What is gain and sustain??

Originally posted by Bardsley
It's interesting that you mention basswood, I normally hear that it is not very good tone-wood and needs some fairly heavy pickups to give the guitar any character.

Possibly this is the case with some guitars, but with my Basswood Ibanez (and another couple of cheapies i used) it isn't :)

Seriously! - I swapped the cheapo tappable humbuckers out of it into my LP copy and put the LPs Pickups (which are those old single coils that masquerade as humbuckers) and the bridge pickup out of a Kramer Focus(!!) into it, with 500K pots and an (approx) 0.0440uf cap.

The thing resonates almost as well as my thin bodied Gibson unplugged and is just about as loud when plugged in. the Ibanez has 10s, though and the Gibson standard strings (9s).

The LP copy, which is an old jap Bolt on, doesn't have anywhere near the clarity or sustain as the Ibanez did with the same pickups in -,but then i believe it's plywood!.

Most of the 80s Ibanez Roadstar series were made with basswood and are usually fine sounding guitars.

cheers.

Gain is actually a funcion of the amplifier. The guitar has no part in it, except to supply a low-voltage signal for the amp to work with. Gain is defined as the ratio of unit output per unit input: G = o/i. A high-gain stage in the preamp simply increases the signal voltage more than a low-gain stage. A higher signal voltage out of the preamp is more likely to overdrive the power section, producing more distortion. Most preamps have a multi-tube gain stage that allows one tube to overdrive another tube, giving a distorted sound even before the signal reaches the power stage. This is what happens in the Marshall Valvestate amps. Most of the distortion is produced in the preamp, allowing the output level (Master volume) of the power stage to be adjusted without affecting the amount of distortion. Whether you like preamp distortion better than power amp distortion is a matter of taste.

For what its worth, you can make your guitar breathe
longer by adding vibrato to the notes.
The notes are lifeless somtimes without vibrato.(sustain)

MARK

[Edited by skee1 on 03-25-2002 at 01:28 PM]

The preamp tube say's "mu"

Originally posted by pstring
The preamp tube say's "mu"

Does that sound like a cow or a kitten? :D

Actually mu (mew) is the Greek letter that represents Gain in calculations. The 12AX7A is called a 'dual high-mu triode' because it has inherently higher gain than similar tubes like the 12AU7 or 12DW7.

Lordathestrings, I figured you would pick up on that, I got that from F. Langford Smith's book " Valve Humor ", that F. Langford, what a cut-up

tooobular, man! :D