anthony.gosnell wrote:

"Justin Ulysses Morse" wrote:

You're not a guitar player, are you?

Output volume level has almost nothing to do with where a guitarist
sets his amplifier's gain control.

If you want distortion you should overload your pre-amp. You would be much
better off getting a valve preamp and adding a couple of extra stages before
the output valves.

In general I agree, but I know plenty of guitarists who get fabulous
tone who do not agree. They like the distortion from power tubes and/or
speakers being stressed and/or cabinets resonating. The ones in that
group who are sensitive to SPL use little amps, speakers that are easily
overdriven and flimsy cabinets, or sealed cabs to pull doen SPL while
givng the amp something to wrestle with.

There is as little point in telling a guitarist how to get sound as
there would be telling a violinist what strings or which rosin to use.
We get good guitarists and ****ty guitarists, and good violinists and
****ty violinists, but it's their gig, not ours.

When the sound person starts speaking in terms of "You should..."
communication generally starts to deteriorate rapidly. There are many
highways to great amplified instrument sounds and often someone has
already chosen the route they prefer. I may or may not agree, but that's
life.

--
hank alrich * secret mountain
audio recording * music production * sound reinforcement
"If laughter is the best medicine let's take a double dose"