Guitar Vs Tweeter

thehenderson · Post by **thehenderson** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:46 am

My amp is really trebly.. I guess guitars are mid-rangey instrument by nature?

Lawrence · Post by **Lawrence** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:52 am

guitars are actually dull by nature. Try plugging an electric directly to a mixing desk and you'll see that. Partly its an impedance thing, and partly the natural response of coils and magnets...
So, guitar amps have a built in upper mid/ treble boost to add colour.
If you want to continue going through a keyboard amp (???) then buy a Pod or something...better yet, buy a guitar amp!

Post by Bg » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:54 am

what lawrence said, keyboard amps are ok for bass I guess but not guitar!

Crazy Horse · Post by **Crazy Horse** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 1:01 pm

Guitar speakers actually use a really limited frequency range, as that is the way it was way bck when, and thus that is the way it is now. Like most things guitar related (tube powered amps, design of guitar pickup circuits etc), it's a case of it ain't broke so don't fix it.

Timi · Post by **Timi** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 1:02 pm

If you are playing fully clean you could use tweeters/horns, but as soon as you use any overdrive/distortion you will get a lot of harsh top end.

A guitar speaker has a bit of a boost around 3k, but then has a very sharp rolloff after that so theres high mid clarity to cut through but not much above that because it would get buzzy and harsh.

Lots of bass cabs use horns, and lots of bass players use their horn when using overdrive and it sounds terrible. Then they DI straight out of the overdrive too (remember the PA cab has horns too). Of course, no bass players I tell this to seem to understand.......

Some Bozo · Post by **Some Bozo** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 1:59 pm

I had a guitar-vs-tweeter once. The tweeter lost. Headphone-out connection of some horrible practice amp into a home stereo at full volume. Before long there was a funny smell.

bobiron · Post by **bobiron** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:50 pm

I use a keyboard for piezo only signal, this gives a full sound closer to an acoustic tone...although not acoustic of course. This combined with a real guitar amp gives a full sound and enables a range of blends of both amps. I have tried the guitar striaght in the keyboard amp with various pedals and the sound is too harsh for me, i.e. trebles for Africa. Some eqing can reduce this, but you are fighting against the system as it wants to produce all frequencies. Where as a guitar amp speaker naturally rolls the tops and both end off in a more narrow defined way. Hence the sound we all all strive to get form our precious amps.
Having said that a git sim sounds best through a full range amp, i.e. keyboard amp as opposed to a guitar amp as the sim is already emulating the preamp and speaker....well at least in the tests I have been able to do using my Yamaha DG Stomp sim and the Amplitube program VST program. Another option I have thought of is to switch your tweeter off(some KB amps have this capability) when you think you don't it.

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 9:29 am

Since a keyboard amp has to handle a wider range of frequencies than either bass or guitar amps do, I would have thought that Frey's reasoning was sound. Somewhere in there, he should surely be able to manipulate his EQ to boost guitar frequencies???

stark · Post by **stark** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:48 am

Rog wrote:Since a keyboard amp has to handle a wider range of frequencies than either bass or guitar amps do, I would have thought that Frey's reasoning was sound. Somewhere in there, he should surely be able to manipulate his EQ to boost guitar frequencies???

Maybe the spkr isn't working hard enough to sound any good.

I haven't had much success getting fullrange spkrs to sound good with guitar without using a processor that delivers the type of signal that a hifi or PA is expcecting.

Guitar amps and speakers are designed expressly for... guitars!