Gain vs Master settings on MarkBass combo amps

[Al Kraft]

I know a few people that repair jet planes for a living. They don't know how to fly them.

This would be my answer and it's even from my professional field of practice.

 

[Timothy DeHan]

At about 1:20, Dino explains the “master full adjust with gain” method. Works well with old school style amps. Approximates how amps without 2 volume knobs would work. (This method also works well on Rumbles, i feel it makes them sound their most tube-like.)

after that, he explains the “adjust gain just under clipping” method on the SVT-7. This is exactly how I dial my Markbass, I think it sounds best this way. (Consistent tone at any volume.)

I know this is an Ampeg video, but my point is different methods, different amps, different goals.

as for the 2nd question, I also run my bass guitar volume a bit under full, just in case

So, I've been playing with setting my amp to flat, turning the master completely down, turning the volume control on my bass all the way up, digging into the E and A strings and setting the Gain just below when the clip light comes on. When I do this, I can barely get the amp volume up to 8 o'clock because of how loud it is! Zero volume on the amp starts at 7 o'clock. So, I only have a tiny bit of movement from 7 to 8 o'clock. This doesn't seem right to me.

 

[CallMeAl]

So, I've been playing with setting my amp to flat, turning the master completely down, turning the volume control on my bass all the way up, digging into the E and A strings and setting the Gain just below when the clip light comes on. When I do this, I can barely get the amp volume up to 8 o'clock because of how loud it is! Zero volume on the amp starts at 7 o'clock. So, I only have a tiny bit of movement from 7 to 8 o'clock. This doesn't seem right to me.

If that was the case, I’d just dial down the gain a little more. I tend to use these things like guides, not hard and fast rules. My P bass pickup is pretty low output, so I tend to do well with high gain. Maybe your bass is a little hot…

Are we talking 500w combo head? I have the 500w LMIII, and I’ll say that sucker is LOUD at low settings. Dial back the signal in other ways, extra headroom is always a good thing

 

[evs]

Mine is the same.
It only sounds on at about 7 o’clock but then is loud by 8 o’clock.
When I’m gigging I haven’t actually got it past 9 o’clock.

Like most amps, it obviously isn’t a linear volume knob.
But it does bring on the power very quickly

 

[grandma_moses]

Ok. However, how does one then attinuate the volumne of the bass live when performing without having to keep going to the bass amp to adjust the Master? If the volumne on the bass guitar is set to full then there is no room to move from the bass itself.

You do not do it via volume control, either, you're no guitar wanting to control the edge of breakup with your volume control.





From the top, very elaborate and long:


Your bass outputs an electrical signal generated by moving strings inducing currents into the pickups. This signal is very weak, which is why it has to be amplified by a good amount first to then be usable for the power amp section to get the levels to the desired volume an audience can enjoy.

You add gain to your original, weak signal to get it to this usable state, so it can be further processed without issues.





Why do we need to do this, at all?


If you wouldn't do that, your signal, due to its low strength, would not be much louder than the white noise that's always present: the hardware itself, the cycle hum of your grid - along millions of small electrical currents induced into any of the wires of the circuit through millions of possible reasons - is leading to white noise always being present in any raw signal from a pick-up'd string instrument.





So now when you amplify that low level signal, you equally amplify the almost as loud white noise along with it as amplifying raises all boats, not just the ones you want - leading to a very noisy, unprofessionally sounding, muddy mix coming out from the FoH speakers.

Term-wise, you call what you want as music the 'signal', and you call the white noise 'noise', and you need to get as much volume difference between both as possible, so when you amplify the signal the white noise doesn't get so loud as to drown everything out. The difference in level between the signal you want and the white noise is the 'signal-to-noise ratio' - an infamous value often over - or undervalued by the respective sides of the internet - with it being higher generally being preferable for processing the signal.

That's why you want to get as close to the clipping LED as possible when doing rudimentary gaining on an amp - this literally ensures that your signal is the loudest it can be for the preamp to handle it before clipping while simultaneously putting more distance between the signal's level and the white noise's level.

That is the actual reason for the need for gaining, for gain being different to volume and for it all to be adjustable in an OK manner with just one LED as guidance.





Your pickup sits at the start of the whole chain, making it so the gain has to be added correctly, then the power amp levels need to be adjusted correctly and so on.

Well, now what happens when you artificially lower your signal's strength at the source, just when it comes out of your bass, by engaging the volume knob? Is the gain dialed in at your amp still correct, what do you think? Is the master volume of your bass - what is heard by the audience coming from FoH - still correct when you lower volume at the very beginning of the chain without compensating? Does the audience now hear more or less white noise coming through from your bass?

Are any effects you might use still functioning exactly the same with a low level signal than they would do with a high level signal, is the delay still reaching the 5th repetition as you wanted it to? Does your compressor react as you set him up when you change the very base level of your signal before compressing it?





The answers all make it clear that changing your signal level early in the chain, before it having hit the power amp section, is a recipe for disaster. That why you normally do not use the volume knob ( as opposed to rather often using the tone knob ) live. Your sound guy will hate you as he cannot get your level to where it needs to be in the mix without adding much white noise and you will sound subpar to the way it has been set up during soundcheck as you literally allow more white noise to come through.

The most normal thing to handle a section coming up needing you to be quieter is having the sound guy move a fader, which, no offense, is his primary job description anyway - along with you simply easing up on the intensity along with that. If more instruments will need to be adjusted at once, he will have prepared groups and buses on his mixing console to streamline the process, which, again, is why groups and buses are a function of his mixing console in the first place.

If you do not have a sound guy or he is drunk as usual, meaning you yourself need to adjust for a quieter part, it comes down to you picking the easiest way under the circumstances.





Some rather known accessoires and ways to make it possible, not jumping into MIDI or other programming, include:
volume pedals, booster pedals, load boxes, channel switching on the amp via footswitch, having the correct number of patches with different levels handy in a performance on your modeler, switch to fingers from pick for the desired effect or literally ANY stompbox post-stack with a volume knob and a working footswitch.

Just for the love of all that is holy, please understand that as bassist you cannot, EVER, willy nilly change your signal levels pre-stack ( you of course can, rules are made to be broken, but you have to understand WHY and HOW, not think all you do is change your volume by doing it ) or you will mess with the whole gain structure, the signal-to-noise ratio and ultimately, the ears of your audience. You cannot do it, neither playing in front of 5 guys wednesday evening nor selling out the O2 being the most successful act on the planet.

There's this saying here that doesn't translate, but it uniquely fits the problem - going along the lines of 'of yourse you can do it, you just have to accept that it will be total s*it then!'. If you do not believe me, do your own research until you understand gain, it's one of the few important technical concepts about which we need to be knowledgable.





A last thing to clarify: Guitarists do it, tho. They change their signal levels pre-stack all the time, their most famous pedals are engaged and disengaged multiple times throughout songs, changing their signal level pre-stack - Tubescreamer, Klon, Blues Driver...

What, how, why? Easily explained - pushing your preamp towards clipping ( aka feeding it too high a signal level ) can lead to a pleasant distorting of the original signal, meaning you want your signal to clip, which is why you have all these stompboxes trying to control the exact way of the signal clipping so it sounds pleasantly at the end.

You CAN do that for bass as well, there are songs and bands distorting the bass both via signal input clipping at the preamp or via pedals that change the wave form of your signal ( eg fuzz ), although there are not that many - maybe none more famous than Motörhead.





But when you want to become louder or more quiet as per the example above: you want to change ONLY your level, you do NOT want to change your bass sound's characteristics, your effects' intensity or your position in the mix along with changing your volume. This would lead to the sound guy trying to correct things which leads to more problems when you get louder again as you guys basically work against each other trying to achieve your respective MOs.

And that, in so many words, is why a clean bass does not tinker with any of his signal levels as long as the pre-amp has not yet been hit by the signal without talking to his sound guy first. And if no sound guy, you will need to find a way, but you still do not change any signal levels pre-stack whatsoever until you understand what is going on with signal-to-noise and input clipping at the preamp; at which point you can follow or break rules as much as you like.

 

[agedhorse]

You do not do it via volume control, either, you're no guitar wanting to control the edge of breakup with your volume control.


From the top, very elaborate and long:

Your bass outputs an electrical signal generated by moving strings inducing currents into the pickups. This signal is very weak, which is why it has to be amplified by a good amount first to then be usable for the power amp section to get the levels to the desired volume.

You add gain to your original, weak signal to get it to this usable state, so it can be further processed without issues.

Why do we need to do this, at all?

If you wouldn't do that, your signal, due to its low strength, would not be much louder than the white noise that's always present - millions of small electrical currents induced into any of the wires through millions of possible reasons are leading to white noise always being present in any raw signal from a pick-up'd string instrument.

So now when you amplify that low level signal, you equally amplify the almost as loud white noise along with it as amplifying raises all boats, not just the ones you want - leading to a very noisy, unprofessionally sounding, muddy mix coming out from the FoH speakers.

Term-wise, you call what you want as music the 'signal', and you call the white noise 'noise', and you need to get as much distance between both as possible so when you amplify the signal, the noise doesn't get so loud as to drown everything out. The difference in level between the signal you want and the white noise is the signal-to-noise ratio - with it being higher being preferable for processing the signal.

That's why you want to get as close to the clipping LED as possible when doing rudimentary gaining on an amp - ensuring that your signal is the loudest it can be for the preamp to handle it while simultaneously putting more distance between the signal's level and the white noise's level.

Your pickup sits at the start of the whole chain, making it so the gain has to be added correctly, then the power amp levels need to be adjusted correctly and so on.

Well, now what happens when you artificially lower your signal's strength at the source, just when it comes out of your bass, by engaging the volume knob? Is the gain dialed in at your amp still correct, what do you think? Is the master volume of your bass - what is heard by the audience coming from FoH - still correct when you lower volume at the very beginning of the chain without compensating? Does the audience now hear more or less white noise coming through from your bass?

Are any effects you might use still functioning exactly the same with a low level signal than they would do with a high level signal, is the delay still reaching the 5th repetition as you wanted it to? Does your compressor react as you set him up when you change the very base level of your signal before compressing it?

The answers all make it clear that changing your signal level early in the chain, before it having hit the power amp section, is a recipe for disaster. That why you normally do not use the volume knob ( as opposed to rather often using the tone knob ) live. Your sound guy will hate you as he cannot get your level to where it needs to be in the mix without adding much white noise and you will sound subpar to the way it has been set up during soundcheck as you literally allow more white noise to come through.

The most normal thing to handle a section coming up needing you to be quieter is having the sound guy move a fader, which, no offense, is his primary job description anyway - along with you simply easing up on the intensity along with that. If more instruments will need to be adjusted at once, he will have prepared groups and buses on his mixing console to streamline the process, which, again, is why groups and buses are a function of his mixing console in the first place.

If you do not have a sound guy or he is drunk as usual, meaning you yourself need to adjust for a quieter part, it comes down to you picking the easiest way under the circumstances.

Some rather known accessoires and ways to make it possible, not jumping into MIDI or other programming, include:
volume pedals, booster pedals, load boxes, channel switching on the amp via footswitch, having the correct number of patches with different levels handy in a performance on your modeler, switch to fingers from pick for the desired effect or literally ANY stompbox post-stack with a volume knob and a working footswitch.

Just for the love of all that is holy, please understand that as bassist you cannot, EVER, willy nilly change your signal levels pre-stack ( you of course can, rules are made to be broken, but you have to understand WHY and HOW, not think all you do is change your volume by doing it ) or you will mess with the whole gain structure, the signal-to-noise ratio and ultimately, the ears of your audience. You cannot do it, neither playing in front of 5 guys wednesday evening nor selling out the O2 being the most successful act on the planet.

There's this saying here that doesn't translate, but it uniquely fits the problem - going along the lines of 'of yourse you can do it, you just have to accept that it will be total s*it then!'. If you do not believe me, do your own research until you understand gain, it's one of the few important technical concepts about which we need to be knowledgable.

A last thing to clarify: Guitarists do it, tho. They change their signal levels pre-stack all the time, their most famous pedals are engaged and disengaged multiple times throughout songs, changing their signal level pre-stack - Tubescreamer, Klon, Blues Driver...

What, how, why? Easily explained - pushing your preamp towards clipping ( aka feeding it too high a signal level ) can lead to a pleasant distorting of the original signal, meaning you want your signal to clip, which is why you have all these stompboxes trying to control the exact way of the signal clipping so it sounds pleasantly at the end.

You CAN do that for bass as well, there are songs and bands distorting the bass both via signal input clipping at the preamp or via pedals that change the wave form of your signal ( eg fuzz ), although there are not that many - maybe none more famous than Motörhead.

But when you want to become louder or more quiet as per the example above: you want to change ONLY your level, you do NOT want to change your bass sound's characteristics, your effects' intensity or your position in the mix along with changing your volume. This would lead to the sound guy trying to correct things which leads to more problems when you get louder again as you guys basically work against each other trying to achieve your respective MOs.

And that, in so many words, is why a clean bass does not tinker with any of his signal levels as long as the pre-amp has not yet been hit by the signal without talking to his sound guy first. And if no sound guy, you will need to find a way, but you still do not change any signal levels pre-stack whatsoever until you understand what is going on with signal-to-noise and input clipping at the preamp; at which point you can follow or break rules as much as you like.

Most of this is not correct, nor does it apply to most bass players.

In fact, this sounds very much like an AI assisted response with slightly more refined “word salad” elements than usual.

 

[grandma_moses]

Most of this is not correct, nor does it apply to most bass players.

In fact, this sounds very much like an AI assisted response with slightly more refined “word salad” elements than usual.

OK, harsh, but OK, free country.

To diminish my efforts into being AI-generated hurts, tho, is it because english is not my first language? Can you please forgive me, and how about belittling me in your second language over 1500 words? I just know you will fare so much better than me!

I'm trying my very best to appear elaborate enough for titans of industry such as you to take notice, sorry if my english doesn't pass the AI test. Also like how most of my gain explanations and explanations about how you actually act on stage in small to medium venues are wrong. Just wrong. Must have those experiences from somewhere else I reckon.

In fact, sound guys love you for changing your volume at the bass mid-song and who ever did not like a bit of extra white noise - just do gain as volume as well, why not, the results, hmmm, *chef's kiss*.

Also you did not answer the bloke asking for help for two years, but leap straight out of the bushes to parade and belittle an answer, instantly. Well played.

( I do not know, does my sarcasm make it across with my AI english or how are we looking there? is this really the hill you want to die on, unprovoked and unchallenged? )

 

[agedhorse]

Since you don’t have your location in your profile, there’s no way for me to know that you are not writing in English. If you uses AI assisted translation software, that would explain how it came across as AI-like, especially for a first post.

While your gain structure will work ok in ideal situations, it does account for when a player digs in harder, nor does it account for when a player wants to overdrive the preamp a little but also have adequate headroom to clean up.

As far as never changing volume, and something that doesn’t work for sound guys, that’s also rediculous. As everything on stage gets louder and softer, there’s no problem with the bass volume being proportional from the stage. This is exactly what happens when a bass cabinet (or guitar cabinet) is mic’d. For the sound guys, as long as the players are reasonable, the mix remains more balanced without having to chase levels. It’s not black or white, there is more than one way to set up gain structure (especially depending on playing style).

Also, I did help the OP through private messaging though frankly, that’s none of your business.

If you were really trying to help, you might want to consider that there is not ONLY one way to do something, and have some situational awareness about other options… and yes, your sarcasm came through crystal clear.

 

[SJan3]

OK, harsh, but OK, free country.

To diminish my efforts into being AI-generated hurts, tho, is it because english is not my first language? Can you please forgive me, and how about belittling me in your second language over 1500 words? I just know you will fare so much better than me!

I'm trying my very best to appear elaborate enough for titans of industry such as you to take notice, sorry if my english doesn't pass the AI test. Also like how most of my gain explanations and explanations about how you actually act on stage in small to medium venues are wrong. Just wrong. Must have those experiences from somewhere else I reckon.

In fact, sound guys love you for changing your volume at the bass mid-song and who ever did not like a bit of extra white noise - just do gain as volume as well, why not, the results, hmmm, *chef's kiss*.

Also you did not answer the bloke asking for help for two years, but leap straight out of the bushes to parade and belittle an answer, instantly. Well played.

( I do not know, does my sarcasm make it across with my AI english or how are we looking there? is this really the hill you want to die on, unprovoked and unchallenged? )

Do you realize that the OP was 3 years ago? This issue was addressed back then. I'd suggest you read the entire thread before chiming in. You might learn something and save yourself the schooling you received.