Rack Gear
Rack Gear 101
What is "Rack Gear"? -Well thats a simple and not so simple answer. Put simply rack equipment is exactly that, some form of gear that goes on a rack. Duh! The not so simple answer can be defined many ways. Mainly this is based on what purpose your rack full of stuff serves. Will it be for guitar? Recording? Vocals? PA/Live audio? There are any number of possible answers to this question and this answer will determine what your rack gear is. For the purpose of this, we'll use guitar gear since this is Guitar-wiki. Common things that could go on a guitar equipment rack include Pre-amps and power amps, which we'll go into later. Effects processors, power conditioners, other types of sound processors, and even wireless guitar interfaces for live use. For simplicity we won't go into MIDI and its interfaces on the rack right now.
So what does all this stuff do??? -We'll start with a simple rack for starters. One that includes a Pre-amp, power amp, and an Effects processor. Pre-amp- Think of this name literally. Pre-amplifier. This means it goes before the amp. The job of the preamp is to prepare a signal to send to the power-amp so it can make the signal audible. Guitar preamp with take signal from your guitar color in some way, ie: distortion/overdrive and send that modified signal to your effects processor
Effects processor- This usually goes next in line. It will take your signal from the preamp and add whatever effect you tell it to. Wether its delay, reverb, chorus, or any other effect your effects unit can produce. By placing the effects after the preamp, this is similar to putting effects into the effects loop of a conventional amp. At this point your guitar sound signal is how you want it to sound, but you can't hear it yet. This is where the Power amp comes into play
Power Amp- This part of the rack system serves one purpose. To make all that beautifully modified guitar signal audible and most likely very loud. This accepts the signal from the effects processor and sends it to your speakers.
