Volume knob rolloff VS Adjusting gain.

[zesn]

Alright, which one you guys prefer to do to get a near-clean to slightly overdriven tone?

Is it better to just rolloff the guitar volume knob while a high gain distortion pedal is still engaged,

OR

To disengage the pedal and use a drive pedal instead?


Umm in this question i'm ignoring any pedals that has dual functions like overdrive + gain/volume boost.

I personally find that rolling off the guitar's volume knob does create a nice near-clean tone, but i hate the slight but yet audible loss in volume.

 

[lemonade93]

Alright, which one you guys prefer to do to get a near-clean to slightly overdriven tone?

Is it better to just rolloff the guitar volume knob while a high gain distortion pedal is still engaged,

OR

To disengage the pedal and use a drive pedal instead?


Umm in this question i'm ignoring any pedals that has dual functions like overdrive + gain/volume boost.

I personally find that rolling off the guitar's volume knob does create a nice near-clean tone, but i hate the slight but yet audible loss in volume.

Well, the drive pedal may give a better tone, but for convenience sake, i just roll mine off. It also depends on the pickup as the pickup would determine how clean your tone will get from rolling off the volume knob

 

[zesn]

using an ibanez rg350dx with SDjazz in the neck and JB model in the bridge. Weird combo i know but it sounds great.
i'm just anal about the volume loss, and the increase in volume when i roll it up

 

[carboxymoron]

There's too many different combinations to get one answer. Different pickups and drive pedals respond differently to changes in volume. My CC transparent overdrive is (almost) always on anyway so I just kick off my other gain pedals to go "clean".

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

must lower down expectation. Since its lowering the volume, of course its going to be softer in sound and louder when turning it up.

hehe, if the volume pot is not affecting the volume, then its prolly faulty.

 

[zesn]

haha truetrue.
eh another question.
increase in gain not necessarily increase in volume?
then the volume knob is actually a gain+volume knob?

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

A trivial fact, a mosquitoe buzzing sound or those crappy, "younger fellas can hear it, but old man cant hear" mozzies ringtone. Those sound, even though are barely audible to some of us, but when being analysed in waveforms, are much higher in gain then whatever guitar gadget distortion brewtal distortion there are, in the market. Only thing is its frequencies so high, reaching the limit of human hearing range, its barely audible to us.

A volume knob is still a volume knob, but why it affect the gain is due to the way which the volume knob is wired, in relativity to the pickups and the input to the distortion circuit. This relation, result in gain adjustment when adjusting volume. But a volume pot, is forever still a volume pot on the geetar itself, it will never change.

oh, and for the gain changed, thats depending on whatever circuit the geetar is seeing after the signal come out from the output jack. Some cicuit doesnt clean up well at all.

 

[zesn]

thanks loads!

 

[carboxymoron]

haha truetrue.
eh another question.
increase in gain not necessarily increase in volume?
then the volume knob is actually a gain+volume knob?

I think of gain as the increase in voltage, sometimes resulting in clipping, that's why it's related to distortion. Whereas volume is the perceived loudness of the resulting sound, regardless of it's other qualities. That's why you can have high gain, low volume sound, or low gain, high volume sound if you know what I mean...

Since your guitar is the start of the chain, the volume knob will seem to affect the "gain" of the pedals/amps after it. Since if you lower the volume, the high gain pedal still increases the signal by the selected amount, but there is less clipping because the original signal is weaker, so the resulting sound is less distorted. Depending on the amount of gain and type of clipping, you can get a totally clean sound by lowering the volume going into your gain pedal.

 

[mightyboy88]

I think that rolling off the volume knob can get you that raw overdriven tone from a thick distortion tone only if you have a natural "amp" sounding distortion pedal. Heavy metal pedals are unlikely to get that kind of nice overdriven tone just by adjusting the guitar's volume knob.

Rolling off the volume knob can be a useful situation for live bands. For leads you can have a thick and cutting distortion sound with volume knob maximised and for rhythm playing to can roll off the volume knob to get a loose and raw overdriven tone so you dont drown out the vocals, bass etc.

Using the guitar's volume knob to control distortion is never a good way to control overall volume levels IMO as it would lead to great tone changes.

Using a low impedence volume pedal after your distortion pedals and a buffer circuit would be the best way to adjust overall volume i feel

0.02 Paid hahah

 

[subversion]

if one is the guitar + amp type, rolling off the volume makes more sense. the tonal changes achieved would also sound more desirable.

 

[zesn]

it sounds great with my ht-dist, i'm loving the tone, just hating the volume change, but oh well its okay. Neverminds.

 

[WorldWithoutE]

Why not just set up your amp to have the lower gain setting, then with the pedal boost the gain? If you then need a really clean sound, turn off the pedal and roll off volume. The amp would most likely clean up nicer than the pedal.

This all depends on the rig and setup though, so yeah just my $0.02.