Guitar Amplifiers Explained

Guitar Amplifiers or Amp are a kind of electronic device which are used to amplify the sound of an electric guitar and it provides a connecting interface for example to connect with your Mac to use GarageBand software. For GarageBand software, if you do NOT to buy any kind of Guitar Amplifiers or Amp, you can simply use a kind of converter cable and Mac has far better Amp software in GarageBand than low cost Guitar Amplifiers or Amp. This article is not specific for like how to use GarageBand and electric guitar, you can obviously skip buying the amp and directly connect, that is enough good for legendary quality artist (inspired by GarageBand…pun intended) like me; but if you really want a Guitar Amplifiers or Amp after knowing why you want to use – this article is for you.

For GarageBand, you can read this KB :

and this one :

The Guitar Amplifiers or Amp has advantages even with Mac with GarageBand and electric guitar – the signal of the instrument is conveyed via different type of cables like USB cable (which makes it a MIDI device) or via a radio apparatus. The guitar amp is not only amplify the sound neutrally in case of electric guitar, but also contribute significantly to modification of sound. The musicians often considers the guitar amplifiers as part of their musical instrument and uses it to give various effects -kind of artistic distortions can be made. Basically this was the primary reason to develop the combo – historically it is a part of starting of Jazz period, people had less computing devices than now.

Categories of Guitar Amplifiers Explained

Guitar amplifiers can be classified into the following categories :

• According to the type (combo, preamp, power amp and separate rack system)
• According to the application (for electric guitar, electric bass guiter, acoustic guitar, practice setup, studio setup and stage amplifier)
• According to the use of reinforcing parts (vacuum tube ,semiconductors or hybrid)
• According to the predominant sound characteristics (clean, distorted, British or American)

Basic Details of Guitar Amplifiers Explained

Combo amplifiers (abbreviated Combo) has both the electronics part to amplify the sound and one or more loudspeakers mounted in a common housing. The first early guitar amplifiers were mostly of this type as there were no computers or iPads. The output power moves generally in the range of 5 to 100 watts. Combos with even smaller output power can be supplied from a battery part. They are well suited for practice and game locations without AC power.

Mini amplifiers or mini amps has the only the amplification part. With tube amplifiers circuit to amplify the signals, vacuum tubes are used. Although nowadays rarely tubes are used in electronics (due to size, weight, heat generation, lack of long-term stability and complex power supply) that on guitar amps is used because of the special transmission characteristics.

Digital signal processors are used to simulate the behavior of tube amplifiers, they can have very high quality costly extra things. These are the basics about Guitar Amplifiers, possibly enough for the starters.