easy in the days of online orders, but do not human activity in blind; instead acquire information from professionals, websites, blogs, videos (use good monitors) and online magazines.

Solid state and digital amps

From a depression budget bespeak of view, a skillful solid state amplifier can be the simply pick. Some of them are good indeed, just their make clean channel sound does not soften nether overdrive and booster push as tube amps do; so analog pedals providing a warm distortion and a soft set on are preferable.

This besides applies to adept part of digital amplifiers, especially cheap ones. In fact, a well done digital amp model should respond to pedals as its analogue reference, simply in that location remains the problem of the power amp and the speaker, oftentimes a broad band i to favour versatility. Though with certain exceptions, information technology is ameliorate then to utilise the onboard digital effects, that are conceived for that specific purpose.

Something nearly speakers

In society to get a good compromise, speaker option is central for interfacing effects, especially distortion ones. Exemplifying, a classic modification in Fender amps is the replacement of Jensen or Eminence speakers with Celestions, thus getting an easier and more pleasing distortion. Actually, nowadays most of the builders provide solutions for all tastes . Past example, in the years Mesa/Boogie has been offering its amps with different speakers: Electro-Phonation (extremely clean and sturdy), Eminence (suitable for many genres), Celestion (rock oriented). They are all named Black Shadows, but they are tonally unlike, in lodge to run across tastes and trends in music styles of the times.

A few rules

If y'all are looking for a good, balanced and versatile baloney, keep in mind that:

• uncomplicated amplifiers are preferable, if possible a good unmarried or dual channel at the most
• the more the amplifier is complex and full of settings and utilities, the harder is to fit it with pedals, because the summing of circuits leads to a loss of dynamics, the famed kick
• very clean and defined channels tend to be very bright besides; using the wrong overdrive could event in a harsh and mid-scooped baloney, that by way tin be useful for metal. Past case, two plain similar effects such as a Tube Screamer inspired overdrive and a British mode one give appreciably unlike results: fatter the first, thinner the 2d: which ane are we going to utilise with a Les Paul way guitar and… What amp?

• To vary the carte of combinations from our pedals and guitar, please consider the possibility of having more than one good amplifier and do good from dissimilar sounds from different circuitries and speakers.

Well, the last advice: mind to historic records and videos, peculiarly live ones, and look for reports near used equipment if they arouse your interest. Still never forget nearly the all-purpose technological concentrate on your desk-bound: information technology took decades of correct and wrong amp/outcome matching to put information technology at our disposal!

Fabrizio Dadò

Source: https://www.soundsationmusic.com/en/blog/amplifiers-and-effects-how-to-get-the-best-interactions

Posted by: beaverdonsinout.blogspot.com

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