Simple idea really but  maybe not always practical for you to do? For this article a handful of ideas of how you can manipulate the volume of your amp to get a better sound.

We all know the tales of “Turn Up all Your Controls to 10 and Just Go” Try this is a small room and you know how long you can stand that sound and how well you play. So is there some truth in the myth or is it all nonsense really?

Turning up any guitar amp will make them sound better, the sound becomes clearer and what you really notice is the bass response: Bass needs a bit more power to be heard (and felt) This is why bass speakers tend to be bigger compared to the average guitar speaker.

Before you turn your amp up have a look at where you play: Do you play in a small room? A larger hall or………? The room helps to amplify your sound, try to work with it: There are the acoustics of the room, a room which is full of echo will not sound good when you play too loud. It is better to kill some of the echo or simply turn your volume down.

If you are playing regular gigs you may have noticed that your guitar sound is different on each night. What is this? The room where you play and whatever else goes on. Ideally you should adjust your guitar sound to where ever you play, not doing so may give you an unpleasant playing experience.

Okay back to the amp and volume: A simple thing to do is, just turn amp half way, or just over and play. If the sound is too loud, just turn the volume down on the guitar. Turning volume down on guitar will end up in loss of brightness. The loss of brightness may not be a problem if you do not like it try another way:

Use a pedal like a graphic EQ, a booster or a simple distortion pedal, or a compressor. Most of these pedals will have a volume control, use the volume control to set the level to where you like it. Hopefully you can use your pedal to control only the volume without using its effect. EQ’s and compressors are good at any of this, but boosters may also be fine.

Get into the habit of setting your guitar volume a bit louder than what you really need and get used to its sound, go back from time to time to setting the amp at lower volumes and compare its sound.
By setting the amp at higher volumes you may gets some hiss, but do not be put off by any of this, the hiss will only be noticeable when you stop playing.

Enjoy your playing and hope to catch you soon for more updates,
Eddie