Presence: What Does It Do? | Too Afraid To Ask

The only 'stupid questions' are the ones you are Too Afraid To Ask. "What does a Presence control do?" is the question for this TATA video. Let's look at amplifier topology and power amp feedback loops to find out.

Leave your TATAs in the comment section and I'll make a video answering them.

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[ScienceofLoud]

The only 'stupid questions' are the ones you are Too Afraid To Ask. "What does a Presence control do?" is the question for this TATA video. Let's look at amplifier topology and power amp feedback loops to find out.

Leave your TATAs in the comment section and I'll make a video answering them.

More from CSGuitars:


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[hazardeur]

FINALLY someone who plays the SAME riffs when comparing settings. THANK YOU!

[enricodemeo]

Nice of you to show a timer during the add 👌

[dionr]

You know, I bought a guitar tutorial DVD done by Scott Ian of Anthrax about 14 years ago, and there was a part where he was going through his amp controls and explaining what they do. When he got to the Presence control, he simply showed us the setting where it sounded good to him, and blatantly stated that he didn't know what Presence was, other than a Led Zeppelin album.

[triledink]

So you tweak your tone with bass mid treble to get your sound and after that you tweak the presence to tweak the tones tone.

[shinjial]

I'm so glad you started this series. This was another very important, very informative video that I'm glad it's here for everyone to check. Thanks a bunch!

[NsLaxLife]

I know resonance is essentially the presence for the bass/low frequencies, yet I’d still love to a see a video on it. It seems like it’s rarer than presence yet your demos showing the context of presence made me want the same thing for resonance. Cause why not? XP

[cmacdhon]

The best explanation I have ever heard. I'll just fiddle with the knob until it sounds good.

[Pfaeff]

My amp has "Tone" and that's probably one knob too many already.

[ThatBaritoneGuitarGuy]

"Remind me to talk about fourier transform sometime."
Colin, talk about fourier transform!


You're welcome.

[swissarmyknight]

I never thought TATAs would tackle a question it hadn't occurred to me to ask. I mostly just left my presence controls at noon and worried about other things. Well done man! You have improved my tone immensely.

[davidfuller]

Depth/Resonance controls/boosts also exist here! They're a high pass filter (the presence control is a low pass filter), so they behave basically the same way, but for low end. The only exception to this is the presence control in the Mesa Rectifier's modern mode - the negative feedback loop is disconnected so it's a treble dump right at the end of the tonestack.

[hazrod]

Learning so much every time ! I recently bought a guitar and an amp, so my parents asked me a lot of questions about what does everything and how, and I'm proud that I was able to answer every one of them thanks to your videos. You really are making me more clever with every single video. And the quality is so good ! Can't believe that you are still doing all of this by yourself, well done mate, you deserve every single subs you have and even more 🤘

[RÅNÇIÐ]

If there's a presence control... is there an absence control?

[rzk_audio]

Great A/B. High presence sounds great on extended range/baritone guitars, rreally tightens and brightens them which they always need.

[stefanstojanovic]

Seriously, this series is phenomenal. Being completely selftaught, playing for about a decade, i never had anyone to explain some of these things like this to me, so this Michael Scott- esque "why don't you explain it to me like i'm 5" way of talking about those seemingly complicated and scary things is awesome. Much appreciated <3

[koffieverslaafde]

Gotta love the combination of hair, accent and good info

[simon_patterson]

Well that explanation was just perfect. Thank you, I have wondered what that control did for about 30 years!

[Dartheomus]

I learned something. Thanks for digging into the technical part of it. I always describe Presence & Resonance as the "Treble & Bass" controls of the power-amp section. The preamp tone controls help you push the part of the signal you want to break up, and the power-amp tone controls let you shape the final tone as you've already pointed out. Do you have a detailed video on the "Resonance" control?

[SirVicc]

I've been running my presence at about 2-3 o'clock once I heard Pete Thorn say increased presence adds more complex distortion. I lower the treble to compensate. Glad you confirmed all this in detail.