Guitar Volume Magic

GM Arts

GM Arts

Fractal Fanatic
I’m perplexed with the number of professional and forum amp/modeller reviews over recent years using the phrase “it cleans up nicely turning the guitar volume down”. It seems to be mandatory in every review now.

As if it’s some magic trick, or even proof that that amp/modeller has passed the ultimate test of goodness.

Unless you’re using massive gain levels (and no reason why you shouldn’t), EVERY amp and modeller will clean up by reducing guitar volume. If it doesn’t I suggest you take it to your local university who would love to investigate something that defies the laws of physics. Reducing guitar volume is the same as turning down the gain/drive in your drive pedal or amp. It’s SUPPOSED to reduce drive and clean up.

Granted, many guitars (all of mine) use treble bleed circuits to preserve or even enhance highs with reduced volume, so this can add to the illusion of clearer tone at lower gain, but that’s about the guitar and not what it’s plugged into.

I think the key word in “it cleans up nicely turning the guitar volume down” is NICELY. So maybe knowledgeable reviewers are just saying they like the tone at reduced guitar volumes. But again, this proves nothing. I don’t think many players would want to compromise a great overdrive tone by using an average tone just because it also offers a good low-gain tone.

Anyway, just venting and having a bit of fun. Don’t take it too seriously, because I certainly don’t.
 
GM Arts said:
Unless you’re using massive gain levels (and no reason why you shouldn’t), EVERY amp and modeller will clean up by reducing guitar volume. If it doesn’t I suggest you take it to your local university who would love to investigate something that defies the laws of physics. Reducing guitar volume is the same as turning down the gain/drive in your drive pedal or amp. It’s SUPPOSED to reduce drive and clean up.
Click to expand...
If ONLY they did that, we'd never had needed an Axe-Fx!! I have been thru many modelers where the ONLY thing that changes when the volume is turned down is the output level of the patch. And vice versa. No cleaning up of tone, not boost of gain to add a little "grit" to the tone. In fact, that's the biggest complaint of ANY solid state processor...!! Which is why its always mentioned in reviews... its a big tube thing!
 
Tis a good question.

Many do this fairly well. Various degree's of success. I find the quality of the tone when the volume is turned down is a big indicator.

Regardless, much more important to me are dynamics of picking...YMMV.

Ron
 
Interesting :)

s0c9 - which modeller? I've used a large number of them, cheap to good to excellent and thay all change overdrive character (clean up) with guitar volume reduction. Certainly not just a master volume change. With extreme drive levels, guitar volume changes make little difference until they're down to very low levels.

And yes, Ron, I agree that the way they clean up varies between amps and model patches. Of course how "nice" they sound or even how "successfully" they do it is subjective; one man's clean tone is another's tone nightmare. I think though that reduced picking strength is another type of guitar volume reduction (softer note attack also) - the end result is less overdrive.

Technically speaking, patches/amps that have a sudden onset of distortion will be less pleasing to most players, because there's a smaller sweet spot to play with using volume controls and picking dynamics. But this may desirable for some who like to use "explosive" phrases with dramatic tone changes.

I think my main point is it's not a magic trick, it's just another way to reduce drive levels.
 
I don't know that I can completely agree with you, my brother. It's true that reviewers, both consumer and pro, tend to regurgitate what they hear elsewhere, and that bugs me as it bugs you. But "cleans up nicely" is a valid assessment of a tone. Some tones don't clean up nicely at all. They go from really dirty to sort-of-dirty to clean-but-with-weak-volume.

To me, it's a measure of the realism and responsiveness of the power amp (real or modelled). Preamp distortion typically doesn't clean up nicely. The onset of distortion in a preamp is too abrupt for that. But if a major portion of your distortion comes from your power amp, there is greater potential for "nice" cleanup.

Preamps distort through hard clipping. In a tube power amp, there are other distortion sources, such as transformer saturation and power supply sag, that have a gentler effect on the waveform. In the better tube power amps (and modellers), you can achieve a level of distortion that's not perceived as distortion at all, but rather as a fattening of the sound. This is the "nicely cleaned up" range, and not all amps/modellers can achieve it. As you said, the key word is "nicely."

Remember the Geep. It could clean up fairly nicely, but not as well as many AxeFX tones, because there was no real power amp modelling.
 
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My experience with lin6 podxt was that it did not really clean up (in the right way?) when you turned down the volume.
The signal was compressed too much, the same thing made it very undynamic to play. You felt that you hit a dynamic roof
in the pod before you had used the dynamic range of the guitar. That's why I used the pod as an FX unit for a few years.

That's of course just my experience.

Jens
 
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