Distorted mids (only)

Related, the Genzler 4 on the floor is an overdrive with adjustable hpf and lpf filters. Might be worth considering.

 

Traynor TS50-B preamp separates the frequency bands and sends them independently to the gain stage. With the EQ knobs all the way down there’s no sound.

Seth Hoar at 903 effects is currently designing an overdrive with the same idea in mind

 

Get yourself a small mixer, a distortion pedal, and a Broughton HP/LP filter pedal. Split your bass signal sending one of the split signals into the HP/LP filter. Set the filter to 400 on the low side and 2K on the high side. Send the output of the HP/LP filter to the distortion pedal and the output of the distortion pedal to channel 1 of the mixer. Send the other part of the split signal directly into channel 2 of the mixer. Send the output of the mixer to your amp. Channel one will have the distorted midrange and channel 2 will have the dry signal from your bass. Mix them to your taste.

 

Distorting only mids, in my experience, isn't my ideal sound. It's the cause of distortion that sounds like "dirt and clean signals sitting next to each other." The signals are very differently compressed.
Mid focused dirt is great, but I think the best recipe is to low pass the clean signal and high pass the dirt signal. If you want a more middy dirt signal, you can use a tone control/lpf it/ whatever, but I would not add the highs from the clean back in.

As for gear that I have used for purposes like this, the Hamstead Subspace lets you use pre-drive filters to cut the lows and highs out of the dirty signal only.

 

A lot of interesting ideas in the thread to try.

Personally, I would avoid a Tube Screamer with a blend — especially if your guitarist uses one. I'd slot in your bass-mids just above (or maybe just below) the corner frequency of the guitarist's TS. As has already been mentioned, the mids are a busy area in a mix and yet you need to be in there somewhere to be heard. No need to fight with the guitarist's freqs.

 

my favourite pedal for distorting specific bands is the VFE triumvirate, they're no longer made but the PCB was available from Mad Bean pedals, I got a custom COG pedal made based on the circuit and its amazing.

 

I used to do a similar thing with my Attitude bass. P pickup to drive and EQ with a frown eq and woofer pickup to another eq with a slight mid scoop. Immense full range sound but overkill for what I was playing.

I also remember watching a Glen Fricker video describing a similar technique for getting a great metal bass tone by duplicating the track, eq as above, and absolutely smashing the living hell out of the midrange (not that that's the type of sound I go for).

I also recall the Ashdown James LoMenzo Hyperdrive is specifically designed to target and distort the midrange only. I have no idea if the tone of the pedal is any good, but it might be worth investigating.

At the moment, I used a simple crossover split in my Helix set at around 200hz so that distortion doesn't affect the low end. But you've gotten me thinking and I might revisit the midrange drive idea again.

 

I had a high pass filter - set to 200 or 300 Hz, a mid bump at 1.6 kHz, and a low pass at around 3 kHz - as this was on a digital console, everything was flexible; you could easily adjust it to taste.

 

You could do a lot worse than trying the AShdown James Lomenzo Hyperdrive.

It applies distortion to the midrange with 2 controls to select the range: frequency centre and Q.

I had one for a while and I liked it.

 

I’ve experimented with something like this using the (now apparently discontinued) Schalltechnik Omnilooper. Put the drive in the High-pass FX loop, use tone control on the drive to roll off highs, then blend clean bass in with the third full-range loop- then the highs are only coming through from the clean channel and the drive is only in the mids. I find this approach works best when using compression on the full-range tone or else the drive focused in the mids can sound pretty separate and strange (though in a band mix this may be less obvious)

 

Send the tech a dry send and a distorted send. He/she should run each send through its own channel. On the distortion channel the tech. Should roll off the top and bottom end and boost the mids and then blend the 2 channels to achieve a distorted mid with a clean top and bottom. The clean channel may need the mids rolled off as well

 

Sounds like a lot considering my little darkglass microtubes x does this and it’s about the size of a standard mxr pedal.

 

same concept but much older. In any case the triumvirate has internal trim post so you can adjust the crossover frequencies and the gains etc. It’s pretty amazing.