Coloration Questions

[Laklandlover]

Greetings TB Friends,

I have been using GK and SWR amps for years. I had several conversations with some of my church bass player friends. We were talking about amp alter or color the sound of the bass. Can any of you give examples of amps that do not color the sound of a bass? I really want to try one.

James

[JimmyM]

one that's pretty easy to try out is the markbass little mark 3. set all tones flat, turn off the filter knobs, and it reads pretty much dead flat on a scope. but once the speakers get involved, flat response goes out the window and you end up eqing to suit your tastes anyway. both gk and swr aren't flat when set flat, but if you like that tone, you can find it if you twist a few knobs.

[ezstep]

When you read some guys' reviews of different amp heads, you will often see the phrase that it did not "color the sound" or that the sound was "transparent." Back in the 70's and 80's, most amps did boost the lower and mid-low frequencies, some quite a bit. In the 90's, the sound of the bass began changing (slowly) and more clarity and more hid-highs and highs were present. One of my old heads had a "bass" rocker-type switch which kicked in quite a few lows. You don't see that much any more, although you still see "bright" switches frequently.

Very simple experiment. Plug into your amp/speaker, as normal. Turn you bass volume up to normal, both on bass and on the amp. THEN, turn all the tone controls as far down as possible (think "zero - 10" although that is over-simplifying). Play your bass. You should have no sound whatsoever. Nothing. No highs, no mids, no lows. If you do hear something, that amp is pre-set to boost certain frequencies and they are bleeding through, even when turned to zero. Definitely not transparent. You would be surprised at how many amp heads are pretty close to transparent nowadays. But, to be honest, many guys hear "transparent" and don't like it. Remember the old smiley curve on bass (and p.a.) eq's?

Cabinets - that's a whole different ballgame. With a single 1x15, I run my amp flat, completely flat. With a 1x12 only, I boost the lows a bit. It is all relative, and it is all personal preference, as is the transparency. Some like it, some won't.

EDIT: Jimmy posted while I was typing. We are both saying essentially the same thing. Great minds....

[Laklandlover]

Bump for more information

[JTE]

Well, to get a really good representation of what YOUR bass sounds like without coloration, skip a bass amp entirely. Plug into a really good DI then into a recording board. Set the board EQ flat and listen to what comes out of good studio monitors. THAT's your bass's natural sound. To the extent that your bass rig changes anything, that's the coloration. I'm not naive enough to assume that my Eden WT-400 set flat (all the knobs at the center detent and the Enhance off) is flat. I know it ain't having listened to my basses through decent headphones going direct to a good mixer. Add in the coloration from cabinets and there's a lot of shaping going on.

But, I LIKE how the Laklands and my Precision sound on stage with a good sized band when I use my WT-400 and a D410XLT with the EQ set flat on the amp. That's what counts.

And, if you set all the EQ to full cut, you won't necessarily be finding out if your amp is flat or coloring. Depends on the EQ circuit built in. If I was setting all the knobs on my Eden "...as far down as possible (think "zero - 10" ...)" it would still pass signal, and not be any indication of how flat the preamp is. If you set the EQ on a Fender-style preamp that way, you'll still get some signal, but it's still not telling you about coloration. The way to tell if your amp is coloring the sound is simply to compare what your bass sounds like through a system designed to accurately reproduce sound (a well-designed studio or PA system) with what your amp rig does to your bass. And again, it's not really an issue in any way. IFF (as in the logical if and only if) you like how your bass sounds with it plugged into a really accurate and flat monitoring system, then you should seek out an uncolored amp. But if you like how your bass sounds through a real SVT (without tubes, it can NOT be "Super Valve Technology"), or an Eden, or a black-faced Fender Bassman, or whatever, then that's the sound you should go for.

John

[Caca de Kick]

To me; Eden, Markbass, and SWR have transparent sounds.
GK is very colored.

[johnk_10]

a quick and dirty way to determine how 'flat' you amp is, is to plug an ipod and play a song that you're familiar with into you amp's input and listen to it thru your cab. if it sounds muffled, midrangy or overly bright, adjust your amp to get it to sound as close as you can to a high quality, flat sounding 20hz-20Khz stereo (or PA), then remove the ipod and plug in your bass. of course, this isn't super accurate, but it can help you get it in the 'ballpark'.

IME, a bass is so much more limited in its frequency response than full range music, and they all sound so much different from each other, that having full range music is an easier way to hear where the bumps and dips in a particular rig are.

[greenboy]

but, john,

doesn't that make too much sense?

[johnk_10]

Originally Posted by greenboy

but, john,

doesn't that make too much sense?

sorry about that.