software

more harmonics and feedback?

usually, the more gain you put into a signal, the louder it gets, which makes it easer to get harmonics and feedback, along with other noises.

In a guitar tone sense, gain adjusts the sentitivity of the guitar signal. Therefore, when there is more gain, the little stuff like harmonics are picked up better and amplified more.

Yup. Gain is basically a form of compression.

I've heard guys play acoustics, and can get some awesome harmonics. Real control and precision. But, er, not feedback though... Gain is the magnifying glass...


Originally Posted by MoriorYup. Gain is basically a form of compression.

Not Really...Compression is actually a REDUCTION in gain and dynamics to save headroom and avouid harmonic distortion (in the case of tubes, a natural effect that happens when the tube is already getting too high of an input signal, often accompanied by harmonic distortion). SO if anything, compression would be the result of too much gain (as it usually is)

I prefer to think of each gain stage or outboard preamp / booster as a megaphone..... More gain = Bigger megaphone, but more noise as well....

And if you overdo it and daisy chain multiple megaphoned, you get mothing but Mush, noise and feedback after a certain point

ok, you take a nice clean signal. Then you add gain to it. the added gain will (literally) quot;overdrivequot; at one point causing the harmonics to be more pronounced (not natural or pinch harmonics that you can do while playing, we're actually talking about even and odd harmonics). more gain also adds more sensitivity to the input device making it more succeptible to feedback.

for a cool experiment, and if you have the equipment. get a spectrum analyzer, a signal generator and an RF preamplifier. set the sig gen for a nice clean 0 dbm (decibels per milliwatt) signal. have that flowing through the preamp on bypass and on to the spec an. on the spec an, set the frequency so that your signal is near the left side of the screen (this will allow you to see several harmonics). Slowly turn up the gain on the preamp, and on the second it overdrives, you'll see several other signals pop up on the spec an. The more you increase on the preamp, the bigger these additional signals get. These are harmonics, and these are the overtones you hear when you play through an overdriven amp.

did you know that a signal plus its harmonics form a square wave?