WHAT IS A PRE AMP ?

Sooner or later in the life of a guitar player comes the cuestion of a What is a what is a pre amp??? And this is all about this post, I hope to help the reader to understand better this concept.

In the chain of a guitar player exist different stages from the hands to the sound coming out of the speakers, in a very essential guitar chain there is the Guitar player then the guitar, the cable, then the amplifier then the speaker but…. Inside the amplifier like a combo for example after the input where the cable is connected there is a section call the PREAMP or PRE AMP the term means previous to amplification so there are tree stages inside a combo guitar

01 The pre Amp

02 The power amp

03 The speaker

In a head and cabinet combination there are the same 3 stages but in this case the speaker is on a different cab (the speaker cab) and the first two are in the head with a pre amp followed buy a power amplification section

Ok this is where everybody gets confused, so the preamp is the section from the input in the front panel of the amplifier (combo or head) to the send of the Fx loop, once you return connecting  a cable in the return of the Fx loop there is the beginning of the power amplification.

So the preamp section gives the color and character to the guitar sound and contains in most of the cases a volume control a distortion or gain control, an EQ section parametric or graphic  or both , giving the sound a particular “tone” that complements the hands execution. By character I mean it could be a brutal aggressive tone to play heavy riffs to the most sweet clean tone and that is defined by the preamp + the effects

That is before the POWER stage where the power of the signal is elevated to a high level sound or volume that comes from the speaker, so we need a preamp to give a  color to the signal before the signal is powered to the power amp.

In central mix station we can offer a vast variety of sounds, many many different tones, and we can record the guitars that perfect fit to your music. You can listen some examples HERE