Darkglass Microtubes 900 Class D Amp

[Darkglass]

That's a cool story, funny thing is that we never even tried an SVT while designing the Microtubes 900, feel free to share the settings though as SVTs do sound quite amazing.

Also keep in mind the Microtubes 900 is capable of many other tones so feel free to tweak if you do need something different (either leaning towards super high gain distortion or super clean tones).

In my opinion it was very very close to my SVT...bit of a story here but hopefully it will help explain.
A local club here has a Halloween cover show every year...most hard rock/heavy metal. My bf and I are both bassists and he was doing a Corrosion of Conformity set and I was doing a Ghost set. Both bands feature traditional fender into ampeg bass tones (though I think ghost is now using modeling amps).
In any event we were both going to use my SVT until it went haywire and wouldn't turn on. My bf is way better at dialing in tones than I am, and he got the DG dialed in to the point where I couldn't reliably tell the difference.
I play with a different tone in my regular band but when I have practice next Sunday I'll see if I can get back to the SVT tone and I'll take a picture.
Your mileage may vary though - as you said, it does respond differently. I play with a pick so the touch response that I feel comfortable with is different than many people's.

 

[Darkglass]

That's great to hear, thanks! Really liking the amp. I hope these pops can be fixed though.

Thank you, glad you're liking it. As for the pops like I said I've put one of my most capable guys on it .

 

[Cuzzie]

@Darkglass doug, if you are still on.

Is there an internal limiter on the amp to save you creating napalm?

Pop doesn't bother me one bit

 

[Darkglass]

@Darkglass doug, if you are still on.

Is there an internal limiter on the amp to save you creating napalm?

Pop doesn't bother me one bit

Thanks and for sure there is. Actually the 2 Ohm switch works in conjunction with the limiter.

We took reliability, safety and longevity as seriously as we did elegant design and good sound when creating this amplifier.

Which is why it took 9 months from last NAMM unveiling to the release date, even though preamplifier features and sound stayed almost the same.

 

[Cuzzie]

@Darkglass Awesome

It has been said before, but you da man!!!

Did you take the amp to the desert to do some proper desert rock!?!

 

[Darkglass]

@Darkglass Awesome

It has been said before, but you da man!!!

Did you take the amp to the desert to do some proper desert rock!?!

Haha thank you!
As for the desert trip there wasn't any gear involved, just me, the missus and @TALL&STOUT

 

[Cuzzie]

If you had taken gear I would have told you off for not having downtime!

Looked amazing and great for reflection.

 

[Maureen M]

That's a cool story, funny thing is that we never even tried an SVT while designing the Microtubes 900, feel free to share the settings though as SVTs do sound quite amazing.

Also keep in mind the Microtubes 900 is capable of many other tones so feel free to tweak if you do need something different (either leaning towards super high gain distortion or super clean tones).

Absolutely - one of the things I love about the DG is that I can have fantastic clean and dirty tones. We're going into the studio in April so soon I'll have a good recording of what I've dialed in for myself. This is probably the first amp I've had that I feel will adapt to me, rather than the other way around.

 

[Darkglass]

Absolutely - one of the things I love about the DG is that I can have fantastic clean and dirty tones. We're going into the studio in April so soon I'll have a good recording of what I've dialed in for myself. This is probably the first amp I've had that I feel will adapt to me, rather than the other way around.

That's amazing to hear thank you!

 

[Nic.]

Here's mine...I am gonna turn up the gain a bit for the VMT channel as it really didn't come through like I thought

View attachment 1043472
But with these setting i get a nice touch response much like a a SVT classic would, but it is different and I wouldnt want it any other way!

I just tried these settings out in a casual rock cover jam session. The sound is really great! I made two slight changes: upped the microtubes gain to suit my bass, and rolled off the tone to leave more space for the two distortion guitars. Also, I switched the microtubes mode to b3k for some songs, depending on what the guitars are playing, to make more space. What I liked about it was that even when both guitars are strumming loud chords, I could hear both the bass note as well as the sharp edge of the distortion. I also like how your low mid cut at 500Hz leaves more space for the guitars nicely. Definitely will be keeping these settings on hand.

Anyway I realized that the short lag when engaging distortion with the footswitch gets a little annoying... @Darkglass is there any way around it? It feels like there's about half to one second pause between pressing the footswitch and the amp responding, so I've had to preempt and press about half a beat before I want distortion.

 

[GBass001]

I just tried these settings out in a casual rock cover jam session. The sound is really great! I made two slight changes: upped the microtubes gain to suit my bass, and rolled off the tone to leave more space for the two distortion guitars. Also, I switched the microtubes mode to b3k for some songs, depending on what the guitars are playing, to make more space. What I liked about it was that even when both guitars are strumming loud chords, I could hear both the bass note as well as the sharp edge of the distortion. I also like how your low mid cut at 500Hz leaves more space for the guitars nicely. Definitely will be keeping these settings on hand.

Anyway I realized that the short lag when engaging distortion with the footswitch gets a little annoying... @Darkglass is there any way around it? It feels like there's about half to one second pause between pressing the footswitch and the amp responding, so I've had to preempt and press about half a beat before I want distortion.

Why did you say that twice? Bwahahahahaha

 

[GBass001]

After this first gig with the DG I really noticed a different kind of authority in the mix. I don't really mean loud, even though the headroom was "all" there, and I'm playing through a very "watt hungry" cabinet, but a place in the mix that rivaled my guitarist's tube amp. I could tell he was happy with his amp blasting behind him but I was very happy with the place I arrived. I haven't gigged many tube amps but I'm guessing this is a very close sound. I'm extremely happy I got that volume pedal to reign in things while going at it live. The DG is new to me but everything I've tasted so far has me very happy. If you're gonna go - go DG!!! @Darkglass

 

[Nic.]

Why did you say that twice? Bwahahahahaha
View attachment 1044475

Whoops! I thought it failed to send (from my phone) the first time so I pressed post again.

After this first gig with the DG I really noticed a different kind of authority in the mix. I don't really mean loud, even though the headroom was "all" there, and I'm playing through a very "watt hungry" cabinet, but a place in the mix that rivaled my guitarist's tube amp. I could tell he was happy with his amp blasting behind him but I was very happy with the place I arrived. I haven't gigged many tube amps but I'm guessing this is a very close sound. I'm extremely happy I got that volume pedal to reign in things while going at it live. The DG is new to me but everything I've tasted so far has me very happy. If you're gonna go - go DG!!! @Darkglass

I get what you mean. I think it's because of the more pronounced extreme EQ shape feeling like a post-production EQ, so it just feels very 'solid'.

 

[Darkglass]

I just tried these settings out in a casual rock cover jam session. The sound is really great! I made two slight changes: upped the microtubes gain to suit my bass, and rolled off the tone to leave more space for the two distortion guitars. Also, I switched the microtubes mode to b3k for some songs, depending on what the guitars are playing, to make more space. What I liked about it was that even when both guitars are strumming loud chords, I could hear both the bass note as well as the sharp edge of the distortion. I also like how your low mid cut at 500Hz leaves more space for the guitars nicely. Definitely will be keeping these settings on hand.

Anyway I realized that the short lag when engaging distortion with the footswitch gets a little annoying... @Darkglass is there any way around it? It feels like there's about half to one second pause between pressing the footswitch and the amp responding, so I've had to preempt and press about half a beat before I want distortion.

Hey man! Thanks for the feedback.

The perceived lag you refer to is caused by the fact that the small footswitch changes channels when releasing the actuator not when you press it, this was a requirement for the footswitch to mute while holding (otherwise when trying to mute the footswitch would first change channels for couple seconds prior to muting, not fun either).

 

[monkeyfinger]

Does the new multi-button footswitch have the same design?

 

[Jeff Moote]

Hey man! Thanks for the feedback.

The perceived lag you refer to is caused by the fact that the small footswitch changes channels when releasing the actuator not when you press it, this was a requirement for the footswitch to mute while holding (otherwise when trying to mute the footswitch would first change channels for couple seconds prior to muting, not fun either).

Does the super intelligent footswitch address this by switching when any switch is depressed or is it still on release?

Are there any plans to sell the amp bundled with that footswitch (omitting the stock one)? Same question re: bundling with the bag, or will these accessories always be an add-on to the base price?

 

[hintz]

I just tried these settings out in a casual rock cover jam session. The sound is really great! I made two slight changes: upped the microtubes gain to suit my bass, and rolled off the tone to leave more space for the two distortion guitars. Also, I switched the microtubes mode to b3k for some songs, depending on what the guitars are playing, to make more space. What I liked about it was that even when both guitars are strumming loud chords, I could hear both the bass note as well as the sharp edge of the distortion. I also like how your low mid cut at 500Hz leaves more space for the guitars nicely. Definitely will be keeping these settings on hand.

Anyway I realized that the short lag when engaging distortion with the footswitch gets a little annoying... @Darkglass is there any way around it? It feels like there's about half to one second pause between pressing the footswitch and the amp responding, so I've had to preempt and press about half a beat before I want distortion.

Thanks!! I'm glad you dig those low mid settings, I also upped the gain a little but might go back down again as there is a sweet spot for my 76' Eagle(main bass) shown in that pic where I can get that whole tube amp touch response thing going!!

TBH, haven't even used the footswitch yet so have.t noticed any lag, but it is noted and wont be a problem for me as I have to double on percussion and always have to play on top of the beat so the conductor hears me "in time".

Another observation: The cab makes a *huge* difference!!! I shot that much better demo yesterday and we both used a mic and DI, well I *didnt* use my fEARful but a SWR 2x10 "go-lite"and that thing was getting pushed at the lowest of volumes and it wasn't that pleasant when I was digging in, I'm referring to the treble/overdrive too.


So we will probably only use the XLR if my fEARful is truly that accurate. And this video is perfect for most YouTube viewers who seem to have ADD and want short clips(I wasn't feeling or playing that good yesterday!! LOL), but I used a fender jazz for about half (doing clean, slap and pick which I suck at!! LOL) and my 76' Eagle for the other half..... it'll be a slickly produced video unlike my Android clips!

 

[hintz]

My conclusion is the SWR cabs/amp really do suck!! And/or this amp is way to powerful even at the lowest volumes for a single 8 0mh cab(had it on 4, tweeter off)..

Also means this amp's XLR is probably has the bees knees of direct signals, definitely not a bad thing!!

 

[Nic.]

Hey man! Thanks for the feedback.

The perceived lag you refer to is caused by the fact that the small footswitch changes channels when releasing the actuator not when you press it, this was a requirement for the footswitch to mute while holding (otherwise when trying to mute the footswitch would first change channels for couple seconds prior to muting, not fun either).

I see, that makes sense. Ok I'll look into it carefully on my next session. Do you recommend just stomping up and down faster?

 

[Darkglass]

I see, that makes sense. Ok I'll look into it carefully on my next session. Do you recommend just stomping up and down faster?

No problem! That or step a second ahead and release just in time. We gave the hold-Mute 3 whole seconds to give some wiggle room for these type of situations.

Regards from universal studios!
Doug.