FEEDBACK, PREAMP GAIN and BREAKUP

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Excessive preamp gain is the bain of the amplified harp player, excessive preamp gain will in all cases increase feedback. Guitar amnps are designed for the lower input that is generated by the guitar's pickups, for guitars this gain is necessary; but when a harp player connects a microphone to a guitar amp the level generated by the mic is much higher and the preamp is overdriven making feedback much more likely. Feedback is technically an acoustic problem arising when there is coupling between the speaker and microphone, it can be eliminated by relocating the speaker and or mic and by decreasing the volume out of the speaker. This solution is not always viable for musicians because they need to be heard and the need to hear themselves.

The odd thing is that if there is not of gain in the preamp and your amp does not feedback at all it will most likely not have enough gain to overdrive the tube finals and give us the distortion we want. If your amp feeds back between 5 and 8 on your volume control your are good and increasing preamp gain will only create feedback trouble for you and you will have less volume control range to work with. In the event you typically can turn your volume control to 9 or higher before feedback then you can benefit from increaseing preamp gain, but no matter what you do to the preamp your amp.

To understand what really happens when we consider preamp gain we must first understand what causes power amp distortion and the relationship between the volume control setting and the sound level out of the speaker.

The first is easy enough; to overdrive the power tube the preamp output must exceed the bias voltage and drive the tube into saturation or cutoff or both. Your preamp should have enough gain to overdrive your power tube at a ratio of 2.5 to 1 as compared to the bias voltage, with a bias voltage of 16 volts you need your preamp to put out a max of about 40 volts peak to peak. This does not have to be exact but close and more than this just increases feedback problems. In the event you do not have test equipment all you need to do is answer this one question; at what volume setting does your amp feed back in a typical playing eviroment? Between 5 to 8 and you are good. If your amp feeds back to early, say around 2 to 4 then you will have a lot of trouble with feedback, when feedback comes in it will be fast and loud, it will be difficult to manage. Lowering the threshold will k=make it easier to manage and less troublesome. There are several ways to accomplish this; lowering the volume control on your mic, tube swaps, adding voltage dividers in your preamp and reconfiguring the preamp circuitry to lower the tube's gain.

The second seems to be hard for some people to grasp, but the bottom line is that the volume control controls the preamp output level and the number on the volume control provides a reference to the sound level out of the speaker and the reference will change when you increase your preamp gain. When you increase the gain in your preamp you will have a corresponding increase in the sound level out of the speaker, so guess what? you will have to turn down the volume control to bring the sound level back to where it was before and so now your control is set at 4 instead of 8 but the sound level out of the speaker is the same. Do you have earlier breakup? No, the sound level out of the speaker is the same at 4 as it was at 8 and all you have accomplished is a loss of volume control range and increased feedback potential.

Here are a few drawings that may help to explain. In the first we have an amp that provides overdrive, with good useable volume control range, and minimum feedback. In the second we have increased our preamp gain and lowered the volume control, notice that the sound level out of the speaker ends up unchanged, this is an important point.



In conclusion I would like to say that you certainly need sufficient preamp gain to provide adequite overdrive for any mic and any venue but too much will decrease your volume control range and greatly increase feedback trouble.



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For questions or comments, email me at randy@lonewolfblues.com