The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Attenuators do not get talked about much here. Most of us aren't interested in cranking Marshall half stacks in small clubs or bedrooms. But there is another use for them.

    I got a Bugera PS-1 on the weekend. It's a cheap resisitive attenuator. I can practice with my Deluxe Reverb at 5 and get wonderful Deluxe on the verge of breakup sounds at reasonable volume levels. That's the zone where you not only play the guitar but also play the amp. Your picking dynamics change the amp drastically when amp is at it's full power and ready to be pushed to overdrive (most amps are already at their full power around 5).
    I can also do the same with my Champ. No need for pedals for that slightly dirty, dynamic sound for home practice. Moreover, output of the attenuator is cabinet agnostic. Meaning I can plug my deluxe at 5 into the small 8 inch cab of Champ and vice versa.

    Anybody else use attenuators this way?

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  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Attenuators do not get talked about much here. Most of us aren't interested in cranking Marshall half stacks in small clubs or bedrooms. But there is another use for them.

    I got a Bugera PS-1 on the weekend. It's a cheap resisitive attenuator. I can practice with my Deluxe Reverb at 5 and get wonderful Deluxe on the verge of breakup sounds at reasonable volume levels. That's the zone where you not only play the guitar but also play the amp. Your picking dynamics change the amp drastically when amp is at it's full power and ready to be pushed to overdrive (most amps are already at their full power around 5).
    I can also do the same with my Champ. No need for pedals for that slightly dirty, dynamic sound for home practice. Moreover, output of the attenuator is cabinet agnostic. Meaning I can plug my deluxe at 5 into the small 8 inch cab of Champ and vice versa.

    Anybody else use attenuators this way?
    Not quite, but I’m not a big fan of power amp distortion or speaker breakup for jazz.

    My general strategy with tube amps is to whack the preamp with a hot signal to get the pre tubes warm, and that seems to work well for mild drive for Grant Green type tones etc using fender amps, esp with a healthy mid boost.

    Contemporary = Grant green + delay haha

    No idea how Grant himself did it.... tweed amps?

    But I’m open to giving it a go! Sometimes recording engineers like the amp to be really really quiet. Not enough for me to invest heavily tho....

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    not a big fan of power amp distortion
    That's the first time I've ever heard anyone say this. Can you explain? How do you hear the difference between preamp and power amp distortion?


    To answer the OP, I do this sometimes but I always go back. Partially because I'm neurotic and don't like having a lot of adjustable parameters. But also partially because I always get the impression the attenuator is taking off too much high end.

  5. #4
    Bugera is only 100USD. I'm surprised how good it sounds. It also has mic simulated XLR out. Attenuators sound unnatural when you push them to extremes. Like if you want to play 100W amp at 11 turned down to home volumes. But playing a 22watt amp at 5 seems to preserve the amp's natural tone really well.
    I used an expensive attenuator in the past with a Mesa amp I had at the time. Mesa had a master volume and I felt the attenuator didn't improve things worth it's price. I returned it. But for vintage style amps with no gain channel, you're effectively adding a master volume. Except master volume comes after power tubes, so you get both types of overdrive. Not speaker distortion though.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 10-31-2019 at 02:38 PM.

  6. #5

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    I have never heard of a attenuator for audio. I am a retired electronic tech. for 39 years.

    I assume it goes between the output transformer and the speaker and simulates a load. That would have an effect on the sound.

    But I don't use tubes so I have no input on the matter.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by BBGuitar
    I have never heard of a attenuator for audio. I am a retired electronic tech. for 39 years.

    I assume it goes between the output transformer and the speaker and simulates a load. That would have an effect on the sound.

    But I don't use tubes so I have no input on the matter.
    Here is some info:


  8. #7
    One more:

  9. #8

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    Better to simulate a load than stimulate a load.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Better to simulate a load than stimulate a load.
    Says the man who doesn't like the lyric "laugh and run away, like a child at play" ...

    John

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
    That's the first time I've ever heard anyone say this. Can you explain? How do you hear the difference between preamp and power amp distortion
    Take an amp with a master volume, crank the pre-amp (usually labeled "gain"), and turn the master volume down. That's preamp distortion. Now do the opposite. Exactly how different the two will sound depends on the specific amp design (e.g., how much gain the pre-amp stages have, and how the pre-amp stages and tone controls interact.). Very broadly speaking (with many caveats and exceptions), pre-amp distortion is more compressed and fuzzy; power amp distortion is more dynamic and singing. Fender *.Reverb amps have relatively little pre-amp gain/distortion* (which is why the master volumes on late SF amps are not terribly useful). Mesa Boogies typically have a lot of pre-amp gain (and also chain together more than one pre-amp stage to increase gain/distortion), so their master volumes typically are pretty useful. Attenuators' main purpose is to allow you to use power amp distortion at lower volumes.

    * Gain and distortion are not the same thing, but the way guitar amps are usually designed, more gain is accompanied by more distortion, so they are proxies for each other.

    John

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by John A.
    Says the man who doesn't like the lyric "laugh and run away, like a child at play" ...

    John
    It is a bad lyric.

    It’s not as bad as MacArthur Park, but that song transcends epic metaphor failure (wherein both the metaphor, and its failure are equally epic) to become something rich and strange.

    I find it hard to imagine that the lyricist with the sense of economy and character that wrote Wichita Lineman is the same man. And yet, he is.

    DoWaR not quite that perplexing, it’s always just a bit excruciating (and entertaining) when someone aims for a literary flourish and ends up falling on their arse.

    Songwriters, know your limits. You are not John Milton.

    Whereas I was making a wanking joke.

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    It is a bad lyric.

    It’s not as bad as MacArthur Park, but that song transcends epic metaphor failure (wherein both the metaphor, and its failure are equally epic) to become something rich and strange.

    I find it hard to imagine that the lyricist with the sense of economy and character that wrote Wichita Lineman is the same man. And yet, he is.

    DoWaR not quite that perplexing, it’s always just a bit excruciating (and entertaining) when someone aims for a literary flourish and ends up falling on their arse.

    Songwriters, know your limits. You are not John Milton.

    Whereas I was making a wanking joke.
    Yes, but the wanking joke is a childish funny (laugh), typically followed by running way (you were not actually running way, though who knows? maybe you were ...).

    Anyway, the DoW&R lyrics are a whole lot better if you understand the full context of the film and its sources. The film is a meditation on alcoholism, depression, and lost innocence. It (or at least the title) was inspired by a poem by Ernest Dowson

    They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
    Love and desire and hate:
    I think they have no portion in us after
    We pass the gate.


    They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
    Out of a misty dream
    Our path emerges for a while, then closes
    Within a dream.

    The poem is a not-so-veiled reference to the author's alcoholism and depression, and foreshadowing of his death at a young age therefrom. The lyrics are a re-working of the poem to fit the plot of the movie a little more directly.

    I should probably go now, I think I left my cake out in the rain.

    John

  14. #13

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    If you dont like the lyrics of DOWAR, you haven't heard Tony Bennett sing them with Bill Evans.Now MacArthur park...how much coke you gotta do to think that metaphor works?

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Not quite, but I’m not a big fan of power amp distortion or speaker breakup for jazz.

    My general strategy with tube amps is to whack the preamp with a hot signal to get the pre tubes warm, and that seems to work well for mild drive for Grant Green type tones etc using fender amps, esp with a healthy mid boost.
    ...
    Sounds like a Godfather movie..., "whack the preamp...".
    I know what gangsters mean by this, but not jazz guitarists.

  16. #15

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    I have used an attenuator since they were available, but not (as yet) for jazz. A Scholz Power Soak does it for me. Pristine cleans have their charms, but I also value that zone of sensitivity where light = clean and crisp and successively more energetic picking yields harmonically-altered tones from horn-like on through clipping and beyond.

  17. #16

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    Had a couple minutes with a students fryette? Power station.


    i was pretty freaking impressed.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by citizenk74
    I have used an attenuator since they were available, but not (as yet) for jazz. A Scholz Power Soak does it for me. Pristine cleans have their charms, but I also value that zone of sensitivity where light = clean and crisp and successively more energetic picking yields harmonically-altered tones from horn-like on through clipping and beyond.
    Yup, 30 years ago, the only way my buddy could get that great cranked sound at home with his Marshall halfstack and Les Paul was by using a TS Power Soak.


  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by skykomishone
    Sounds like a Godfather movie..., "whack the preamp...".
    I know what gangsters mean by this, but not jazz guitarists.
    The preamp is evil and must be punished.

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    If you dont like the lyrics of DOWAR, you haven't heard Tony Bennett sing them with Bill Evans.Now MacArthur park...how much coke you gotta do to think that metaphor works?
    I left my coke out in the rain.

  21. #20

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  22. #21

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    My good experience with the attenuator/Line out on the Tone Master got me curious about the Bugera PS1, so mine arrived today and I've been playing with it with my Princeton Reverb RI. You have to be careful where you put the PS1 because it can pick up a nasty hum if you set it over, say, a transformer. But placed right, no hum. Here's a clip I made just testing the box, using the XLR output to record the guitar. I had the speaker out line to the PS1, the speaker cable itself plugged into the Bugera, and the XLR going to the PreSonus Audiobox iTwo.

    Two disclaimers: 1) lotsa clams here, I was in a hurry just to try it out 2) WAY too much reverb, sorry about that.


  23. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    My good experience with the attenuator/Line out on the Tone Master got me curious about the Bugera PS1, so mine arrived today and I've been playing with it with my Princeton Reverb RI. You have to be careful where you put the PS1 because it can pick up a nasty hum if you set it over, say, a transformer. But placed right, no hum. Here's a clip I made just testing the box, using the XLR output to record the guitar. I had the speaker out line to the PS1, the speaker cable itself plugged into the Bugera, and the XLR going to the PreSonus Audiobox iTwo.

    Two disclaimers: 1) lotsa clams here, I was in a hurry just to try it out 2) WAY too much reverb, sorry about that.

    Sounding good.
    One time I tried the XLR out, I thought it sounded surprisingly good too. How do you like it so far? At the very least it makes recording through Princeton easier and let's you use it with the headphones I guess.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 10-31-2019 at 02:12 PM.

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Sounding good.
    One time I tried the XLR out, I thought it sounded surprisingly good too. How do you like it so far? At the very least it makes recording through Princeton easier and let's you use it with headphones I guess.
    Yes, I've usually mic'd the PRRI and been happy with that. The PS1 requires set-up, but the mic does too. I like direct recording when possible. I wish I knew what speaker emulation the PS1 uses with the XLR out. I think I'd also like to try an A/B with the Princeton, one mic'd, one with the PS1. This also will be fun to play with using my old Silvertone 1484.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by John A.
    Attenuators' main purpose is to allow you to use power amp distortion at lower volumes.

    John
    Would that result in power tubes wearing out faster? Hope not.

    Doug

  26. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Doug B
    Would that result in power tubes wearing out faster? Hope not.

    Doug
    Not faster than without the attenuator at the same volume settings.