An Electric Guitar Alone Does Not An Instrument Make...

Raptor

Right, due to circumstances (not in a band, and living in a shared terraced house) I have spent the last several months playing either unplugged, or into a Microcube. Called into X Music this afternoon and spent a good while the the room of wonders - AKA the amp room.

It struck me, even though I'd swear by the Microcube as a practice tool, that its only at volume levels at which the dynamics of your playing can be identified are you REALLY playing the instrument. I play classical guitar also - and the amount of different sounds you can get from the way you attack the strings is massive.

Clean guitar for the most part you can get some such joy from a practice amp / headphones / whatever, but if you try going with any gain at all, it becomes more akin to ON / OFF playing, whereby any note you play will sound the same not matter what you do with the pick (to an extent)

Course this all means that I need to get playing at volume soon or I'll just crack up altogether

Your thoughts?

rcaz

Well, from my understanding of it, any sort of serious amounts of distortion, by the very nature of distortion, remove any dynamics.

From playing softer or turning the volume pot on your guitar down, you can get less-distorted, but at the same volume.

The distortion sound is the sound of clipping. I imagine it like putting a trampoline indoors. You turn the gain/distortion/whatever up, and you start jumping higher. Eventually you'll start hitting the ceiling, so the height of your jump can't get any higher - your jumps are clipped. So if nothing can get past the roof, that means your fundamental note - your biggest jumps - and your harmonics - your smaller jumps - can all still only go to the one maximum height. This is what I understand distortion as.

As you start jumping softer, you're being clipped less, you might only just be hitting the ceiling, but you'll still be reaching the same height. Height = amplitude = volume.

Sorry if the whole trampoline idea came across as patronising. I've never developed it that much, I writing as much for myself as for anyone else. I'd love if someone who knows more could tell me how accurate my ideas are.

Malice

I've lived and played in shared accommodation before and I found a good quality set of headphones helps a lot while playing. That way you can turn things up a good bit without annoying your housemates. Just make sure to play facing the door so that if someone is trying to get your attention, they can!

Dord

I don't really understand what you're getting at...

care to explain further?

Malice

Dord wrote: »

I don't really understand what you're getting at...

care to explain further?

Do you mean me or the OP?

Dord

well the op but if you know go ahead.. :pac:

Malice

Dord wrote: »

well the op but if you know go ahead.. :pac:

Fair enough, I think I'll let the OP clarify their post for you .

hulkey

Raptor wrote: »

Right, due to circumstances (not in a band, and living in a shared terraced house) I have spent the last several months playing either unplugged, or into a Microcube. Called into X Music this afternoon and spent a good while the the room of wonders - AKA the amp room.

It struck me, even though I'd swear by the Microcube as a practice tool, that its only at volume levels at which the dynamics of your playing can be identified are you REALLY playing the instrument. I play classical guitar also - and the amount of different sounds you can get from the way you attack the strings is massive.

Clean guitar for the most part you can get some such joy from a practice amp / headphones / whatever, but if you try going with any gain at all, it becomes more akin to ON / OFF playing, whereby any note you play will sound the same not matter what you do with the pick (to an extent)

Course this all means that I need to get playing at volume soon or I'll just crack up altogether

Your thoughts?

Getting an amp to sound great and dynamaic at distortion levels can be a bit of an art form.

The 'gain' on those practice amps are pretty bad though, they sound like bees in a jam jar. At the end of the day, they are only really for practice

Although if you get yourself a distortion pedal it will sound much better and you will be able to achieve more subtle dynamics in your playing, while distorted.

Stratocaster

I hope no one takes this the wrong way but you cant be making excuses. You have to make the most of what you have. There is noting wrong with playing at low volumes, even playing an electric guitar with no amp is good practice.

Low un distorted volumes will bring out all the sounds you don't want, fluff notes, fret and finger sounds. This stuff tends to get masked at high volumes within a band, some might find this difficult to understand.

If you cant master an electric guitar and make it sound dynamic etc at low to no volume you are only cheating your self, your relying on volume for your ability.

An amplifier only amplifies a sent signal, if that signal hasn't got dynamics of what ever your looking for, no amount of volume will bring it out.

I have a small blues junior and some simple pedals and regularly practice at low to no volume, I can do this for months I haven't noticed any effect when switching to greater volumes. Only for its louder, playing ability is much the same.

I guess it boils down to what style of music you play.

Stratocaster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oajNlhsul34

This is what I mean about, an amp only sends the signal it receives.

If you listen to the person playing, and you know his style, you might be surprised to know he's playing with little volume, could be no amp at all, but he still sounds the same at full blown volume. All the dynamics you will ever need are there at no volume. Bends, Hammer ons, summing, fast heavy strumming, chord changes etc.

domrush

Stratocaster wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oajNlhsul34

This is what I mean about, an amp only sends the signal it receives.

If you listen to the person playing, and you know his style, you might be surprised to know he's playing with little volume, could be no amp at all, but he still sounds the same at full blown volume. All the dynamics you will ever need are there at no volume. Bends, Hammer ons, summing, fast heavy strumming, chord changes etc.

well said

Stratocaster

No bother, I know what the problem is, the poster has probably bought a Yamaha pacific and a Miro tube by recommendation of most on the site.

That combination is a sure fire way to put you off a guitar, few will go nuts by me saying this but its my opinion.

Those amps are real bad, the only way you can get anyway near an audible sound is by adding a decent reverb into the chain.

My advice to those interested in learning is to buy an acoustic and learn while saving up some money to by a good small tube amp and a semi good fender or gibson etc.

That way there's enough going on to keep you interested and not be put off by bad equipment, like I said in the first post, its all in the player and guitar, altho you can get everything you need out of the above combo, your making it very hard for yourself from the beginning.

I know this stuff as I've seen many kids get frustrated and give up because they couldn't get the sounds right. All the ability was there but they just started out wrong.

domrush

Stratocaster wrote: »

No bother, I know what the problem is, the poster has probably bought a Yamaha pacific and a Miro tube by recommendation of most on the site.

That combination is a sure fire way to put you off a guitar, few will go nuts by me saying this but its my opinion.

Those amps are real bad, the only way you can get anyway near an audible sound is by adding a decent reverb into the chain.

My advice to those interested in learning is to buy an acoustic and learn while saving up some money to by a good small tube amp and a semi good fender or gibson etc.

That way there's enough going on to keep you interested and not be put off by bad equipment, like I said in the first post, its all in the player and guitar, altho you can get everything you need out of the above combo, your making it very hard for yourself from the beginning.

I know this stuff as I've seen many kids get frustrated and give up because they couldn't get the sounds right. All the ability was there but they just started out wrong.

thats true however beginners often want to jump straight into the electric guitar because its "cooler", easier and its what is used in mostsongs they listen to.

Stratocaster

domrush wrote: »

thats true however beginners often want to jump straight into the electric guitar because its "cooler", easier and its what is used in mostsongs they listen to.

True, I always try to talk them out of it and to start off with the basics on acoustic guitar. Starting off on a acoustic will give you all the strength you need, its a lot harder to bar chords and bend notes, even chord changes. Its generally a wider fret board so you can start out and work on clear sounding chords.

If you can nail an acoustic you will have no problems with an electric.

-=al=-

overdrive is where its at

hidinginthebush

Stratocaster wrote: »

No bother, I know what the problem is, the poster has probably bought a Yamaha pacific and a Miro tube by recommendation of most on the site.

That combination is a sure fire way to put you off a guitar, few will go nuts by me saying this but its my opinion.

Those amps are real bad, the only way you can get anyway near an audible sound is by adding a decent reverb into the chain.

My advice to those interested in learning is to buy an acoustic and learn while saving up some money to by a good small tube amp and a semi good fender or gibson etc.

That way there's enough going on to keep you interested and not be put off by bad equipment, like I said in the first post, its all in the player and guitar, altho you can get everything you need out of the above combo, your making it very hard for yourself from the beginning.

I know this stuff as I've seen many kids get frustrated and give up because they couldn't get the sounds right. All the ability was there but they just started out wrong.

I agree with pretty much everything strat has to say, especially the bold stuff in relation to the OP. If you really want to hear dynamics of your playing, rather that hitting the roof on a trampoline, to borrow an analogy, tubes are where it's at. I recently downgraded from a 50W peavey valveking to a 5W epiphone valve junior, and the improvement in tone, as well as the general feel I get out of my playing now is crazy! Cranked tubes FTW!

Guitareaxe

You could try get yourself a hotplate off thomann, it goes between your amp and speaker/headphones so you can whack the amp up to "11" and use the hotplate to adjust your volume. its like a compressor/postamp hard limiter that allows you to hear the full dynamics of the amp without blowing your neighbours roof off. if you find that your clean playing sounds weak or faint on say legato (Hammer ons and pull offs) with the amp its probably a gain issue. you can wack up the gain and use a compressor pedal to maintain a clean sound and the hotplate to keep it down. It could also be poor technique, but if you have no problems with an acoustic then I doubt this is the case. Make sure your not using a noisegate when playing clean. I use a compressor, It normalizes everything to the same volume, amping the weak signal and dampening the loud so it all sounds the same.

I have nevre used the gear the OP is using so I don't know if it's a poor gear issue, But I havent heard good things about the Yamaha Pacific. May be time to invest in some decent pickups.