As a beginner to using an amplifier, I found everything very confusing. The controls have strange names and I needed to do quite a bit of research to work out how to make sense of it all. This post will help you to understand the basics.
- Settings On An Amp: How Does Equalization Or Voicing Change The Sound?
- How Do An Amplifier And A Cigar Box Guitar Work Together?
- How Do I Connect My Headphones To My Amp?
- Channels On A Guitar Amp: What Are They For?
- High And Low Gain Inputs: Which Should I Use?
- The Gain Control Dial : What Does It Do?
- Volume Control And Gain Control: What’s The Difference?
- Pre-Amp Controls: What Do They Do?
- Lead Gain Controls: What Difference Do They Make?
- How Do I Connect An Effects Pedal?
- Reverb, Delay And Chorus: What Do They Do?
- Resonance And Presence Controls: Why Would I Use Them?
- Rhythm And Loop On A Combination Amp: A Good Choice?
Settings On An Amp: How Does Equalization Or Voicing Change The Sound?
Equalization is a way of altering the volume levels of certain frequencies. For instance, you might want to boost the bass relative to higher frequencies. Alternatively you could lower the volume of the bass frequencies to give a brighter sound.
Some amps have dials for equalization called Low, Mid and High. These are used to boost the bass, middle and treble frequencies on the lead channel.
Some amps have dials for voicing called bottom, bottom and edge. These are used to boost the low, middle and higher frequencies on the lead channel.
Some amps just have two controls, one for bass and one for treble. The mid range is fixed, but by altering the other two, you can get a good selection of different sounds.
As a beginner, try setting all the controls to mid range and then tweak each control until you get the sound you want.
Using lots of bass ( that is boosting the bass volume) gives a warm tone, especially good for playing chords but this can get a bit muddy sounding if you push it too high.
Boosting mid range frequencies makes the guitar stand out which is useful if you are playing with other instruments or a backing track.
If you play with lots of treble the sound is bright and crisp. This is good for a lead guitar. However, if the treble is set very high it can sound a bit harsh. If you are playing chords, they will sound warmer if you don’t have the treble set too high.
There is a setting used for metal and rock called “scooped” where the bass and treble are set high but with a low middle. This sound gives a good bass level with a bright sound. Although it is good for metal and rock, the lack of middle tones make the sound of the guitar disappear when playing with other instruments.
As each amp has a unique sound, it is more useful to say that for a certain sound it’s best to increase this dial or decrease that dial. Using actual numbers is OK if you are using the exact amp that is being described, but you won’t get the same sound described if you are using a different amp.
How Do An Amplifier And A Cigar Box Guitar Work Together?
When the string of the cigar box guitar vibrate, these vibrations are detected by a pickup.
For a piezo pickup placed under the box lid, often under the bridge, these vibrations are detected as the lid moves up and down. For a coiled pickup, such as a humbucker. the magnets within the pickup detect the movement of the metal strings themselves.
See this post for more information on the differences between piezo and coiled pickups
Either way, these electrical signals move from the output jack on the guitar and along the audio cable into the input jack of the amp. The input and output jacks are just convenient sockets for each end of the audio cable.
When the electrical signal reaches the amp it is a fairly weak signal that needs to be amplified. You can think of it as a rope being jiggled up and down to give a small wave that needs something to give it more energy to be a bigger wave.
Most amplifiers have something called a gain control ( or sometimes called drive) which allows you to control how much energy is given to this weak signal.
How Do I Connect My Headphones To My Amp?
There are adapters that change the size of the cable ends if required. eg You might find that you need an adaptor to enlarge the end of the wire on your headphones to fit into the headphone port. Headphones with a small (3.5mm) end can fit into a 1/4 inch (6.5mm adaptor) and then plug into the headphone port. This is one of my adaptors:
Channels On A Guitar Amp: What Are They For?
There are often two channels on the amp: one for a clean sound without much distortion and one for a dirty sound with lots of distortion. However, there can be more than two channels. These tend to be controlled by a dial rather than a push button.
You usually press the selection button in for the distortion channel. This can be called the overdrive channel or the lead channel.
There is often the option to use a remote foot switch to swap between these two channels. This means that it is easy to set up a distorted channel to just the sound you want and then use the foot pedal to play the clean channel without having to alter any dials. This is particularly useful if you are playing with others.
You can often increase the gain on the clean channel to get some distortion if you prefer that sound.
High And Low Gain Inputs: Which Should I Use?
My amp manual suggests using the high gain unless the instrument has an extremely high output. However I found that often the advice for an amp is to use the low gain if possible unless the volume is not loud enough.
The aim of the input choice is to reduce the distortion on the signal from the guitar that is going into the amp.
I suggest that you if you have a high and low gain input, check with your manual which input is preferred and experiment with your guitar.
Note that not all amps have 2 inputs.
The Gain Control Dial: What Does It Do?
The gain control is not the same as the volume control although it can seem that turning up the gain control makes the volume louder. Whereas the volume control makes the sound of the amp louder or quieter, the gain control affects the tone of the sound.
This is because the gain affects the volume of the input from the guitar to the amp. This means that it is really a measure of how sensitive the amp is to the sound from the guitar.
Remember that we learned that a guitar amp takes the weak signal from the guitar and turns it into a stronger signal that comes out of the speaker on the amp.
Turning up the gain increases the distortion of the sound. An amp with the gain set to high makes for what is known as a dirty sound, whereas an amp with the gain set to low will give a clean sound.
A clean sound wave is the same shape as the sound wave that went into the amp, it’s just that the wave is bigger.
A dirty sound wave is a different shape to the original sound wave. The top and bottom of the wave are flattened or “clipped”. The amp is then said to be in overdrive.
Volume Control And Gain Control: What’s The Difference?
If you turn the gain up to get a dirty tone, you can use the main volume control to turn down the volume. So you can have a quiet but distorted sound ( as well as a loud distorted sound)
Conversely, if you have the gain set to low for a clean sound, you can use the main volume control to turn up the volume. In this way you can have a loud but not distorted or clean sound.
For an amp without a gain control, the volume control tends to control the volume and the distortion together, so it is not possible to have a quiet distorted sound or a loud clean sound.
My old Peavey amp does not have a volume control labelled as such, but I can control the volume in other ways. For the lead channel, I use the post control. For the normal clean channel, I use the normal gain dial.
Pre-Amp Controls: What Do They Do?
Normal gain is to control the volume on the normal or clean channel.
The bright switch pre boosts the treble when pressed in for an extra-bright sound. This is similar to the presence control mentioned below.
The channel button selects the lead channel when pressed in and the normal channel when out. The lead channel is the one to use if you want to use lots of distortion. The normal channel is for a clean sound.
Lead Gain Controls: What Difference Do They Make?
Supersat is a special kind of distortion or gain. I’m not sure if unique to Peavey? I think so, in which case you might find your amp calls this something different. The lead channel must be activated to use this type of gain. Pulling out the Supersat dial gives access to extra gain for even more distortion.
The post dial increases the volume on the lead channel. This needs to be used after ( which is why its called “post”) the correct sound has been achieved as it is just to increase the volume.
How Do I Connect An Effects Pedal?
There are 2 effects jacks called send and return. These are the output and input jacks for external effects and you connect an effects pedal here.
Reverb, Delay And Chorus: What Do They Do?
These controls are not available on every amplifier, but here’s a brief description of what they do.
The reverb control controls the overall reverberation. This lifts the sound, making it sound fuller, almost like there is an echo, actually more like there are lots of little echoes. Some amps let you choose a set reverb level to make the guitar sound like it is playing in a large hall or small room.
Reverb is not quite the same as delay, but similar. Delay gives an echo effect.
The chorus makes a sound like lots of instruments are playing.
Resonance And Presence Controls: Why Would I Use Them?
A presence control (if you have one) boosts the treble and higher middle frequencies and a resonance control ( if you have one) boosts the lower frequencies.
The higher the presence, the brighter the sound. The lower the presence, the warmer the sound.
The higher the resonance, the warmer the sound. The lower the resonance, the brighter the sound.
Rhythm And Loop On A Combination Amp: A Good Choice?
Some amps have a built-in rhythm and loop facility, making it easy to setup a backing track to play along with. This is worth looking at if you intend to play mostly on your own and don’t want to get into buying extra effects pedals separately just yet.
Cheaper Versions Of Amps For Beginners
Many Cigar Box Guitar players like the Roland Microcube link here on amazon.com or link here on amazon.co.uk an many prefer the Vox Mini link here for amazon.com or link here for amazon.co.uk, but I already had a really old Peavey amp.
We don’t all have the money to buy big amps, even second hand, so you could try these options:
As my amp was so big, I bought this tiny one from amazon.co.uk also available on amazon.com here for easy movement around the house. It can work with a battery or on mains.
I bought my son this even tinier one that needs headphones from amazon.co.uk also available here on amazon.com