tgifntx Posted June 4, 2009 Report Share Posted June 4, 2009 Sorry to come off like a dummy. What is the reasoning and/or purpose in using a preamp with a guitar rig? Please excuse the numb skull... I just never really understood why or what for. Thanks for your patience and help!:P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWANG Posted June 5, 2009 Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 a guitar amp has a preamp. when you add a preamp, you're adding another gain stage. some people use them just to warm up the sound some more.. some to overdrive/distort. Many amps have several preamp tubes in them.. gain stages.. you get hellacious sustain, thick tone, and all kinds of distortion. I used my presonus blue tube, stereo tube preamp, with one channel for my microphone.. and one going to my bass amp. with the mic, I just warmed up my vocals better than the solid state pres in the mixer could do.. and same thing with the bass, but also able to drive it harder. TWANG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgifntx Posted June 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 TWANG- Oh, Okay. I gotcha! Is there an element of uhoh too much. Wouldn't a person be looking at over driving a cab/cabs? Thanks for the cool info! I sure appreciate ya! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWANG Posted June 5, 2009 Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 You don't actually raise the wattage.. so the speakers, though they may have more demanded of them, are not going over their rating at all. there's solid state and theres, tubes.. and combinations.. and they all have different specs. Some distortion is not good distortion. like the kind that happens when you don't follow spec for this stuff. You know what I mean.. like the trim pot on a PA channel. Turn it one way and the mic is barely audible.. turn it the other way and it feeds back like mad or distorts like mad. too much or too little. Different amps have different specs. But, you can pretty much daisy chain a bunch of pedals.. all of which have boost.. with different results, of course depending on their specs. So there's actually several uh oh too much scenarios. starting with ugly sound.. or feedback.. or incompatibility of tone or power.. or actual abuse.. If you've got something in mind. this can be made more clear. Like 'will my metal pedal overdrive my solid state amp..' sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes it just sucks! TWANG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgifntx Posted June 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2009 TWANG- Righteous info!! I just didn't know what the reasoning was in some folks' rigs I'm reading about. Hmmm... Sure food for thought. I did check on the presonus equipment tho. Purdy nice!! Thanks, I sure appreciate your explanation! Have just a Super weekend! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larkin38 Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 I can`t really remember how we did it..... But me and a friend made a preamp out of two old style tube radios in the late 1970`s. They both went thru a Fender Deluxe and Fender Champ. (Wish I still had them) They made those amps growl. They both broke after a while and we threw them away. Sadly my friend has passed away and I have no idea how this was done. Of course the cost of an old tube radio now would be prohibited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgifntx Posted June 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 larkin38- Ahaah, You guys started the craze... I only kid ya. I read thru some posts where one guy in particular was describing how he made several attempts at creating his "frankenstein" amp(s). Of course you're just reading... But, The descriptions he gave of getting the crud shocked out of himself were unbelievably funny! He talked about seein' stuff and his tongue getting burned... Man, I was on the floor gaspin fer air! Yeah, Can you imagine if you guys would have been able to film document it! Too cool!! Real sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWANG Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 working on a vj .. the two scariest things were powering it up.. guts in chassis facing me.. and a resistor went from pretty gray with stripes to bright orange.. glowing hot! The other time I wondered what went wrong, opened up the amp and found slightly dark resistor.. so I plugged it in.. and watched a cement block resistor crumble into dust before I could shut it back down. One cost me a new power transformer. The other just scared the crap out of me. TWANG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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