Guitar Gear

On Master Volumes, Variable Power, etc…

A friend of mine recently got a great tube amp, and one of the options he wanted to have added to the amp was a half-power switch. I spoke to him about it and said it really wasn’t necessary since he almost exclusively plays clean, so his main concern was to have maximum clean headroom. The only thing that half-power switch would do for him would be to help get his amp into breakup earlier as the lower power will saturate the tubes at a lower power point. I also mentioned that the half-power switch would only provide a 3dB drop in volume, which wasn’t significant. Then Jeff Aragaki followed up with something I thought I’d share: In order to get half-volume, you’d have to drop 10dB. That’s something a lot of people don’t realize when considering variable power.

If it sounds good, then it’s right…

I heard this a few months ago I believe from Keith Urban’s guitar tech, and I was reminded of it a couple of  weeks ago during a gig, and when I made the final demo recording for my song, “You Raise Me Up” where I used my EWS Little Brute Drive distortion pedal to get my crunch sound. For years, I had eschewed the use of distortion pedals and relied on my amp for distortion. But pedal sounds so damn good that I’m now using it all the time. It’s a perfect example of “If it sounds good, then it’s right.” It’s a great and humbling lesson that it doesn’t matter the make, model, or price of a piece of gear. If you feel it helps your sound, then it’s the right piece of gear.