What the HELL is he talking about?! (General gear-related help wanted!)

[ghost_of_karelia]

Hello!

Basically, I'm looking for someone to give me a fundamental understanding of guitar gear. This sounds extremely broad... and, well, it is. Let me clarify as best I can:

This all came about after reading an article someone posted in another section of the forum about a rig run-down Teemu Mäntysaari did of the stuff Wintersun uses on tour. Reading through it, it was all dazzlingly interesting... but I had absolutely no clue what he was saying 95% of the time. I just didn't know what most of the stuff was.

So yeah. Let me clarify that I'm not looking for a gear-whiz (although I'm sure there are many of said skilled whizzes on this forum) to come and answer it all in one post on this thread, I'm looking to get in contact with someone over Skype (preferably) who is patient enough to answer all of my irritating beginner's questions about various aspects of guitar gear - whether they be stage-oriented or studio-oriented over a few weeks and/or months. It would also be nice to get to know said person, as a fellow guitar player!

Cheers in advance!

 

[Given To Fly]

There is so much collective knowledge on this forum that you will probably learn more by asking 1 question and getting multiple replies. This usually leads to more questions with more replies until pretty soon you are the one giving the answers. We are all friendly for the most part.

 

[vick1000]

Here's the fundimentals

You hit the string, the string vibrates and causes current to flow out of the pick ups.

This current in called a signal. it is the source of your tone, and is effected by everything in it's path, as well as your playing style (how you make the string vibrate).

The signal passes throught the electronics in your guitar, and is altered in tonality by various components inside it, and the pick ups as the source as well. Impedance values of those components change the tone, the volume and tone pots, the capacitor on your tone pot and/or volume pot if present, all change the impedance and tone of the signal. High capacitance or impedance/resistance, alters the tone again.

The signal departs the guitar through the output jack through a cable, this cable also has capacitance and impedance, altering the tone again.

The signal enter the device next in the chain, whether it be a pedal of some sort, or the input jack on preamp of some sort. This preamp can be part of a complete amplifier, or a preamp device such as a rackmount/pedal preamp, or a modeling device such as a POD or AxeFX, etc...

Now it would serve you well to learn about clipping of the signal. Clipping is more commonly known as distortion. If you look at the signal on a scope, it will appear as wave such as ~ the tilde symbol there. When the peaks of the waves, the top and bottom parts, get larger vertically, they will eventually clip, this looks like a square, or like the top and bottom get chopped off. That's distortion. It can look very different than a simple clip, because you can add various sources and varoius types of clipping to the signal, altering how the distortion is perceived.

This is where boost pedals, and overdrives come in. They push the signal into clipping range before it enters the preamp, even if it's not beign clipped at that point. Sort of like trying to force an amount of liquid though a pipe that is greater than it can handle.

Other pedals and effects you don't want pre-exposed to clipping/distortion should come before any device that causes it, including the preamp. You can keep it clean, or add some clipping before the preamp itself, changing the tone gain in the process.

The preamp can add additional clipping through gain stages. In a tube amp, these are preamp tubes. They can be a single tube or none, like on a clean channel, or many tubes like on hi-gain amps. Each stage typically adding more gain (depending on the design), and altering the clipping and tone of the signal again.

In a solid state or digital modeller, the clipping comes from either, transistors, Integrated Circuits, or is digitally simulated in a processor.

Tubes react differently than ICs and processors. Tubes respond well to boosted signals, and clip that signal in a different fashion than solid state circuits. Depending on the design and the tube, the signal can sound more dynamic, responding to your playing style and guitar, than a solid state counterpart. Tubes actually react faster to signal changes than any solid state device.

After all the gain stages, the preamp is finished with the signal. The signal then will typically be exposed to effects, such as an EQ, reverb or delays. Effects you want not isolated from distortion/clipping, those effects you want altering the clipped signal.

The signal at this point, is not powerful enough to drive a speaker, it's not much stronger than waht we started with, coming out of the guitar (actually it's a hell of a lot stronger, maybe enough for some headphones, but not enough for our guitar cab).

Then the signal enters the power section, either the power section of an guitar amplifier (head/combo), or through the inputs on a power amplifier when using a stand alone preamp or modeling device.

The power section amplifies the signal, increasing the current of the relatively weak signal, to the point it can drive a speaker in open air. This is what the wattage rating of the power amp or guitar amp represents, it's ability to amplifiy the signals current.

Yes, the power section can alter the signal once again. Solid state power is generally more transparent, thus altering the signal much less than tubes. That's why solid state amps typically have such crystal clear cleans.

Power tubes on the other hand, can cause additional clipping, and can alter the tonality and harmonics based on thier plate structure, output values, and grid design.

Now the signal enters the final amplification/regualtion phase of the output tranformer. This device regulates the amount of amplified signal that leaves by way of the speaker outputs of the amplifier. The OT can alter tone again, though you won't be worrying about that too much, unless you are a completely hopeless gear head

It's important to know, that tubes amps require a fixed impedance load (resistance)from whatever they are driving. So you will have either multiple outputs with various impedance ratings, or an impedance switch, which must be matched to the speakers being driven. For example, you have a 4x12 wired to 8ohms, you must use an 8ohm jack or switch position, to prevent blowing the output tranformer.

Solid state actually benefits from lower impendace, increasing output as impedance is reduced. That's why you will see a wattage rating on the back near the speaker jacks, along with the associated impedance required for that rating. It is still recommended not to go below or above the amps designed impedance, usually also printed on the back, the output tranformer being at risk again.

Now it's important to know to use a speaker cable to connect your cab to your amp. Do not use a instrument cable. The signal is now so powerful, that the cable must not alter the resistance/impedance, for risk of damaging the output transformer. Skinny instrument cables will increase impedance, this is very bad.

Now that we get the the part where you ge to hear something besides the pick slapping the strings. The signal enters the cab and is sent to the speakers. Either to a single speaker/driver, or split in various ways to power all drivers. In multiple driver scenarios, the polarity and wiring formation will determine the overall impedance on that cable, and thus that output jack of the amp. This could be a thread in and of itself, so I will leave that aside.

The signal then powers the voice coil of the speaker, making the voice coil jump around a magnet, and tranfering that energy to the spaeker's cone, moving the air around it, and launching it toward your ear (or a microphone).

That's where the magic happens you see. Your mechanical energy from picking the string, get's turned into electrical energy, and is converted back into mechanical energy manifest as sound pressure, and greatly amplified.

The composition of the cone, the weight of the magnet, the amount of wire in the voice coil, the diameter of the cone and voice coil, all have an effect of the tone produced. Maybe more so than any other part of the system besides you hands.

I guess that about covers it, in a general sense anyway. Now start asking for specifics and everyone here can help you get the tone you are searching for.

 

[CD1221]

^ what he said.

Bloody great post.

 

[Scattered Messiah]

What vick1000 said whould give you a decent general overview.
General and very rough guideline:
the loudspeakers and the cabinet influence the sound most,
then you playing,
then the amp (in modern designs the preamp more then the poweramp),
then the effects,
then the pickups,
then the rest (guitar, strings, cables, tubes etc,...)

 

[WarMachine]

In my experience dude, there's no better teacher in guitar than said experience coupled with trial and error. If you are serious about chasing your tone, then you're going to burn through thousands of $$$. There's just no escaping it lol. Start simple, experiment with different pickups, speakers, amps, pedals. A perfect example of money wasted is...me I've been playing for 11 years and my rig is so simple now, but more flexible and crushing than it has ever been. Don't play too much into "this guy said its gnarly", that can get you into the right direction, but it can also take away that $$$ that you could be spending on something that you want to try out. If you have it available to you dude, just spend hours and hours and hours in music stores just jamming on all the shit they got to offer and above all else - have fun with it! There's no wrong rig or tone that can come from it, its all a preference thing. Good luck dude and give it hell!

 

[xfkx]

wintersun's rig rundown is more about the whole production of the show, backing tracks, signal routing and processing, in ear monitoring. Highly interesting stuff and quite difficult to wrap your head around.

start reading sound on sound or something like that

 

[protest]

I love when stuff is broken down like that because I then try to wrap my head around how someone originally figured it all out and put it together.

 

[Larrikin666]

I've run some pretty complex rigs before, and even I read through that rundown and hard a hard time thinking through everything they talked about.