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In this video we're going to have a look at the tone controls that you'll find on your
amplifier. Now this amplifier looks like a complicated beast, it's got a lot of tone
controls on there but it's actually a lot simpler than it looks. Now this amp has four
channels, you see it allows you to set up four different sounds with different levels
of distortions and you get clean with a little bit more distortion, a little bit more again
and then a full distortion channel. And it has two sets of tone controls to control the
four channels. So quite complicated. We're just going to look for our purposes at one
level of channels. So one set of controls as it were. So first of all then you have
the gain control. Gain basically to all intents and purposes controls distortion. So if you
turn it up you get a more distorted sound, turn it down and you get less distortion.
It does have an effect on volume as well. So as you turn up and get more and more distortion
you may find you'll also get more volume. Volume then is just a volume control. It shouldn't
have very much effect on the tone at all. It should really just make it louder, simple.
Next on this amp then you have another gain and volume, that's for, that's for the crunch
channel, as you see. And then you get onto the basic tone controls: bass, middle and
treble. The kind of thing you'll have on any other audio device, you know, it could be an iPod or
a hi-fi or any other kind of guitar amp. So the bass allows you to control by boosting
or cutting the bottom end, the treble allows you to do the top end and of course the mid range
is for the mid. Some amplifiers will have additional controls on a master
channel and that means these affect all of those controls. So for example you've got
a presence control, that allows you to give a little extra, a little extra treble boost
regardless of how you set these up. Finally as we come over here, this is a valve amp,
it has what's called a stand-by control, that allows you to basically cut the power output
but still keeping heat in the valves. Valves work best when they have heat in them and
kept powered up as it were. It's also, it's also worth, when you turn your amplifier on,
using the stand-by switch. Turn it onto stand-by let the valves warm up and then when you're
ready to play switch on.