VOLUME &
ATTENUATION
It was totally possible to get
the creamy distortion tone
from your average amplifier,
but it required controlling the
volume lest the wattage take
your head off, so guitarists
and pedal manufacturers had
to get creative. A common
tool was running the amp
loud and using the volume
knob on the guitar itself to
clean up the signal. This later
transitioned into volume
pedals, which acted as a
controllable volume pot on
the floor and allowed for
evocative volume swells (see
“Xanadu” by Rush).
Another method was by
power attenuation, or power
soaking. This is achieved
by controlling the amount
of volume that goes to the
speaker, allowing you to
increase the power to the
amplifier to your preference.
A great in-studio example
of this is the band Boston;
guitarist Tom Scholz ran a
power soaked Marshall amp
directly into
his
mixing console to get the fat,
midrange sound for which
Boston is so well known.
Then of course there’s
the simplest method:
equalization. On top of
allowing artists to add or
subtract frequencies of their
choosing, EQ units also
allowed for volume control
which let guitarists push the
amp and control the overall
volume and tone with the
equalizer. Eddie Van Halen
and Twisted Sister got their
tone this way, using MXR’s
early equalizer units.
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