Joe teaches an important lesson!

Jackyrhode · Aug 6, 2014

Kenny Wayne Shepard and Derek Trucks also started really young.

sglp63 · Aug 7, 2014

KennyF said:
Thanks much to Joe for "beautifully illustrating my point", which has always been, "the guitar has knobs for a reason, use 'em"... eace2

Interesting. I always thought that the main purpose of the various knobs - and neck humbuckers for that matter - was to hide blemishes in the wood or finish.

mistersnappy · Aug 7, 2014

Cogswell said:
I think the use of an amp w/plenty of headroom is part of the equation just as Joe said. Jerry Garcia used a truckload of Twins w/JBLs. He said it wasn't to be loud, it was for the headroom. He wanted every nuance to be articulated.
Very cool video, Joe. It inspires me to sit down w/an LP, a cord, & an amp. In a pinch I still might hit the Micro Amp, lol

+1 Same with Dickey, I'm pretty sure. That and because PA systems couldn't really project they way they do now.

Xpensive Wino · Aug 7, 2014

sglp63 said:
Interesting. I always thought that the main purpose of the various knobs - and neck humbuckers for that matter - was to hide blemishes in the wood or finish.

:rofl

Doc Sausage · Aug 9, 2014

I'm not sure I completely understand headroom. It always seems to me that lowering the volume of the guitar attenuates its very attributes. So, crank the amp, lower (or control) the guitar's volume?

For me, say your guitar has a nice PAF-like bite. Lowering the guitar volume just seems to kill the humbucker bite. Or any other effect you may chose to use or not. What am I missing here?

Xpensive Wino · Aug 9, 2014

Doc Sausage said:
I'm not sure I completely understand headroom. It always seems to me that lowering the volume of the guitar attenuates its very attributes. So, crank the amp, lower (or control) the guitar's volume? For me, say your guitar has a nice PAF-like bite. Lowering the guitar volume just seems to kill the humbucker bite. Or any other effect you may chose to use or not. What am I missing here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b871FRjDWAs

JBLPplayer · Aug 9, 2014

Headroom... Think of it in terms of a car. If you have a car that has 100 horsepower and a car with 500 horsepower and a big ole hill to climb. The car with 100 HP will sure have to work a whole lot harder to make. Same goes with an amp. The more wattage the amp has ( to a point) the cleaner and clearer the sound will be. Paul Kossoff, Mike Bloomfield and Clapton did it the best for me. :salude
Joe B

Black58 · Aug 10, 2014

JBLPplayer said:
If you have a car that has 100 horsepower

.. you're in deep shit on most modern highways! :wah

:rofl

goldtop0 · Aug 10, 2014

The '60s players Eric, Jimi et al let rip with everything all the way up(sometimes or mostly) on stage.......no headroom with that as it's all gone from the amp, that's sheer volume overdrive. But in the studio that's where the discernible tone was achieved with their various recordings, showing the dynamics of the guitar/amp combination with sometimes clean playing and then going into the overdriven sound using up the headroom of the amp(which to me is as cleaner tone as possible leading into an overdriven sound being controlled by the pickups volume primarily and latterly the tone controls of the guitar through non MV amps).

yeti · Aug 10, 2014

Doc Sausage said:
I'm not sure I completely understand headroom. It always seems to me that lowering the volume of the guitar attenuates its very attributes. So, crank the amp, lower (or control) the guitar's volume?

For me, say your guitar has a nice PAF-like bite. Lowering the guitar volume just seems to kill the humbucker bite. Or any other effect you may chose to use or not. What am I missing here?

goldtop0 said:
The '60s players Eric, Jimi et al let rip with everything all the way up(sometimes or mostly) on stage.......no headroom with that as it's all gone from the amp, that's sheer volume overdrive.

here's my opinion on this:
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, goldtop0 but a cranked amp onstage doesn't have less headroom than a halfway cranked amp. It's not numbers as in "Oh, I got 5 more to go if I want to" That's not headroom. Headroom is level reserves above a reference level. With regards to guitar amplification it defines how much volume can you get above what you generally need to have. Headroom with guitar amps is when you
A: dial your normal tones at desirable volume (reference volume level with room to spare on that guitar's volume knob and
B: combine that with an amp that can
1: respond to picking dynamic without reaching it's limits and
2: have enough juice left to deal with the inevitable "guitar volume on 9-10" onslaught, enough juice meaning there's a real noticeable (but not too much) volume increase. You want to be able to keep up with a drummer that get's excited. Small amps can be problematic that way.

For this to work you need
A: A guitar with useable controls (50's wiring or modern with decent treble bleed)
and
B:an amp that gives you sustain even when driven with low signals from guitarpots turned down to 2-3.
The classic NMV tubeamps amps excel at this, giving you a nice "pushback" from the transformer so the note always feels like it has that natural sustain. There's always a degree of compression. A great amp set to full and guitar volume at 1.5 will sing. It'll be clean but it'll sing.

Small amps just don't give you that much range live but in the studio this can all be dealt with. And in small rooms small amps definitely can sound bigger than big amps.
Just my opinion, as always.

goldtop0 · Aug 10, 2014

Couldn't have said it better myself yeti:2cool

Ed Kl · Aug 11, 2014

I understand and agree with the importance of a nice clean sound. But, at lower volumes with a high watt amp, the only way to get an over driven tone is with a pedal. And, that is why there are 750,000 pedals on the market--all claiming to be the next best thing. I just can't find pedals that match the natural driven sound of a good amp. I play a 65amps empire and find that pedals take away from the natural tone of the amp.

Ed

Tom Wittrock · Aug 11, 2014

Ed Kl said:
But, at lower volumes with a high watt amp, the only way to get an over driven tone is with a pedal.

Ed

Not if your amp has dual volume controls [like "drive" or "gain" with a master volume].

Ed Kl · Aug 11, 2014

Not if your amp has dual volume controls [like "drive" or "gain" with a master volume].

True, if you're ok with preamp overdrive, rather than power tube overdrive. But, to me that is just like pedal overdrive. To my ear, I simply prefer the sound of an amp that is driven to power tube overdrive.

Big Al · Aug 11, 2014

You would need special amps for each venue you play, sized right with just enough power.

I often hear people knocking master volume controls or pre amp overdrive and I find it amusing. In my 40 plus years in clubs, joints, dives, roadhouses and concert stages have driven home just how useful and great sounding a Master Volume control as well as chanel switching tube amp can be. Hell, I've used solidstate and hybrid versions too, with great results. I still use them and the gigs I've done and recordings I've made, using preamp distortion, sound fine and dandy thank you very much.

I also have many non master volume tube amps and utilize the same tone tweeks as JB. One doesn't exclude the other, IMO, and knowing how to use your guitar is a flippin' good thing!!!

I like power tube distortion too. But it is hard to do right all the time. It is only a flavor or type and many, many great tones have been laid down with pedals and preamp distortion. Too many to dismiss. Using gear correctly is more important than rigid adherence to a narrow slice of a big pie. What do you mean when you dismiss pedal drive or preamp drive? Like it is bad or less good than just whacking an amp on 10? Do you think of it as cheating somehow??

Why something as butt simple as using your dynamics and controling them and tone from the guitar, something EVERY guitarist should know, becomes an argument is just silly. Good video, good advise, good tone.

Ken Fortunato · Aug 11, 2014

Just an observation... What I see, all too often, is too much gain from a lot of guys... It seems that their perception of what they hear or what they remember, becomes somewhat skewed when they try to emulate it...

Also, performance dynamics appears to be absent from a lot of music these days...

I could be wrong... :jim

chuckNC · Aug 11, 2014

Big Al said:
You would need special amps for each venue you play, sized right with just enough power.

I often hear people knocking master volume controls or pre amp overdrive and I find it amusing. In my 40 plus years in clubs, joints, dives, roadhouses and concert stages have driven home just how useful and great sounding a Master Volume control as well as chanel switching tube amp can be. Hell, I've used solidstate and hybrid versions too, with great results. I still use them and the gigs I've done and recordings I've made, using preamp distortion, sound fine and dandy thank you very much.

I also have many non master volume tube amps and utilize the same tone tweeks as JB. One doesn't exclude the other, IMO, and knowing how to use your guitar is a flippin' good thing!!!

I like power tube distortion too. But it is hard to do right all the time. It is only a flavor or type and many, many great tones have been laid down with pedals and preamp distortion. Too many to dismiss. Using gear correctly is more important than rigid adherence to a narrow slice of a big pie. What do you mean when you dismiss pedal drive or preamp drive? Like it is bad or less good than just whacking an amp on 10? Do you think of it as cheating somehow??

Why something as butt simple as using your dynamics and controling them and tone from the guitar, something EVERY guitarist should know, becomes an argument is just silly. Good video, good advise, good tone.

+1. I almost posted about having multiple amps for different venues last night. You made some other points as well --and better than I would have. I agree with all of the above.

KennyF said:
Just an observation... What I see, all too often, is too much gain from a lot of guys... It seems that their perception of what they hear or what they remember, becomes somewhat skewed when they try to emulate it...

Also, performance dynamics appears to be absent from a lot of music these days...

I could be wrong... :jim

I won't disagree with you about the gain thing. Lots of discussion on this forum about which aftermarket PAF clone has the magic sound....and so many players running so much gain. Kinda like smothering a great steak in bbq sauce.

As far as dynamics are concerned....Light and shade is just as important in music as it is in art. It separates the good ones from the posers. And there aren't ever enough good ones, are there?

Ken Fortunato · Aug 11, 2014

chuckNC said:
I won't disagree with you about the gain thing. Lots of discussion on this forum about which aftermarket PAF clone has the magic sound....and so many players running so much gain. Kinda like smothering a great steak in bbq sauce.

As far as dynamics are concerned....Light and shade is just as important in music as it is in art. It separates the good ones from the posers. And there aren't ever enough good ones, are there?

Yes... And YES!!!

yeti · Aug 11, 2014

Ed Kl said:
I play a 65amps empire and find that pedals take away from the natural tone of the amp.

Ed

Big Al said:
.... Using gear correctly is more important than rigid adherence to a narrow slice of a big pie....

Why something as butt simple as using your dynamics and controling them and tone from the guitar, something EVERY guitarist should know, becomes an argument is just silly. Good video, good advise, good tone.

This is worth repeating. I see a lot of misplaced orthodoxy in some of these
"the right way to________" threads.
Using gear correctly doesn't mean that there's only one way. Never touching the tone and volume controls on a Lester isn't "wrong", using them like Joe B shows isn't "right", both approaches can yield great results. I know a guy who owns a beautiful '55 junior (surely a guitar that encourages knobtwiddling), yet the stageguitars he builds don't even have pots...., nothing, and me makes it work.
Same with amps and pedals. A cascading gain amp used properly will get results that are just as good as an old NMV amp. Also there's no such thing as using too much or too little distortion per se, only the musical context can be used to make that call. there are guys who use unbelieveable amounts of gain and sound very defined and articulate and there are guys with moderate amounts of gain who sound sloppy, and yes, sometimes sloppy can be the correct way to play.
But there are general guidelines nontheless.
most pedals will affect how your guitar interacts with the amp and how the guitars controls work because the have buffers. If they're "true bypass", they'll create a host of other problems so when someone says that he doesn't like pedals one of the reasons could be that his guitar feels different playing through them. Same for MV amps. I know I prefer no pedals or pre-amp gain/ drive controls in the chain, the feel is just more immediate.

Pat Boyack · Aug 11, 2014

Ed Kl said:
I understand and agree with the importance of a nice clean sound. But, at lower volumes with a high watt amp, the only way to get an over driven tone is with a pedal. And, that is why there are 750,000 pedals on the market--all claiming to be the next best thing. I just can't find pedals that match the natural driven sound of a good amp. I play a 65amps empire and find that pedals take away from the natural tone of the amp.

Ed

TW59 said:
Not if your amp has dual volume controls [like "drive" or "gain" with a master volume].

Depending on the amp those two volume controls are worse that a pedal. Fender amps are the worst at this. Just horrible. Some Marshalls are the same way. It seems that the amp manufacturers in the high end market do a better job as of late but it still doesn't sound better then the natural amp gain one would get with driving the power tubes.

Ed Kl said:
True, if you're ok with preamp overdrive, rather than power tube overdrive. But, to me that is just like pedal overdrive. To my ear, I simply prefer the sound of an amp that is driven to power tube overdrive.

Exactly.

Big Al said:
You would need special amps for each venue you play, sized right with just enough power.

I have an amp for every occasion....high power, medium and low. It isn't uncommon.

Big Al said:
I often hear people knocking master volume controls or pre amp overdrive and I find it amusing.

It's a matter of opinion. I don't like the sound of a master volume for the most part. It sounds fake and compressed along with an annoying fuzz. On my amps that have a master I only use it in a very minimal sense. Like taking it down to 75-80% max.

For years I used a '65 Super Reverb with no pedals other than the occasional tremolo pedal. That was the only amp I had so it didn't matter the size of the room, I had to adjust. That's where you learn about the volume knobs on the guitar, by actually using it in a working environment. These days I have a pedal board but the same rules apply. Like I stated earlier, people don't even know I have pedals unless they see the board. It's how you use them is what matters.

Years ago I did a festival and the band I was in was headlining. Joe B played right before us and his board (which was actually two put together) was about 3-4 feet wide, but he still used the same techniques that he talked about in this vid.

Joe teaches an important lesson!

New member

Active member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Active member

New member

Well-known member

yeti

Guest

Well-known member

Member

Les Paul Forum Co-Owner

Member

Well-known member

Administrator

New member

Administrator

yeti

Guest

Well-known member