**I’d like to make a pitch here for a little special I call Guitar Pedal Rock, which is the same basic principle but teaches kids about guitar pedals instead of useless things like grammar and American history. Let’s get back to the music side of things.
Anyway, you didn’t come here for Schoolhouse Rock**. Nick assures me that the math on this is right. Honestly, this is getting more complex than necessary and I'm bored. This means that, technically, you can preamp a pedal that is pre-amp. They aren’t preamps, per se, which means you could stack an actual preamp with a Tube Screamer or an overdrive. Is it true? Well, it's true in the sense that these pedals go before the amp, which does technically make them “pre”. Some companies say that these pedals are preamplifier pedals. We see people referring to the old BOSS OD-1 in that way, as well as the classic and coveted Ibanez TS808. In the mid to late ’70s, it became really popular to slap the term preamplifier onto an overdrive pedal, like the classic DOD 250. That’s the power amp section in action.īut you're asking, “Why would we want to use preamplifier pedals if our amps already have preamplifiers? Can we preamp a preamplifier?”
And then at that real job it's heard, people actually listen to that melodious voice, and it changes the world. And then maybe one day it gets a real job. That’s the voltage gain going into the preamp. Think of it this way: take your uneducated guitar, send it to community college, it gets an Associate Degree, and maybe it gets into an internship. As a result, your beautiful music is heard. The power amp section amplifies current gain and allows your signal to move the coil of the speaker. This voltage gain prepares the signal of your guitar to go into this blue section, which is the power amp. Whatever your amp has, that's where it exists.
The preamplifier section usually includes an EQ: bass, mid, treble, etc. The guitar sends a signal into the first section of your tube amp called the preamplifier section, and this amplifies voltage gain. Basically, the yellow square in the upper righthand corner is your guitar.