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Location: North Carolina | I just purchased my first amp off of ebay. I never used one before so I'm not sure what all the knobs are used for. In particular the clean, gain, high, mid, low, and reverb. I've been playing around with it a little but I'm interested in what exactly the controls do versus trying to figure what sound best.
Dave |
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Location: Netherlands | Dave,
You don't write what type/brand it is, so i could be wrong with the clean/gain options, but here we go:
Each amp has two amplification stages, the pre-amp and the post-amp. If it has separate distortion(overdrive) and clean channels it has 2 or three pre-amps and 1 postamp (there are exceptions however).
My guess is you have a two channel amplifier, i.e. with two pre-amps. You should be able to switch between the two if this is the case. Probably there is a 'Master' Or 'Volume' as well, which lets you adjust the level of post-amplification, which is the overall volume you'll hear.
The clean and gain controls let you adjust the amount of pre-amplification. I guess 'clean' lets you adjust the clean channel and the gain lets you adjust the od channel. They let you control the 'color' of the sound without increasing the overall volume to much. The master or volume should adjust this.
Reverb is for the level of reverberation. The pre-amplified signal usually is sent through a spring reverb, which has two metal springs that vibrate when a signal is run through it. It makes a sound resembling an echo like playing in a hall or a room. Turning it to 0 makes it go away (very 'dry' sound). NEVER kick or smash or put your amp down when you have the reverb higher than 0. This can result in speaker damage resulting from the springs smashing into each other.
Low, Mid and High, what can i say about them.
Low= Bass (gives more bass and kick)
Mid= Mid (gives more punch or attack)
High= Treble (gives more highs, more compression as well in some cases).
Hope this helps.
Martin |
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Location: North Carolina | Martin,
Thanks it helps a lot. It's just a small Rogue GS-20R practice amp. I wanted to plug my Balladeer Special into something to finally use the electronics.
Your reply did raise another question. I have a preamp on the quitar and you mentioned a preamp on the amp itself. Is there 2 preamps.
Dave |
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Location: Yerington,NV | Hey Martin,I'm new to the E/A seen. I just got a great deal off e-bay.Some girl,I guess she didnt know what she was selling (Probably her ex's)I picked up 2 fender amps for $205 + shipping. First is a frontman 25r and the best is a cyber deluxe!Anyway's would you know if either of these would make an good acoustic amp?
Thank's F.Bailey |
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Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | F.B. The differences between amps designed for acoustic guitars and electric guitars have been discussed at length pretty recently, try a search on "acoustic amps" or something similar. Both the amps you bought are fine for their intended purpose, but are less than ideal for electro-acoustic guitars.
DPM, the preamp on your guitar is basically a "buffer" or impedance matching transformer. The preamp on a guitar amp controls the gain (strength of incoming signal) of the input stage. Same term for 2 completely different things, so it can be a little confusing. If you must use an electric guitar amp for an elecric-acoustic set the master volume pretty high and the input gain (channel preamp) low, then use the guitar's preamp gain to set the volume you need. That will prevent the channel preamp overdriving the output stage. |
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Location: SoCal | There have been numerous discussions on this subject. Do a search through the archives for some very good reading. |
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Location: Netherlands | F. Bailey,
If you don't like the cyber deluxe to go with your E/A, please ship it to me. I think I will be able to find some way to use it. :)
Seriously, there have been some discussions about this as Paul T says, some of them recently. Try a search, it'll shed some light on the subject.
Martin |
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Location: NJ | rogue = yuck |
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Location: North Carolina | Thanks for your help everyone. Even though I was critisized on my amp selection. Hey, it was cheap. ;) |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Dave, I'm hip. I have an old Kustom practice amp with an 8" speaker. I think I might have spent $50.00 on it. Rocks my little den of iniquity quite well! |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | Someday we may want to post about the cheap little amps we have played, I had a little Silvertone with my lap steel that probably had a 6" speaker in 1952, my daughter just brought a little tube amp that she wanted to use for her acoustic/electric Yamaha that sounded pretty good once we got it working, 6 or 8 in. speaker, weird little 50's or 60's thing, but nice sound for setting around the house and pickin'. Any comments on the amp that worked at home, but maybe wouldn't make the club scene. (I did play my little lap steel amp on a radio show in the 50's when local radio played live bands, the rest of the guys were playing acoustic so it worked OK.)
Bailey |
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Location: Netherlands | My first amp was a very little noname amp (also 6") with no reverb but WITH a tremolo effect.
I bought it for 45 guilders (at the time about $ 15,-) from a friend's brother and traded it in for a Session Rockette (with reverb and overdrive, which i was particularly interested in at the time). My cousin heard this, told me i should have told him first, ran off to the store and bought it back for 60 guilders because he liked the tremolo. This is 18 years ago.
I don't know if he still has it, but i've always regretted trading it in. It had a very unique sound to it.
Martin |
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Location: North Carolina | My little cheap amp ($37) plays great in the living room. The only public playing I do is in church and they wont let us plug in since we drown the singers out.
Martin, What part of the Netherlands do your live in. I spent some time visiting back in 82 while on vacation.
Dave |
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Location: Netherlands | Since a year I have lived in Almere, A new town which was founded in '77, so there was not much of it when you were in Holland in '82. Now we have 170.000 inhabitants. It's near Amsterdam (sure you've been there). That's where i lived before moving to Almere. Originally i come from the suburbs of Rotterdam, one of the world's largest mainports.
Martin |
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Location: NJ | Martin;
Isn't that where the huge, International Flower Market is? (or is it Alsmere?).
My ex-wife and I used to be in the flower business years ago and used to get weekly shipments directly from there. Very impressive place! At the time, we had hoped to get over there and see it, but could never get away from the business long enough.
Anyway, back on topic:
My first amp (in high school) was an early 70's Traynor YBA-1 bass amp driving a 6x10" Traynor cabinet. (At the time I was playing a Hofner "Beatle" bass - that I wish I still had).
Lost that amp in the "Flood of '84". |
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Location: Netherlands | Cliff, almost got it. You mean Aalsmeer. It's on the other side of Amsterdam from where I live, about 50 km from here. They still do flowers, but they also house Endemol nowadays, one of the worlds bigger TV/musical/multimedia production companies. I think they make more money out of them then from the flowers.
Martin |
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Amps