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The optimum dynamic range of your guitar!

Wow! Sounds exciting.

Maybe I like vocabulary a bit too much, but hey, deal wit' it, bro!

Try this: Grab your guitar, pluck a note, starting out whisper quiet. Increase the volume until the string is rattling against the frets.

Did you notice how there's a particular volume where the note "blooms" nicely, has a big, lush sound, and is just cool?

No? Try it again.

Next, if you play electric guitar, plug into an amp set to a clean sound. Crank it up a bit, preferably with a tube amp. Repeat the experiment, and take a listen. Hear that picking intensity (usually at the softer end) where the note really breathes?
Now, the amp will also react a certain way with your guitar, so fiddle with that as well. Find the volume setting that reacts the nicest with that lush tone you just created. On some amps this is a very definite place.

We're finding the optimum dynamic range of the guitar! Snazzy. Fiddle around, and don't settle for a wimpy, bad tone. Get what you're lookin' for, bro!

Heyyyy, by the way, a neat thing finally occurred to me. I came up with a cool song idea the other day, but I didn't feel like hooking up the recorder to remember it. What to do? Call me behind the times, but it dawned on me...Use my cell phone! The video camera on my Razr isn't what you'd call a high quality recorder, but it worked....


Rock on!

Peavey ValveKing 112 Combo Amp At the heart of the all-tube Peavey ValveKing 112 Combo Amp is a patent-pending, Class A/B Texture control that allows variable selection and combinations of Class A and Class AB power structures. The Texture knob lets you coax a wide range of tones out of this amplifier. It features 12AX7 preamp and 6L6GC power amp tubes; a specially voiced 12" ValveKing speaker; 2 footswitchable channels with independent 3-band EQ and volume; footswitchable boost on the lead channel (with optional footswitch); global resonance, presence, and reverb controls; a buffered effects loop; and external speaker jack.