Hi. I don’t really understand what gain is, in this context, but I’d really like it to know. How would you describe what it sounds like? Or what it does to the original sound? (An audio example would be good.)
Fyi, I have looked it up before, but I don’t really understand so far.
What does it mean if some amps are made to have a higher-gain sound? Why is that more suited to some types of music than others?
Ty. 🙏🏻🤗
In: Other
Amplifiers have more than one stage. Often the first stage makes the signal louder, and the second stage transforms the signal into something REALLY loud that can properly drive a speaker. When you turn up the volume, the first stage feeds more and more signal into the second stage until gradually it’s more than the second stage can handle gracefully. There are different ways of designing these stages, but often the way the second stage deals with getting too much signal is to sort of run out of gas at the loudest parts, not allowing the very loudest bits to get as loud as they might have gotten (compression), adding a bit of distortion in the process. Depending on the specifics of the design and the purpose of the amp, this can sound nice. High gain amps are made to do this easily and on purpose. It works on music that benefits from being smushed together in a subtle way, or benefits from sounding LOUD (because LOUD often comes along with distortion and compression naturally).
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