To a bassist using solid state, the relationship between these two are very confusing. To a guitarist, it is a little more obvious. If you ask both what gain is, they'll usually give you a blank stair, and the guitarist will talk about getting a dirty signal.
If you look at a guitar as a signal transmitter, you can perhaps understand gain a bit more. The signal from your guitar is relatively low, that is why passive instruments with no batteries are still the most prevalent. The current created by the magnets and the strings is enough of a signal. When it gets to your amp, it will encounter 2 stages in most amp designs. The first stage is the "pre-amp". This is the stage where this tiny, small signal gets boosted. This is where your tone is "shaped", if you are to make changes to a signal, its much easier to fine tune the signal if it is larger. That is what the Gain does, its a knob that increases how big you transform your signal. If you make the signal very large, you get pre-amp distortion.
After the first Gain stage, the pre-amp, the signal goes to the power amp stage. Again, this stage takes whatever signal you give it and makes it much larger so that it can power the speakers enough to make a mechanical transition of the signal. If you have boosted the signal to great levels in the pre-amp using gain, then it will distort this power section as well. It also means you get a HUGE increase in volume. Power amp distortion causes the tubes to get very hot, and will wear out your amplifier components. Power amp tubes will glow with the fire of a thousand suns when overdriven hard.
(pictured: power tubes, some people aren't used to seeing things lit up like this in electronics unless its LED's)
That is why the Master Volume knob was invented. It sits between the Pre-amp and power amp stages(technically it is pre-amp). With it, you can bring down the signal strength before it gets to the power amp section, but it will let the pre-amp distortion through. Pre-amp distortion is popular because it is much lower heat and voltage, and is also cheaper to do all around. You can get that distorted sound while keeping the power tubes working at normal temperatures, and keep your ears from getting split from volume.
Solid state bassists, of which there are more than tube users these days, don't have this kind of distortion usually. So how do they know how much gain to use? Well... they get a helping hand.
Day 57
I have pretty much explored my guitar amp and can now manipulate it to do what I want fairly quickly. Not too bad for having it for a decade right? Yea lol. I made it a point to know how amp EQ works with bass. A lot of people I've known that played kind of have these super complex and powerful EQ's and have no idea what they're for. They max them or set it all at 12 o'clock and call it a day. Then they talk about needing this or that pedal for this sound. I wanted to get away from that. It is a habit of mine to see that kind of stuff and want to not be that way. When I got the Thunderfunk, I was like "I really REALLY need to educate myself if I'm going to have this kind of amp". I remember my bass bud coming over a good number of years back and him not being happy with not getting a Claypool sound.
"its gotta be his fingers or his carl thompson"
I informed him that Claypool likes to play full mids blasted. A "frowny" if you look at it on a graphic EQ. I EQ'd it in, and sure enough, there it was. He then played Tommy the Cat and made me realize how much I suck at bass. Anyway, recognizing EQ'ing and sounds has always been important to me.
So far I switch between as light a distortion as this amp can get(which is not very light lol) and a high gain metal sound, which it is surprisingly good at doing. Sometimes it gets pretty fuzzy too. I have some stuff to learn about the frequencies and how they interact with the band. Like, I don't know the mid frequencies in Guitar, so I don't know if boosting them will interfere with the bass player's sounds. The whole reason you do not want to scoop a bass live is that you kill "your" frequency. You boost where you overlap with the drums, and you muddy up the guitarist by interfering with his highs, while your relatively instrument free play area of the "mids" is cut all to hell. That's a "scoop", and its only great in your bedroom. I need to research the guitarist's play area. It sure seems a lot of people scoop a guitar and it seems more accepted.
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