Do you crank up your amp volume or guitar volume?

[Lindsey]

I think I'm not the only person who saw the most recent music is win video on Youtube. It's about dailing the volume on your amp way up instead of on your guitar.
My amps volume is always at 1, I turn my guitar up until after the distortion sets in well. Over halfway open I think.
I had heard about turning up the amp before but just forgot about it. Now I'm curious what others do.

 

[Rad Synner]

I'd have to watch the video for reference but I always put the volume of the guitar up and then adjust the amp volume to what I want the loudness to be. To me, it just feels like it's too easy to accidentally hit the volume knob while playing a bit more aggressibvely and so If i'd put it in, said, the center, i'd probably hit the knob at some point and fuck everything!

 

[Lindsey]

I'd have to watch the video for reference but I always put the volume of the guitar up and then adjust the amp volume to what I want the loudness to be. To me, it just feels like it's too easy to accidentally hit the volume knob while playing a bit more aggressibvely and so If i'd put it in, said, the center, i'd probably hit the knob at some point and fuck everything!

I can see that happening to me. Now I just accidentally turn it off

 

[Lindsey]

 

[Alicia Willis]

Interesting topic. I honestly thought everyone kept their guitar volume wide open
I know I do. (Except for my strat….I’ll cut her back to like 7/8 and roll the tone back a bit too)
I’m constantly changing my amp volume though depending on the guitar I’m playing, which channel im on, pedals being used….etc.

I’ve never cranked my amp all the way up though 5 is pretty loud, but I definitely can tell a big tone difference between 2 and 5….

 

[Ed Seith]

For a rock or metal tone, your guitar volume should be duct-taped at 10, full on. That should be your default at all times, unless you're going for something specifically that requires it be lower.

As far as cranking an amp, it's definitely more about tube amps than anything else, and cranking a tube amp is a difficult thing to do if you have neighbors you like or family you love. A power soak, or "attenuator" allows you to crank the amp into the sweet spot while managing the volume in the room.

Controlling your overall volume with the knob on your guitar is a good way to be hated by everyone around you.

 

[ari.mac]

I always have my guitar volume at max and just adjust from the amp

 

[Muz Malek]

To my knowledge, they serve very different purposes. Because your guitar is basically an 'extension' of your amp, just that generally, your tone control is the bass, mid & treble settings all put into one knob(or two, depends). The volume on your guitar, when changed, doesn't really bring down the overall volume on the amp. It primarily cuts off gain of your pickups, which to most people, often get it mixed up with volume.

Correct me if i'm wrong, though!

Cheers!

 

[ari.mac]

To my knowledge, they serve very different purposes. Because your guitar is basically an 'extension' of your amp, just that generally, your tone control is the bass, mid & treble settings all put into one knob(or two, depends). The volume on your guitar, when changed, doesn't really bring down the overall volume on the amp. It primarily cuts off gain of your pickups, which to most people, often get it mixed up with volume.

Correct me if i'm wrong, though!

Cheers!

It's true, to my experience at least! I used this method once to switch from clean to distorted, because I have no pedals yet but other than that my guitar is always at max volume

 

[Ed Seith]

To my knowledge, they serve very different purposes. Because your guitar is basically an 'extension' of your amp, just that generally, your tone control is the bass, mid & treble settings all put into one knob(or two, depends). The volume on your guitar, when changed, doesn't really bring down the overall volume on the amp. It primarily cuts off gain of your pickups, which to most people, often get it mixed up with volume.

Correct me if i'm wrong, though!

Cheers!

It is volume, but it tends to roll off treble frequencies first and fastest, so rolling a volume down to 9 can take the "bite" out of (especially a clean) tone. Since a dirty, high-gain tone is heavily compressed by design, it can seem like the volume doesn't really go down much until the knob is below 2 or 3 because you're largely just reducing the compression clipping of the amp until that point.

 

[Alicia Willis]

cranking a tube amp is a difficult thing to do if you have neighbors you like or family you love.

 

[Noah Berends]

Amp for decibel volume (and tube tone).
Guitar volume control to me is purely an alternate tone knob.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

This Is all situational. Sometimes I do the guitar.. other times the pretone volume.. and other times the overall amp volume. All is depending on which guitar I use and the tone I'm aiming for.

 

[Muz Malek]

@Alicia Willis Inviting the police while playing The Police. Double whammy(pun intended).

 

[Adin Shepherd]

Wait.......the knobs on the guitar do stuff?