Many amps these days come with built-in effects and modeling. Modeling is where the tones of another amp head and cabinet combo are reproduced electronically to give your rig the sound of other popular set ups. Built in effects are exactly what they sound like, typical effects like reverb, chorus, delay, flange, compression, and others are built into the bass amplifier section and permit you to dial in different combinations of these effects to modify your tone. It has always been our opinion, however, that you simply buy the best amplifier and cabinet that can with your money and worry about adding effects later. Nowadays it’s sometimes hard to avoid amps that include all of these goodies, but we feel you should spend your hard earned cash the smart way and add effects and modeling later with a separate pedal, multi-effects unit, or board that is built specifically for that purpose.

Some cabinets are sealed meaning no air leaks in or out of the enclosure. Most bass cabinets are ported, or vented, meaning the cabinet has an opening where air can travel in and out.

Sound is essentially moving air. As the speaker pushes air in front of it, the rear side of the speaker (on the inside of the enclosure) is sucking air into the enclosure and vice versa. Having the port helps the speaker work more efficiently which means it requires less amp power to drive it.

Ports are tuned by the manufacturer to make sure they emphasize particular frequencies — usually low ones. Ported cabinets, as a result, often get a better low-end response.

In a sealed cabinet the speaker cannot suck any air in. That makes the speaker work harder. Sealed cabinets need more power to achieve the same results. Some bassists like the sound of a sealed cabinet claiming they have a punchier sound. You will have to decide with your own ears. Most of your bass cabinet options will be ported ones.

Speakers, sometimes called drivers or woofers, are constructed of a voice coil, magnet and a cone. The cone is the outer part of the speaker which, when it rapidly moves in and out, moves the air to create sound waves. Cones are usually made of paper and other times plastic or metal.

The voice coil and magnet work together to cause the cone to move in and out. The voice coil is an electromagnet. It interacts with the plain magnet pushing and pulling the cone as the polarity of the voice coil rapidly shifts back and forth.

Speakers come in different sizes measured in inches. You may see 8-inch to 20-inch speakers used in bass cabinets. Bigger is not necessarily better. The quality of the speaker is most important. A great 10-inch speaker might give off more bass than a poor 18-inch speaker.

Generally big speakers give you more “boom” while smaller speakers give you more clarity and definition. Many bassists like to use a combination of speaker sizes in their rig to cover the entire spectrum. To decide what speaker configuration to buy, it’s really important to make comparisons with your own ears.

Manufacturers will often name the brand of speaker used in the cabinet like “four 10-inch Celestion speakers“. Other common brand names might be Eminence or Black Widow.

Get a Sealed or Ported Bass Amp Cabinet?

Some cabinets are sealed meaning no air leaks in or out of the enclosure. Most bass cabinets are ported, or vented, meaning the cabinet has an opening where air can travel in and out.

Sound is essentially moving air. As the speaker pushes air in front of it, the rear side of the speaker (on the inside of the enclosure) is sucking air into the enclosure and vice versa. Having the port helps the speaker work more efficiently which means it requires less amp power to drive it.

Ports are tuned by the manufacturer to make sure they emphasize particular frequencies — usually low ones. Ported cabinets, as a result, often get a better low-end response.

In a sealed cabinet the speaker cannot suck any air in. That makes the speaker work harder. Sealed cabinets need more power to achieve the same results. Some bassists like the sound of a sealed cabinet claiming they have a punchier sound. You will have to decide with your own ears. Most of your bass cabinet options will be ported ones.

Abalone:  A genus of shellfish from the haliotidae family of edible rock-clinging gastropod mollusks that have a flattened shell slightly spiral in form, lined with mother-of-pearl, and with a row of apertures along its outer edge. The abalone shell is a richly colored sea shell that when polished makes a beautiful ornament. It is used as a popular inlay material in musical instruments such as guitar and bass.

Action:  A term used to describe the way a musical instrument plays. Its use is highly varied in the industry, but in a general sense it refers to the playability of an instrument or how well it functions mechanically. It often specifically relates to how much force is required to play the instrument.

Alnico:  A compound word drawn from Aluminum, Nickel, and Cobalt. Alnico (AlNiCo) is a powerful permanent magnet alloy containing iron, aluminum, nickel and one or more of the elements cobalt, copper, and titanium. Alnico magnets have been used in loudspeaker construction since the 1940s, when a particularly high-energy formula (Alnico V) was developed; it had a much greater energy-to-weight ratio than common ferrite (iron) magnets. Electric guitar manufacturers also were (ahem) attracted to Alnico magnets for pickups due to their consistency and even distribution characteristics. Two different formulas are commonly used – Alnico II and Alnico V.

Amplifier:  An electronic amplifier is a device for increasing the power of a signal. It does this by taking power from a power supply and shaping the output to match the (relatively low power) input signal. This process invariably introduces some noise and distortion into the signal, and the process cannot be 100% efficient – amplifiers will always produce some waste heat. An idealized amplifier can be said to be “a piece of wire with gain”, as the output is an exact replica of the input, but larger. Different designs of amplifier are used for different types of applications and signals. We can broadly divide amplifiers into three categories – small signal amplifiers, low frequency power amplifiers and RF (radio frequency) power amplifiers. Each of these calls for a slightly different design approach, mainly because of the physical limitations of the components used to implement the amplifier, and the efficiencies that can be realized.

Anti-node:  The opposite of a node. When standing waves occur, there are positions in space relative to the wave, called nodes, at which there is no movement at all. The wave interferes with itself to create this instance of opposition (e.g., a wave reflecting off of a wall and back into its own path). Nodes are spaced one-half wavelength apart. On either side of a node is a vibrating antinode. The antinodes alternate in the direction of the wave’s displacement so that the wave at any instant resembles a graph of a sine wave. On a guitar string the nodes are the places on the string that best produce harmonics – particularly at the 12th fret. Touching the antinodes damps the sound.

Backline:  A general term that includes all necessary band gear including guitar, bass and keyboard amplifiers, drums, microphone stands and cables, sometimes also encompassing keyboard instruments and rarely guitars and basses. It excludes any part of the house or stage monito sound systems, which serve to amplify the backline gear. Originally a bit of tour jargon, the term is now accepted in touring groups’ contract riders and insurance forms. Note that the term refers to the equipment itself and NOT to a specific area of the stage. Backline gear can be offstage, under the stage or in other locations.

Barre Chord:   is a guitar player’s technique that involves placing the left hand index finger over two to six strings in the fingering of a chord. The great advantage of using barre chords is that they are “moveable shapes” that can be applied at practically any fret.

Body Pack:  in the world of wireless performance a body pack is the device a performer wears somewhere on his or her body that houses the electronics that handle sending a signal to a remote receiver or, as in the case of personal monitoring systems, receives a signal from a remote location. Typically body packs hold a battery and some combination of electronics that do the transmitting or receiving, and amplifying. Some wireless systems do not require a body pack as all of these electronics can be housed right inside of a microphone or a small plug that can be connected directly to a guitar or other musical instrument.

Bolt-in Neck: is commonly confused with the bolt-on neck. A bolt-on neck is attached to a flange that protrudes out from the body of the guitar (as much as four inches). The bolt-in neck actually bolts in through the back of the guitar, which combines the advantages of a bolt-on neck with those of a deep, set neck. Some guitar maker’s assert that this gives the neck better stability, tone, and sustain, plus as an added bonus you can reach higher up the neck of the guitar since the heel of the bolt-in neck is hidden inside the body of the guitar. Bolt-in necks can be found on guitars made by PRS and Taylor. Fender and Ibanez use bolt-on necks, while guitars employing set-neck construction can be found on models by Gibson, Epiphone, and Guild.

Bucking:  Refers to the cancellation of one signal or frequency component of a signal by another signal of equal amplitude but opposite polarity. Sometimes this is called phase cancellation. It also is a phenomenon that is part of the sound of a phaser or flanger. As they sweep through their range various frequencies are accentuated or (nearly) cancelled producing their characteristic “whooshing” effect. Hum bucking, as in hum bucking guitar pickups, is the bucking of frequencies we associate with hum (60 Hz in the United States). In this case the cancellation is of EMI that is being picked up by the guitar’s pickup, which is acting as a transformer picking up various fields nearby.

Capo:  A capo (short for capotasto, from Italian, literally; ‘head of fingerboard’) is a movable bar attached to the fingerboard of a fretted instrument to uniformly raise the pitch of all the strings. There are several different styles of capo available, utilizing a range of mechanisms, but most use a rubber-covered bar to hold down the strings, fastened with a strip of elastic or nylon, a cam-operated metal clamp, or other device. The use of a capo is considered by some people to be a crutch for technically inferior players. While it can be used for this purpose (for example, allowing a novice guitarist to play chords in the relatively difficult key of Ab by playing the much simpler chord shapes for the key of G), it also facilitates making use of the instrument’s natural qualities in certain keys and allows for the use of techniques and sounds that would otherwise be unavailable. Because of the different techniques and chord voicings available in different keys, the same piece may sound very different played in D or played in C with a capo at the 2nd fret (at the same actual pitch). Additionally, the timbre of the strings changes as the scale length is shortened, suggesting the sound pf other short-scaled stringed instruments such as the mandolin. Therefore the use of a capo is as much a matter of artistic expression as of technical expediency. The use of a capo also obviates the need to learn a song in several different keys if accompanying singers who sing at different pitches. For guitar playing, some styles such as flamenco and folk music make extensive use of the capo, while it is used very rarely if at all in other styles such as classical and jazz playing.

Center Tap:  In coils and transformers a center tap is a tap (see WFTD Tap) at the center of the winding of wire, which puts it at the halfway point of the overall impedance and voltage of the coil. Center taps are often used to provide a zero reference (kind of like ground, but different) for the two sides of a differential or balanced circuit. For example, if a center tap was taken from a transformer that supplied 220 volts you would end up with two “legs” that each provide 110 volts (as is often the case in common household electrical service in the U.S.). The AC signal provided between the center tap (which is common to each leg) and each end of the coil will be at the opposite polarity, Balanced AC supply devices commonly found in recording studios operate by tapping the center of a transformer running at 120 volts, which provides two 60 volt legs in a differential configuration. In audio circuits center tapped transformers and coils can be used to create balanced circuits. The coil tap function of a guitar’s electronics also provides a similar function. But in many of those cases when the coil is “tapped” (see WFTD Coil Tap) the user is really just turning off one half of a differential system that always has a center tap. This is common for guitarists because it allows a humbucking pickup to also be able to work as a single coil pickup.

Coil Tap:  In general a coil tap is an access point somewhere along the wire that is wound in a coil or transformer. The tap could be anywhere along the wire, and the resulting voltage present at the tap will be related accordingly. Transformers may have their coils tapped to provide different voltages in a power supply that may be required for the operation of some device, for example. A coil may also be tapped at its halfway point, which in effect produces two coils of equal size. If the middle point is connected to ground, or some zero voltage reference, the two ends of the coil will appear to have equal, but opposite in polarity, voltages with respect to that center tap. The is one way balanced or differential signals can be created. Similar results can be achieved by taking a tap from a point between two identical coils wired in series with one another. In guitars a coil tap is a case of the latter. Humbuckers, or dual coil guitar pickups generally produce a fatter, warmer sound than their single coil counterparts. However, single coil pickups are known for their crisp and bright sound, and also for their propensity to pick up stray EMI. By the late 1970s manufacturers realized that musicians wanted both kinds of sound – crisp and bright along with fat and warm – and so they developed ways to split the coils, which is known as coil tapping. A selection between dual coil (humbucking) and single coil is provided by some type of switch on the guitar. Normally selection of the coil tapped mode causes one of the coils of a dual coil pickup to be turned off, and the signal is obtained between the other coil and the “tap,” thereby making it into a single coil pickup. There are some other, more sophisticated designs that allow the single coil sound to be achieved without giving up the second coil — and thus the benefit of humbucking — but those techniques aren’t, by definition, considered coil tapping, though they may be referred to as such.

Combo Amp:  In addition to types of amplification such as solid state and tube, guitar amps come in different configurations. Combo Amps (short for combinations) are self-contained units containing the amplifier and speaker in one cabinet, as opposed to a separate amp “head” and cabinet.

Compensation Guitar:  Whenever a string is pressed to a fretboard, the tension of the string is increased. This causes the fretted note to be slightly sharp compared to the open string note. This must be compensated for. To compensate for this sharpness, the distance from the nut to the bridge saddle is made slightly longer than the stated scale length for the instrument. This lowers the pitch of the fretted notes slightly. The amount of compensation needed depends on how far the string must be pressed to the fingerboard (action), the mass/thickness/gauge of the string, the tension (tightness) of the string, and the string length. When you look at the bridge of most instruments, you see evidence of compensation, for example; when you see the guitar’s saddle at an angle to the strings rather than perpendicular to them. On a mandolin, some guitars and banjos, and electric guitars in particular, the saddle is carved or adjusted so each string bends over it at a different distance from the nut. The exact amount is usually determined by comparing the pitch of the note fretted at the 12th fret to the pitch of the harmonic at the 12th fret. When the two match, you have found the compensated position of the bridge saddle for that string.

COSM: Abbreviation for Composite Object Sound Modeling. COSM is a powerful modeling technology that Roland premiered in 1995 with the VG-8 V Guitar System, and continues in the newer VG-88 system. It enables guitarists to emulate a range of classic and modern guitars, amps, cabinets, and microphones, plus it can produce “futuristic” synth-like tones. Today COSM can be found in keyboards, digital recorders, mixers, etc. It can model rotary effects, different speaker colorations, and can even approximate expensive microphones using just an ordinary dynamic mic. Its name comes from “composite object” because its core function revolves around breaking audio producing or reproducing devices down to their component parts and creating a set of instructions to emulate how these various parts interact with each other to produce a new composite that can be dynamically controlled. Of course, that’s what all modeling is, but Roland coined this name to call attention to it.

Double Tracking:  The process of recording a track, then recording a second track while listening to the first and duplicating it. When the two tracks are played back together, the result is a slight “chorusing” and fattening of the signal due to minor pitch and timing differences between the two performances. Double tracking is an effective tool, and has been used extensively in most pop music styles. Vocals, melodic parts, rhythm guitars, and solos are common candidates for doubling, tripling or even more (you can never have too many rhythm guitar tracks in our opinion).

Dreadnought: a term used to describe large sized acoustic guitars that were known for their formidable volume and booming bass. While considered a generic term today, the Dreadnought guitar was an original creation of C. F. Martin & Co. The very first Dreadnought guitars (named for a class of World War I-era British battleships, “Dreadnought”) were manufactured by Martin for the Oliver Ditson Company, a publishing firm based in Boston that was also a leading music retail chain in the area. The Ditson Company went out of business in the late 1930’s, and Martin incorporated the Dreadnought into its line of guitars. Today, the model is a dominant factor in the Martin line, and every maker of acoustic guitars, both domestic and foreign, has introduced a version of the original Martin design.

Dynamic Microphone:  A dynamic mic is one in which audio signal is generated by the motion of a conductor within a magnetic field. In most dynamic mics, a very thin, light, diaphragm moves in response to sound pressure. The diaphragm’s motion causes a voice coil which is suspended in a magnetic field to move, generating a small electric current. Generally less expensive than condenser mics (although very high quality dynamics can be quite expensive), dynamics feature quite robust construction, can often handle very high SPLs (Sound Pressure Levels), and do not require an external power source to operate. Because of the mechanical nature of their operation, dynamic mics are commonly less sensitive to transients, and may not reproduce quite the high frequency “detail” other types of mics can produce. Dynamic mics are very common in live applications. In the studio, dynamics are often used to record electric guitar and drums.

Effects Loop:  A signal path out of one piece of gear, through an effects unit, and back into the first device. It effectively is a loop, with an effects processor in the middle. When you send a signal out of a mixer on an aux send to a reverb, and then bring that signal back to the mixer you have created an effects loop, though we rarely call it that in those circumstances. Most of the time the verbiage is used in the context of guitar or bass amps, or guitar or bass preamps. Many of these have a dedicated insert point designed to be used with some outboard processor. In most cases they work just like the insert of a mixer: plugging something in breaks the internal signal routing to send the signal through the external loop.

Electrophone:   is any musical instrument that produces sound primarily by electrical means. It is one of the five main categories in the 1961 revision of the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification (though it was not included in the original scheme published in 1914). The other four are idiophone, membranophone, chordophone and aerophone. Any instrument producing sound purely by electric means is an electrophone, but the term was not originally applied to instruments where electricity was only used to amplify a sound produced by conventional measures (so the electric guitar, for example, would be classified as a chordophone, not electrophone).

Fingerboard:  A thin piece of wood that forms the smooth playing surface on the neck of a stringed musical instrument such as guitar, bass, violin, etc. against which the strings are pressed in playing. It can be fretless, as in the violin family, or fretted, as in guitars, banjos, etc. (in which case it’s often called the “fretboard”). Fingerboards are usually made of woods like rosewood, ebony, or other dark woods, though sometimes maple is used.

Fret: A bar or ridge (usually made of metal) across the fingerboard or neck of a musical instrument; when the string is stopped (pressed) by a finger at the metal bar it will produce a note of the desired pitch. Frets are arranged on instruments to produce specific musical pitches, usually of some musical scale. On the typical guitar or bass each fret represents one semitone or half step.

Front Loaded: A speaker cabinet design characterized by the speaker being mounted to the front of the cabinet or baffle. This configuration is very popular with studio monitors, guitar and bass cabinets, stereo speakers, and many types of PA enclosures. The other prominent design used over the years is horn loading, which is where the speaker is set back in the throat of some type of horn-like configuration. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and is appropriate in different circumstances.

GoBo:  Short for “Go-Between.” A gobo basically forms a type of barrier: sometimes this can be between a light source and an area to be lighted where you want to keep the light off of part of it, or it can be to form a barrier for sound such that a particular sound source is shielded from a microphone during recording. Gobos are often used in recording studios for just this purpose. Say you have an acoustic guitar and a drum set in the same room. In order to help reduce the amount of drums bleeding into the acoustic guitar mic sound, absorbent panels, or gobos, are place between the drums and the guitar mic.

Headstock:  The part of a guitar at the “other” end of the neck from the body. The headstock is traditionally used for supporting the mechanical assemblies used to wind the strings, although in some modern designs string winding is done at the bridge.

Hi-Z:  As the letter Z is the commonly agreed upon abbreviation for impedance, then Hi-Z simply refers to “hi-impedance.” This refers to the input or output impedance of a device (in our cases an audio device). Precisely what Hi-Z means, and how it is applied in the audio industry, is not entirely concrete. In general devices with impedances up through 600 ohms are said to be “low impedance,” while devices with impedances of several thousand ohms and up are considered “high impedance.” Typically we only come in to contact with these generic terms on microphones (usually low cost microphones), some direct boxes, and certain types of line inputs (on mixing boards, some tape decks, etc.). A typical guitar, for example, generally needs to be connected to a Hi-Z input. Otherwise the electronics will be “loaded down” and the sound will be significantly altered. A Hi-Z microphone — which we don’t encounter very often in pro audio (we generally use low impedance mics) — definitely needs to be connected to a high impedance input, and even then the cable length can’t be more than 10 or 20 feet before the signal degrades.

Humbucker:  A type of guitar pickup where two coils of wire and two magnets are used, as opposed to a “single coil” pickup. The humbucker is made so the two coils of wire are out of polarity with each other and each is wound around a magnet of opposite polarity. The humbucking pickup has two distinct advantages over standard single coil pickups. They are higher output and less hum and noise. The higher output occurs simply by having two pickups working in conjunction with one another, even though the two coils and magnets are of opposite polarity. This works because it’s sort of a double reversal (like two negatives make a positive), which leaves the two voltages created by the string’s vibration over each coil in polarity with each other. The backwards magnet throws it out of polarity, but the coil being wound backwards as well reverses it again, leaving it in phase with the voltage on the other coil. But hum and noise that can be induced into the coil of wire through electromagnetic radiation (EMI) — as opposed to moving a string through the magnetic field created by the magnet — get canceled when the two signals are combined because the two coils are out of polarity with each other. Humbucking pickups are known for a certain type of “thicker,” heavier sound and aren’t preferred by guitarists in all situations.

Humbucking:  A process of injecting a certain amount of hum into a signal at an opposite polarity of hum already present. The net result is cancellation of the hum thereby producing a clean signal. Humbucking is normally provided by a coil, which is very efficient at picking up hum producing electromagnetic fields (EMI) such as those produced by high power equipment like lights, motors, etc. The concept was applied to guitars many years ago. It is called the humbucking pickup (a.k.a. humbucker). Guitar output signals are generally very easily compromised by stray fields due to the magnet and coil nature of the typical guitar pickup. The humbucker provides cancellation of the hum right at the source so the guitar’s output is clean.

Intonation:  Literally this means pitch, or using pitch. One who speaks with intonation uses pitch variations (presumably to help convey meaning). In our discourse of dealing with music, however, it has taken on a connotative meaning of describing pitch. When we refer to intonation we are often speaking of pitch accuracy or of relating to a pitch being produced. This is just how the word is often used in context. Similarly, intonation can also mean tuning, as in how an instrument is tuned. For example, sometimes a guitarist will say his guitar’s “intonation is out.” In this context he means that his instrument will not play in tune with itself.

MI:  Abbreviation for Musical Instrument. MI is a broad term used to describe the musical instrument marketplace in general. Reference is made to “the MI market,” or to a specific “MI store.” If a store sells band instruments or guitars, for instance, it is an MI store.

MIDI Mode:  One of several ways in which a device can respond to incoming MIDI information. There are two parts to each mode, one defining whether it is monophonic or polyphonic, and the other determining if it is multitimbral or not. Four modes are included in the MIDI spec, and two others, Multi Mode and Mono Mode (for MIDI guitar) were developed later.

Miller Effect: This is a cycle of resistance and capacitance occurring between the input and output of an amplifier circuit, which can create a primitive low-pass filter that is signal dependant. The effective input impedance of an amplifier depends on the impedance connected from input to output of the amplifier. The apparent scaling of this impedance often dominates the input impedance and frequency response of the amplifier. This effect was first reported by John Miller in 1919 and is now commonly known as the Miller Effect or Miller Capacitance. The term is often seen when reading about guitar amplifier circuit design. It refers to the effective multiplication of the plate-to-grid capacitance in a triode tube (such as a 12AX7) by the gain of the amplifying stage. The same effect occurs in many solid state designs, but we will focus on tubes in this explanation. A typical triode tube contains a plate, a grid and a cathode. When a tube is amplifying a signal, it has to work against the plate-to-grid capacitance, charging and discharging it as the signal changes. Because the grid is high impedance, and doesn’t draw or source any current of its own, the charging current for it must be sourced or drawn through the driving source resistance of the input stage. This forms a low pass filter, with a cutoff frequency determined by the source resistance/impedance of the previous stage and the input capacitance. The Miller capacitance in a triode tube is equal to the plate-to-grid capacitance multiplied by a factor equal to the stage gain plus one.

Neck Through Body:  A neck joint that is used exclusively in solid body and semi-solid body guitars. The “neck” is actually an integral part of the guitar’s body and extends the entire length of the instrument, from the headstock to the strap button. The earliest electric guitars by Rickenbacker in the 1930s incorporated neck-through designs. Les Paul’s early experimental guitars also began with a 4″ wood post that ran from tail to headstock, with the sawed-off halves of a guitar body glued onto its sides. More advanced neck-through designs use dovetail joints or dados – a “groove” in one piece that fits a “tab” in the other – to connect the full-length neck to the body wings. A neck through body guitar is often lighter in weight than either a set neck or a bolt-on neck and helps produce a brighter sound than these joints.

Notation Software:  A unique combination of a sequencer, graphic design and word processor that produces printed music. Notation software programs vary in complexity from simple versions for creating “lead sheets” for pop songs to full-featured programs that are capable of visually representing the extreme notation needs of contemporary orchestral and choral scores. It’s important to understand the difference between the “staff view” and printing options offered by many sequencers and the output of notation software. Think of a sequencer this way: it is optimized to make your music sound exactly the way you want it to sound. This includes note durations that are exactly what you want them to be, instrument pitches that play in “concert” key, rather than the actual transposition of, say, a saxophone, and intricate rhythms. The staff or score view of most sequencers attempts to notate all of these in the most literal fashion; i.e. that quick brass stab might appear as a 32nd note followed by a string of 32nd rests. Or bass guitar notes appear in the octave in which they sound, rather than transposed up an octave as they normally appear on paper. Further, few sequencer print functions adequately handle special musical instructions such as crescendos, accelerandos, or other performance instructions. Notation programs, on the other hand, are optimized to make your music look the way it should to make sense to musicians reading the parts. It allows you to insert articulations, grace notes, dynamics changes such as “hairpins” that indicate crescendos and decrescendos, and much more. It thinks the way musicians who read music think. The brass stab example above would likely be notated as a quarter note with a dot above its head to tell the players that the note is short. Most notation software also has enhanced lyric-entry capability that allows positioning lyrics under the correct notes, plus special fonts that help distinguish musical instructions about tempo, volume and other matters. Prior to the development of computers and printers with sophisticated graphics capability almost all printed music was hand-copied or engraved. Now notation software is so common that little printed music, other than archival copies of classical music and some jazz and popular “fake books,” exist in engraved form. In fact, Warner-Chappell, the world’s largest publisher of print music, employs thousands of freelance music copyists with the stipulation that they all use Finale, a common notation program.

parameter:  Literally a factor that determines a range of variables. In our domain we come across parameters all the time. Any function of any device we can set or modify can be thought of as a parameter. This would include the volume of your guitar amp or the pan position of a channel in your mixer. More specifically, however, the word parameter has been used in things like keyboards, synthesizers, effects processors, and other software driven devices to call attention to specific aspects of any program or patch that can be modified. For example, even on simple non-programmable reverb units quite often the user can adjust the parameter known as Reverb Time. More complex and flexible devices typically have more user adjustable parameters. Some devices over the years have been thought of as too complex because too many parameters have to be understood by the user in order to make anything meaningful happen. This is one reason why in today’s sophisticated equipment we rely so much upon the factory presets to get us started and why many users never go beyond them.

Pick Guard:  A device applied to the surface of a guitar (or bass, etc.) to protect its finish from scratches that may occur due to picks scraping across the top while playing. Pick guards are usually made from some type of plastic, although metal and other materials are sometimes used. They come in many shapes and sizes, and are an integral part of the overall aesthetic of many instruments.

Pole Piece:  a shaped piece of high permeability metal, usually soft iron, which serves to concentrate and direct the magnetic field of a permanent magnet to maximize efficiency of devices like loudspeakers, magnetic cartridges, and cutterheads. Pole pieces are needed because magnets are hard (expensive) to make in the complex shapes that can be needed. In layman’s terms, the Pole Piece is the part of the speaker magnet assembly that the voice coil (see WFTD archive voice coil) slips over. It is the center round piece. Guitar and bass pickups work on similar concepts, though the function is the opposite of a loud speaker. Instead a guitar pickup’s job is to turn mechanical vibration into electrical output. Magnetic guitar pickups often have individual pole pieces positioned under each string to help maximize or otherwise tailor their output.

Preamp:  short for preamplifier. A type of amplifier specifically designed to amplify very weak signals before they are fed to subsequent gain stages or devices. Preamps are commonly used to bring things like the output of microphones up to a level where more equipment can work with the signal. Similarly, magnetic pickups (as used in guitars and basses), and phonograph cartridges are generally run through a preamp to prepare the signal to be used by other equipment downstream. Preamps are called upon to deliver extremely high amounts of gain while introducing very low amounts of noise and distortion. As such they are a critical component in the audio chain, and in recent years have come under much scrutiny by recording engineers causing many dozens of stand-alone mic preamps to be developed that allege to have superior sonic characteristics.

Re-Amp:  is a registered trademark of the Reamp Company, commercial use of trademark and patent prohibited. The process of running an already recorded signal back through an amplifier (and possibly speakers) of some sort. With the increased popularity and flexibility of DAW systems this has become a popular technique for guitar. An engineer may record the guitar signal dry, or even directly out of the guitar itself along with or instead of any amplifiers, preamps, or effects, and then later process the raw track(s) through a guitar amp or some other preamp or processor. This is accomplished by routing the raw or dry guitar sound (or any other track, for that matter) out of an output of the DAW and into the amp – then out of the amp, usually by way of miking the speaker, back into another channel of the DAW. Sometimes this is also done with plug-ins inside the DAW itself. This final produced sound may then be recorded to another track or simply treated as a live instrument for mixing. This enables artists and engineers the maximum amount of flexibility for the sound as the piece progresses. Often times the guitar sound doesn’t get finalized until the mixdown. While this technique is most commonly used for guitar it is also done for bass, keyboards, and sometimes even things like vocals or drums for special effects.

Samarium-Cobalt Magnet:  is used in making a new permanent magnet material and has the highest resistance to demagnetization of any known material. Samarium itself is a rare earth metal, with a bright silver luster. Cobalt is a tough lustrous silver-white magnetic metallic element that is related to and occurs with iron and nickel and is used especially in alloys. Other uses of Samarium include: Carbon-arc lighting for the motion picture industry (together with other rare earth metals), doping CaF2 crystals for use in optical lasers, as a neutron absorber in nuclear reactors. It is also used for headphones, and now guitar pickups. (Recall that guitar pickups are magnetic coils.) Samarium Cobalt Magnets can achieve very strong fields for their size (second to neodymium), which has far reaching implications for transducer design.

Scale Length:  in stringed instruments such as guitar, bass, banjo, etc. scale length is the distance from the nut to the bridge or saddle; basically, the total length of the vibrating portion of the string. The scale length is a major determinant for the pitch range of the instrument. For example, a violin has a shorter scale length than a viola. A piano, however, has different scale lengths to make it easier to cover a greater range of pitches. In instruments such as guitar, bass, banjo, etc. string tension increases with scale length. This is because a longer string will tend to vibrate at a lower frequency; therefore it requires more tension to bring it up to a given pitch. There are compromises to be made in either direction so it’s not as if shorter or longer scale lengths are “better;” they simply provide different characteristics that may or may not be advantageous to a given player or instrument.

Set neck:   sometimes referred to as a “set-in neck”, a guitar neck that is glued into place on the body of the guitar. Guitar makers have used this method for as long as acoustic guitars have existed; acoustic guitars almost always employ set-neck construction. The neck joint is carefully cut to match its mounting point on the guitar body and the two sections are almost always connected with dove-tail joints to maximize the gluing surface and minimize the possibility of the neck moving. On electric guitars, some builders feel a set-in neck joint gives the guitar a “singing” quality – notes seem to swell after the pick attack until they reach their final amplitude. Smooth, warm sustain with moderate attack are characteristics often attributed to set-in guitars. A classic example of an electric guitar with a set neck is the Gibson Les Paul.

Single coil:  a musical instrument (usually guitar or bass) magnetic pickup design that uses only one coil of wire around a magnet. This is in contrast with a dual coil, or humbucking pickup design. Both designs are common and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Squelch:  A function found on some radio receiving systems such as wireless microphones and guitar units that allow the user to set the receiver to mute or gate itself when the carrier falls below a specified level. The idea is to eliminate the unwanted noise associated with a radio receiver being tuned between stations, or not properly picking up a station/transmitter to which it is tuned. Typically turning the squelch control “up” makes the receiver have more of a tendency to mute, which means the carrier strength has to be higher in order for it to operate. If the squelch is set too high the audio will mute from time to time, however, if it is set too low you run the risk of getting blasts of noise through the system when the signal strength is compromised for one reason or another. The squelch control was an important part of wireless systems for many years, but with modern technology there are more sophisticated and automated methods of handling these things, which have all but eliminated the manual squelch control from systems.

Stoptail Bridge:  is a combination of bridge and Stop tailpiece mounted directly to the body of solid body guitar. A Stop tailpiece is a separate bar, mounted on the body behind a movable or fixed bridge that holds the strings. The advantage of a Stoptail bridge is greater tuning stability than a tremolo bar and takes advantage of the resonance of the body of the guitar provided by direct transmission of string vibration. Guitarists and guitar-makers alike believe that a Stoptail Bridge creates a richer tone and better sustain.

Tablature:  A system of writing music for fretted instruments, most commonly the guitar, whereby a number or letter appears on lines representing the strings, indicating the fret to be played. A six-line staff graphically represents the guitar fingerboard, with the top line indicating the highest sounding string (high E). By placing a number on the appropriate line, the string and fret of any note can be indicated. The number 0 represents an open string. An ‘X’ means to muffle, not let it ring.

Truss Rod:  A metal bar or rod used to reinforce the neck of a guitar, bass, or other stringed instrument. The tension created by a set of guitar or bass strings tuned up to pitch is several hundred pounds, which over time takes it toll on the relatively small piece of wood making up a neck. The truss rod is inserted inside for reinforcement and to enable adjustments to the bow of the neck to be made. By turning a properly shaped truss rod at different angles inside the cavity of the neck one can force the neck to slightly different shapes, which obviously will change the playability and action of the overall instrument.

Vibrato Tailpiece:   A component found on many electric guitars that allows players to produce a vibrato effect – a series of pitch changes, up or down, on notes. Originally conceived as a replacement for a guitarist’s subtle finger movement on the frets, this effect can be used for gentle or extreme pitch changes. A common slang term for the vibrato tailpiece and its control arm is “whammy bar.” Inventors have been trying to add vibrato to electric guitars since they first appeared on the scene. The Vibrola, a 1935 guitar made by Rickenbacker (invented by Doc Kauffman, who would later become Leo Fender’s first partner), was equipped with a motorized vibrato tailpiece that used cams to stretch and loosen the strings. It didn’t work very well. Les Paul claims to have experimented with vibrato controls in the 1930s as well. Ultimately, manufacturers generally adopted the practice of replacing the guitar’s bridge with a spring-loaded mechanism that can stretch the strings (to raise pitch) or loosen them (to lower pitch). Commonly these changes are made by pushing or pulling on a control arm that hangs below the strings, within easy reach of the guitarist’s right hand. Many historians agree that the first commercially successful unit was designed and marketed by Paul Bigsby in the late 1940s. The challenge of changing pitch by stretching and loosening strings lies in getting the strings to return to their normal intonation, or tuning after using the vibrato. A solution was introduced in “floating” vibrato systems, which allow both upward and downward bends and were designed with locking nuts that allow players to “lock” the strings in tune. Important clarification: many guitarists and manufacturers mistakenly refer to “vibrato” – meaning variations in pitch, with “tremolo” -, which means changes in amplitude, or volume. Fender and Floyd Rose both call their vibrato tailpieces “tremolo,” while some amplifiers provide an electronic tremolo unit, which guitarists (following Fender’s lead) incorrectly call a “vibrato.”

Zydeco Music: popular music of southern Louisiana that combines French dance melodies, elements of Caribbean music, and the blues, played by small groups featuring the guitar, the accordion, and a washboard.

Is BIG always better? Not necessarily. Modern bass cabinet designs can reinforce low frequency response in a properly built 4×10 cabinet and actually allow them to handle a low B-string (which produces frequencies even lower than a 42Hz E-string); something previously deemed unthinkable.

A larger 15-inch speaker will still move a room with lot of low-end rumble, so we still see a number of 1×15 or 2×15 combo amps and cabinets – great for smaller gigs and practice rigs.

What’s best for you? Well, it’s subjective. However, many successful bass players are relying on great cabinet design and spending less time worrying about the size of the speaker itself.

Modeling offers the best of all worlds. You can buy a basic “practice” amp today that will deliver almost any tone or effect you might need or want, and it will pull double-duty as a great studio amp. These budget-friendly models provide everything from clean tones to a full-out overdrive along with all the “must have” effects that bass players look for. There is no longer any need to compromise your sound, just because you’re just getting started playing guitar.

Even more impressive are the “does everything” amps that are sonic chameleons. They can deliver the sounds you need, without adding something you don’t – noise.  Today, thanks to modeling, all effects – even multi-effects like chorus and delay plus reverb – are designed to be amazingly quiet. What’s more, modeling frees you from the constraints of having to “make do” with a particular amp’s tonal range.

For some players, modeling is simply no substitute. And since a player’s individual tone is critical, we concede that each guitarist will decide for his or herself whether modeling is simply a fad or the future of all guitar amplification.

A lot of bass players prefer to create their own head-cabinet combination, using one head and a set of cabinets for different situations, there are those who prefer the old-fashioned combo amp.

Just as with standard electric guitar amps, you need to decide if you really need a high gain unit. If you will be playing studio gigs and small clubs, you certainly can get by with an “all-in-one” unit. In the 1960s and into the 1970s, there really weren’t many “combo” models – the “piggyback” Fender Bassman with 2×12 cabinet pretty much set the standard, though you historically-minded players will recall that Fender’s first bass amp, the original 4×10 Bassman of the 1950s was considered revolutionary.

Today, however, manufacturers understand that a properly-designed amp/speaker combination with a closed back (with or without a reflex port) will play loud enough for all but the larger venues. Most allow players to add an extra cabinet to reinforce the lowest octave.

For large halls, auditoriums and open arenas, high-powered heads matched with a single or double cabinet will be required to get the job done. These mega-watt monsters can play loud and clean right down to the low E-string. If you need a rock-solid foundation that will be felt as much as heard, nothing beats a high powered amp driving two 1×15 cabinets or a single 2×15. It’s worth noting, however, that both Fender and Hartke offer closed-back 4×10 cabinets, which, when matched with a 1×15 will produce a wider frequency response, which is favored by bass players who have active tone shaping capabilities on the instruments.

If you are looking for a high-power amp at the right price, a solid state will probably serve your needs perfectly.

Tube amps cost more.  Tubes are more fragile, as expected. The difference is really in the way a solid state amp overdrives compared to a tube amp. Solid state amps will play loud, but once they reach their upper limits, the distortion produced doesn’t sound good at all.

Tube amps, like almost all analog gear, produce a more pleasing overdrive. However, keep in mind that most quality solid state gear is built with enough headroom to avoid overdriving them, so it’s an issue to be aware of, but not necessarily one you need to be concerned about.

Keith Richards, Johnny Cash, and Eric Clapton used the original version of this little hand-wired box in the studio.  This replica gets all the details right, from the tweed-clad pine cabinet to the red jeweled pilot light.  Perfect if you need a unique practice amp.

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