Eli5: What is gain (in sound and music production, amplifiers, etc)? How does gain alter a sound? What’s an example of how it sounds?

Question

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

Answer 1

Gain is the measure of amplification usually in dB (decibel which is a logarithmic scale). So a gain of 3dB means the output has twice the power of the input. A 10dB gain is 10x output power to input power. A totally flat (across the frequency spectrum) gain simply makes things “louder”.