Programming

We now come to a critical point: how to program the entire system. First of all you always need to calculate whether you will be playing at home, using headphones or in a place where you cannot play, which will probably result in an imperfect sound when playing live. This is because every environment has its own acoustics. The best procedure would be to construct the sounds in the proper environment, like a sound room, in oder to obtain the perfect output sound. When we are on the stage we take advantage of free moments to correct possible defects that can arise due to the acoustics of the environment. Next it is very important to test the sounds with a group or with a musical base, to confirm the levels of effects, EQ, and preset volumes, things that otherwise would make playing alone difficult (difficult, but not impossible, where in many cases you will be end up programming at home).
We therefore adjust the internal volumes of every preset. I offer the followings suggestions:

• A solo sound has to be emphasized more than a rhythmic sound, therefore the volume or the middle and high EQ levels should be increased. Be aware of the fact that the sum could have a higher overall volume.
• Too much effect could consume volume and be heard less in the overall sound of the group. If you must have that type of sound, keep the volume slightly higher than you would if playing a solo.
• Tare all the levels of the effects so that you are not forced to use equipment to gain volume. Learn to trust the clipping LED's, which are almost always present, and try to stay around "0".
• Take advantage of the power amp. It's better to raise the volume on the power amp in order to "ring the neck" of the other equipment.

Let's analyze how to balance single channels or single presets. Clean sounds are the sounds that can cause the most trouble with respect to the amount of volume. It seems strange, but it's true. Lets see why.
Looking at the dynamics of a clean sound, you can see that it is completely free. Using a scale from "0" to "100", if you play with a light touch, you would get a dynamic volume of 5: this means that when playing a group, your part wouldn't be heard at all. On the other hand, if you "pound the strings", you would have a dynamic volume that is too high, 95 for instance. If the amplifier was set to a high level, you would probably scare everyone.
Instead, a distorted sound, compressed by the circuits, has more limited dynamics, from approximately 20 to 80.

In this figure you can see the difference in dynamics between a clean and a distorted sound.

Repeating, there are two difficulties in clean sounds:

• Performing dynamically delicate parts, for instance the typical arpeggios of accompaniment. More than likely the sound will be too weak with respect to the rest of the group.
• When playing rhythmics at a certain levely, such as funky rhythmics (which are very percussive), the output volume will be very high, and will therefore max out every unit in series after the preamp.

Remember that a very distorted sound causes a lot of compression and therefore, at the same volume as a more crunch sound (less distorted), will be heard less in the global context of the band. Consequently, you must keep the volume of a very distorted sound higher with respect to a crunch sound.
Now we will see how a preamplified sound is effected using the send-return of the amplifier.