# Guitar/Tone and Volume

## 3 zones of distortion

The starting point for dialing-in various electric Rock guitar tone is
not a crystal-clean full-range amplifier and speaker, but rather, a tube
power amp pushing a guitar speaker that has limited frequency response,
with the power tubes on the edge of breakup.

With power-tube distortion, and to a lesser extent with preamp tube
distortion or solid-state distortion pedals, there are three zones:
Clean, Compressed, and Distorted, somewhat corresponding to the terms
Clean, Crunch or Rhythm, and Lead. The Clean zone ranges from literally
clean with linear response, to the beginning of warmth and some
smoothing and coloration. The Compressed zone ranges from slightly warm,
smoothed, and colored, into slightly audible distortion. The Distorted
zone runs from slight breakup to full distortion. Mathew laframboise

## Controlling distortion voicing

An electric guitar has a volume control and tone control. The volume
control almost always has a side-effect on equalization as you turn it
down, affecting the pre-distortion equalization (EQ). The tone control
reduces the amount of treble, affecting the pre-distortion EQ and thus
the distortion voicing.

For increased control of the pre-distortion EQ, place an equalizer pedal
in-between the guitar and the first distortion stage such as a
distortion pedal or the guitar amp\'s built-in preamp. Switch between
all the pickup settings, in conjunction with changing the distortion
settings and EQ settings, to use the full range of basic sounds or
\"tones\" the amp can produce.

The preamp Gain control on the distortion channel of the amp, or the
Distortion control on a distortion pedal, sometimes has a side-effect of
changing the equalization and thus the distortion voicing. In that case,
you can use a lower distortion setting combined with a higher volume
setting prior to the distortion stages, to dial-in a different
distortion voicing with the same amount of distortion.

The tone stack on a standard tube amp is in-between the preamp
distortion and the power-tube distortion. Thus the tone stack acts as
the final part of shaping the preamp distortion voicing and also shapes
the power-tube distortion voicing, together with the Master Volume
control, which affects the amount of power-tube distortion voicing. For
maximum power-tube distortion, set the tone controls and Master Volume
to maximum, which is equivalent to bypassing them entirely.

When setting the preamp distortion, learn all the ways to adjust the
equalization before the preamp distortion, including the guitar\'s
volume and tone controls, a wah pedal, an equalization pedal, and any
other volume or tone controls prior to the distortion stage. These
affect the distortion voicing. More treble causes the treble to
predominate in the complex clipping, resulting in a glassy liquid
breakup tone; more bass prior to a distortion stage causes a dry, crusty
breakup tone.

The same principles hold for controlling the power-tube distortion
voicing. Learn all the ways to affect the equalization and level prior
to the tube power amp, but after the preamp distortion.

## Obtaining distortion independently of volume

To get power-tube distortion quietly or independently of volume level,
use a power attenuator or an amplifier that has a built-in power
attenuator, or a built-in power-supply based power attenuation (Power
Scaling, Power Dampening, a Sag circuit, or a Variac).

It is possible to further voice the power-tube distortion by placing a
dummy load (usually a power attenuator set entirely to use its built-in
dummy load), an equalizer, and then a solid-state power amp between the
power tubes and the guitar speaker.

A guitar speaker is a complex dynamic filter and transducer. Line-level
cabinet simulators attempt to simulate this complex dynamic sound.

In the recording studio, the amp head and speaker cabinet are typically
separated and the miked speaker cabinet is placed with microphones in a
soundproofed isolation booth or in the live room. Either location is a
soundproofed room separate from the control room where the mic signals
return and the full-range monitor speakers reside for listening to the
resulting power-tube distortion sound or loud quasi-clean amp sound at a
controlled volume. In a home studio, the guitar speaker is sometimes
placed in an isolation box with microphones.

Place one or two microphones near the guitar speaker. If you use two
microphones, this causes some complex comb filtering; be prepared to
swing the mixer\'s equalization for the two channels around very freely,
because the effects of comb filtering are unpredictable. If you use a
single microphone, setting the mixer\'s equalization is more
straightforward.

