Telecaster Guitar Forum - View Single Post

JohnnyCrash · April 17th, 2009, 05:14 PM

Maybe its an old fashioned American thing, like the imperial measurement system (pints, inches, yards, etc).

Maybe its one of those strange things like why do we get things by the dozen instead of by 10's?

Maybe it was a leftover from Radio repair tech manuals, or training.

Maybe it was marketing... like Nigel would do :)

I'll profer one possible guess - maybe it was easier for the silkscreen process (centering the numbers, etc) to use an even number (12) instead of the usual old number 10 that all humanity seems obsessed about.

I'd suggest maybe the Ric amp used 7 for spiritual, superstitious, or symbolic reasons. I don't know.

In any case, the overdrive factor is easy to understand, considering the original 5E3 had an "Instrument" and a "Mic" channel AND High and Low inputs for each - perhaps some mics (or accordians, or whatever, for that matter) would NOT overdrive at 3, whereas a "new fangled" 1957 humbucker guitar would overdrive at 3. The gain variety of four inputs could cover a variety of stuff, other than guitars.

April 17th, 2009, 05:14 PM	#20 (permalink)
JohnnyCrash Poster Extraordinaire Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fullerton, CA Posts: 8,746	Maybe its an old fashioned American thing, like the imperial measurement system (pints, inches, yards, etc). Maybe its one of those strange things like why do we get things by the dozen instead of by 10's? Maybe it was a leftover from Radio repair tech manuals, or training. Maybe it was marketing... like Nigel would do :) I'll profer one possible guess - maybe it was easier for the silkscreen process (centering the numbers, etc) to use an even number (12) instead of the usual old number 10 that all humanity seems obsessed about. I'd suggest maybe the Ric amp used 7 for spiritual, superstitious, or symbolic reasons. I don't know. In any case, the overdrive factor is easy to understand, considering the original 5E3 had an "Instrument" and a "Mic" channel AND High and Low inputs for each - perhaps some mics (or accordians, or whatever, for that matter) would NOT overdrive at 3, whereas a "new fangled" 1957 humbucker guitar would overdrive at 3. The gain variety of four inputs could cover a variety of stuff, other than guitars. __________________ -- I constantly have to remind myself I'm a grownup and it's just the internet.