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Post subject: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 1:08 am
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I'm sorry, I'm one of many aspiring guitarists. Aspiring meaning: I've only just started to learn to play the guitar. I've been following lessons once a week, but with the onset of July and August, the school is closed.

Therefore, I decided to take everything I had learned, to practice at home (have only had 5, 1 hour lessons). However, I was stuck with a poorly sounding Ibanez amp (please don't hate me, I had no clue). After going back and forth on the Internet and people's opinions, I decided to take order the Mustang I (I only practice, usually with headphones, in my apartment, so 20 watt was more than enough for me).

My current problem is that I have little or none experience with setting up amps. I'm dedicated to learn, but get quite lost in the difference between many (modular) amps. For example:

The metal preset sounds amazing, especially how I'd want metal to sound. I don't play it very much though, as I'm much more interested in playing in Blues, if I could one day get close to the sound of Jack White or Dan Auerbach, I'd be a very happy young man.

Therefore, I tried the Twin Reverb '65 preset, but playing some chords (like E - G - A), I can't help but finding that I sound horrible :) It sounds like I'm doing something wrong, the sound is way too distorted to even hear the chord. I haven't touched any other settings, although I might have overwritten the factory default setting when I just got the amp and started fiddling about without knowing what I was doing. (Also, I understood from the guide that you can't overwrite the factory default amber presets, unless through software, or did I get this wrong?)
I'm fairly certain the amp is perfectly OK, by the by, other presets work quite well.

I've skimmed through both the quick start and the advanced guide, but I'm stuck. Before I start downloading user-made presets, I want to be able to understand the amp, but trial-and-error-practice doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere.

Any help, tips, guides are much appreciated. (fyi: the place I ordered the amp from, also gifted me a Bad Monkey pedal, but I've yet to figure out how to use this, as I'd rather learn to tweak the amp first).

Many thanks in advance!


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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 2:13 am
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The Twin is a good beginning. Turn off all effects, put gain to 2 and vol to max, the tone controls in a middle position.
With these settings even "usual" (boy-scout) Guitar Chords should sound ok.
If you are satisfied save this new setting with the red knob.

In more high gain, distorted, fx settings usual chords do sound ugly, that's the reason jazz, rock and blues guitarists rarely use them on electric guitar.

This is not a special Mustang Topic, I'm sure to learn more about this you'll find better help in other guitar bulletin boards.

I'm sorry I cant give you any links, I just know german or greek sites ...


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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 8:56 am
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I had to snicker a bit at the term "boy-scout chords", I was feeling rather content with myself for being fluent in basic chord speak :)

I'll try your suggestions as soon as I get back home. By effects, you mean the modular/reverb dials on the right? By tone controls, I also assume you mean the dials on the left?

I guess I'll have to trudge on and rely on experience through trial and error.


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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 11:31 am
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Some terms that amp guys use to help you out.

Tone Stack - The Tone Stack refers to the normal EQ controls on just about every amp built. They are USUALLY labeled: Bass, Middle, Treble. Turning these knobs alters a resistance value on the circuit, forcing the audio signal through filters that cut or dampen certain frequencies. Tone Controls, therefore, usually refers to the three knobs labeled Bass, Middle, Treble.

Gain - Gain is sometimes tricky and completely depends on what amp we're talking about. Technically, "gain" refers to any step in the signal path where the signal is amplified to be bigger/louder. But usuallly "Pre-amp" and "Gain" mean the same thing...just how hard does the amp try to push your signal through the pre-amp stage. Gain way way up means the signal goes through at high volume, so most amps will begin to clip the signal into distortion (more popularly known as "OVERdrive"). As a result, people use the term HIGH-GAIN or HI-GAIN to refer to amps that have lots of distortion. On your Mustang, those would be the British '80s, American '90s, and Metal 2000 amps.

Crunch - Crunch is a term used to describe a signal that has begun to distort on your amp, but still has lots of tonal qualities intact with little-to-no compression. AC/DC is famous for using the Marshall "crunch" in their music. Almost every amp the Mustang models can get a crunch sound....except the '65 Twin Reverb. That amp is known for being Clean. Which brings me to...

Clean - A reference to a guitar's tone without any kind of distortion. The amp can add its own tone flavor, but if there's no distortion, it's referred to as Clean.

Pre-amp - Before a signal can be modified properly by an amp's tone stack, the relatively tiny signal that comes out of your guitar must be amplified so that the tone filters can do their work. But since the main reason for an amp is to drive speakers, we need a way to distinguish both sides of the amp. This leads me to ...

Power amp - This is the beef of any guitar amp, the place where the signal comming out of the tone stack is amplified a few hundred times in power in order to drive whatever speakers you're using. Most amp flavors for guitar come in 100 watts, 50 watts, and 30 watts for tube amplifiers. Solid State (SS) amplifiers can do all kinds of numbers.

Solid-State - The label applied to any amplifier that has no vacuum tubes in it to do the actual amplification. Instead, transistors, diodes, or other solid devices are used to do the same job. The Mustang amplifier is actually NOT a SS amp per-se, as there is no hard-wired pre-amp section. Instead, it uses a DSP chip to model all of the amps, though the power-amp section IS solid-state. It would be more accurate to call the Mustang amplifier a Digital amp.

Valve / Tube - The vacuum tube (also known as a valve in Europe), is a device where a high voltage is applied to one side and the lead-out to the other, with a gate in the middle. As voltage is applied to the gate in the middle, it allows the voltage from one end of the valve to pass through to the other side. This allows you to use a valve to turn a low-amp signal into a much higher one. It's why they were big in amplification for decades in radios. But radios are cheaper and safer without them now. However, guitar players know that valves have a tiny delay in their reactions (sag) and also a ceiling in their signal amplification capabilities (distortion), which can't truly be replicated with SS parts, so many insist on having valves in their guitar amplifiers to this day.

Sag - Because of the way valves work, sag is that tiny, momentary delay in your input signal and the amp's ability to push that out at high-volume. It's caused by the voltage change time between the screen-gate and the negative end of the vacuum tube. Different tubes will have slightly different reaction times.

Bias - When using power-amp tubes, you have to have a specific voltage applied to the + and - terminals. A higher voltage usually end up with a more raw, aggressive sound by pushing the tubes a bit hotter. Cooler tubes sound more mellow and smoother. You can read lots about bias on other websites. It's all over the net.

Blend - If you go into FUSE and check out the "advanced" settings, on the '59 Bassman and the British '70s amps, you'll notice that instead of a Master Volume control, you have something labeled Blend. This is because both of those amps in real life have 4 input jacks for two signal input paths. A lot of players tend to jump the two together and use the two pre-amp volume controls (one for each tone path) to get a "blend" of the two channels. Make sense now? :nod: So if you turn the blend control all the way up, you're using 100% the high-sensitivity channel. If you turn it all the way down, you're using 100% the low-sensitivity channel. If you're in the middle (the default), you're using 50% of each one blended together. A number of people have asked about this one before.

If you need any others, you can post the questions in this thread and I'll try to answer.

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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:12 pm
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Have you tried making changes on your computer using FUSE rather than using the knobs on the amp? It's a whole lot easier, and there are a whole lot more options. I think the advice to start with an amp model and remove all effects down to a clean signal and then work from there is good. For blues, the Twin, Bassman and Champ (only on FUSE) amps are good places to start. Mose blues is a bit overdriven, so you'll want to add some distortion, but not heavy distortion like metal. You can also search for models that others have developed based on what you want to play and download them to your amp, but again, you need to be using FUSE. Changes are much more intuitive and easier to keep up with on FUSE. The Mustang I controls can be confusing if you're just using the amp itself.


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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:51 pm
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FFXIhealer wrote:
Some terms that amp guys use to help you out.


great post FFXIhealer 8)

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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 12:17 am
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Thank you SO much, everyone, for helping me out. It's great to see all those terms lined up in one post, FFXIhealer, this helped me out a lot.

I tried most of your suggestions yesterday evening, but I've yet to try Fuse. I do feel like aI understand the dials a whole lot better now, as opposed to randomly turning knobs to see how it would sound.

I'll try out Fuse next and let you guys know of my progress. You people are amazing, thanks!


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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 7:41 am
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Possibly the same terminology is used for multiple things, or used differently in different countries, but my understanding of sag is:

Sag is a drop in the supply voltage to the power amp (ie the output voltage from the supply transformer / rectifier), caused by the resistive/reactive properties of the various components when the amp is under load.

It causes the amp to have a built-in compressor effect that is greater the the more power the amp is using. Which roughly means that louder sounds are compressed more, particularly the part of a sound immediately after a loud transient.

It's more noticeable on class AB or B amps. It doesn't affect class A amps so much (if at all?) because they draw the same average power from the supply regardless of volume.

It's usually considered to affect valve/tube amps more than SS ones. I don't know enough of the theory to know if SS amps are affected by it at all, or if a valve amp with a SS rectifier is immune from the effect.


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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 8:24 am
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Essentially, you just wrote a slightly more in-depth explanation of Sag than I did. The drop in power to the power-amp section is a result of the valve opening up (because of a sudden voltage change inside the valve) that the power supply can't fill yet. When the valve is closed because there's no signal to amplify, the electricity sort-of back-flows...like a hose that's shut off. All the water back-logs. If you suddenly open up the hose all the way, there's a momentary drop in pressure along the line as the backed-up pressure is suddenly released and the water pressure from the mains hasn't caught up to the hose yet. It's the same thing with electricity in the power-amp section.

Solid-State devices tend to minimize this effect because they're not valves. Electricity has a much shorter distance to cross for a transistor than it does inside a vacuum tube, so the drop in power is much less noticeable, if at all.

It would be interesting to get an actual amp technician in here to tell us what's really going on, as I'm actually not an amp tech and can't definitively say what Sag is and what is going in inside the amp. I can only say what I understand it to be and I could very well be wrong.

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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 8:35 am
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Quote:
Electricity has a much shorter distance to cross for a transistor than it does inside a vacuum tube, so the drop in power is much less noticeable, if at all.


Distance? Just how fast do you think this "Electricity" is moving?


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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 9:48 am
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I don't find your comment to be constructive johnjaypl. Did you want to offer up a contrary explanation, or were you just here to snipe someone else's point of view? :roll: FFX does not claim to be an expert on the subject:
FFXIhealer wrote:
It would be interesting to get an actual amp technician in here to tell us what's really going on, as I'm actually not an amp tech and can't definitively say what Sag is and what is going in inside the amp. I can only say what I understand it to be and I could very well be wrong.

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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 10:44 am
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Quote:
I don't find your comment to be constructive johnjaypl. Did you want to offer up a contrary explanation, or were you just here to snipe someone else's point of view?


I didn't really post a comment. I'd call it a thought provoking question. Notice the ?s.

As for a contrary explanation, this guy might know what he's talking about:

http://www.aikenamps.com/Sag.html


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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:23 pm
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We always called them "cowboy chords" ;-)

As far as the SAG and BIAS settings. Set them where they sound best with your guitar, your playing style, the model being used, and the tone you are trying to achieve! Play with it.

I know for my blues playing I like the SAG minimum, counter-clockwise to get a fuller sound and more dynamics it seems and the BIAs about 1 oclock, just a little hot to get a little drive it seems.

But then that's just me and my ears and my guitars and my settings.


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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:59 pm
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johnjaypl wrote:
Distance? Just how fast do you think this "Electricity" is moving?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity

Taking into consideration how small electrons are, the difference between a transistor's "0.1mm" distance and a vacuum tube's ~3cm distance is astronomically different, like the difference between how close the moon is to Earth and how close the sun is to Earth. Sure, if we assume that electricity is flowing at roughly 80% of the speed of light, the difference shouldn't be noticeable, but I wasn't talking about how fast electricity propagates so much as I was talking about pressure gradients.

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Post subject: Re: Yet-Another-Beginning-Guitarist
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:02 pm
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Sorry for the "Boy-scout chords".
In fact it is a common german saying for your "Cowboy chords": "Pfadfinder Akkorde". I just did a word by word translation without knowing the cowboys.

6 or 5 string chords in open position. Often more difficult than many jazz chords regarding the finger positions, but in 3 or 4 String chords you additionaly have to learn to mute the unwanted strings.


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