Guitar / Bass Amplifier Info & Education

No matter how good you are at bass, if you’re out of tune during a live gig, the audience - and your bandmates - will be less than impressed. Even if your bass is properly intonated and you’ve used an electronic tuner to tune it up before the first downbeat, a variety of factors may cause you to step on that tuner pedal a little more than you’d like, which can really slow the momentum of your band’s live show. But don’t worry- this post will help you get to the root of the problem. 

Sometimes a little idea can make life a lot easier! Here are seven essential life hacks for guitarists which might save you some time and trouble down the road.

Premier Guitar reviews the Legacy Drive Preamp Pedal in this video. 

If you’re a bass player who rolls a heavy speaker cabinet to the gig, and once the cab is on the stage, you turn the cab on its side, or remove pop-out casters. This could be just what you have always done, or it could be to make the cab sit onstage with more stability (ever played on a slanted or uneven stage?)

If you have a guitar amp with a flexible equalization section and sufficient tone shaping capability, the idea of adding a preamp pedal to your setup may seem unnecessary.  After all, your amplifier’s controls along with your guitar's onboard tone controls are useful tone shaping tools in and of themselves, so why add another one?

In the constant quest for perfect tone, musicians often forget the simple things. It’s always fun to upgrade to a better guitar amp, put more pedals into your chain, or buy a new axe, but let’s face it- the cost of all that adds up! If you’re a working musician, the next level of tone isn’t always within easy reach. In the meantime, as you’re adjusting your amp’s EQ settings or pondering what mods you can make to your guitar, try to tweak what’s right there in front of you- your guitar’s onboard tone controls!

Let’s face it- a certain degree of loudness is par for the course at a rock and roll show. But louder is not always better. While nothing compares to standing in front of a cranked half stack and letting it rip, the fact of the matter is that most of the time, a band that is too loud onstage often sounds worse than one that makes a conscientious effort to monitor their stage volume! It sounds counterintuitive, but bringing your stage volume down can improve your live show for a variety of reasons.

In a perfect world, sound engineers at every venue would ask bassists whether they prefer to go DI or have their cab miked up. While many sound engineers do take player preference into account, the fact of the matter is that for small local shows where five bands are on the bill, many engineers understandably stick with one method for all the bands to make the in-between set transitions as smooth and fast as possible. 

Overdrive is absolutely essential for many genres of music, especially rock, blues, and metal. Imagine Metallica, Nirvana, or SRV without an overdriven guitar sound- it just wouldn’t sound right! While distortion and overdrive are undoubtedly among the most popular guitar effects ever, they are also one of the hardest to get right. Many guitarists spend their entire lives chasing the tone they have in their head.

Carvin Audio offers a free impedance calculator application that calculates the total impedance of all cabinets in your load. So if you want to double check your math or just don’t want to do math, this handy app is a lifesaver! 

If you're laying down bass or guitar tracks in the studio and the engineer asks you to go direct, you may be slightly concerned, especially if you're a guitarist. Playing through a DI is a very common practice for bassists, but guitarists generally prefer to mic up an amp to get their sound and might be a little apprehensive about using a DI. For some, a DIed guitar and/or bass track may sound dull, sterile, and flat, even when using a high quality DI unit.