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Flat response Class D amp?

#21
John Myung talks touring, technique and tone | MusicRadarJohn Myung talks touring, technique and tone | MusicRadar
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#22
Take a look at the WTX 500 by Eden. It has a 3 band EQ with a mid shift control. Also has an Enhance knob that scoops the heck out of your EQ. It boosts the bass and treble while killing the low mids and reducing high mids. I don't use that myself. A lot of folks like to engage the bass boost on this amp, but you'll find the biggest difference in sound when this amp is set flat will be due to the particular bass you are using. It really allows the sound of your bass to come through.
 
#23
MarkA said:
Markbass amps were, I believe, found to 'scope pretty close to flat in a Bass Gear Magazine test. (You'd have to doublecheck, but I'm pretty sure that's the case - @tombowlus might know.).
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We didn't do the "optimally flat" measurements and settings back in issue #1 (when we reviewed the LMII), but Invalid Link Removed.
 
#31
Downunderwonder said:
Of course there's flat with colour too. Otherwise we could all be DI straight to mixer and monitors.
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How do you color/colour the sound without altering frequency? There's only three factors here - amplitude, phase, and frequency. Amplitude is volume/gain, phase isn't a factor in the basic tone, so all that's left is frequency. (Ignoring room response, beaming blah blah.)

Perhaps you were saying that circuit designers do things outside the tone stack to shape the sound? That's certainly true - Peavey's Transtube designs are a great example of that.
 
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#33
Rob22315 said:
How do you color/colour the sound without altering frequency? There's only three factors here - amplitude, phase, and frequency. Amplitude is volume/gain, phase isn't a factor in the basic tone, so all that's left is frequency. (Ignoring room response, beaming blah blah.)

Perhaps you were saying that circuit designers do things outside the tone stack to shape the sound? That's certainly true - Peavey's Transtube designs are a great example of that.
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There are more than 3 factors once you consider what the alteration/addition of musically related harmonics can provide.
 
#35
Rob22315 said:
Nope, harmonics are just more frequencies. Dynamics would be another aspect although time variation still fully translates to the frequency domain if you've been through the mathematics of Fourier transforms.
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I should have been more specific, I was referring to the use of EQ to alter frequency response as had been mentioned earlier).

Harmonics is the addition of related frequencies, rather than eq altering the amplitude of existing frequencies.

Dynamics alone really does not translate to the frequency domain (in the traditional sense) because it is a frequency independent term. Now applying dynamics along with harmonics alter both the real and imaginary part of the equation and not necessarily together. In fact, the equations can get a lot more complex in a hurry. This is one of the big challenges to mathematically describing such complex behaviors successfully in amp emulations. Emulating the basic tones and frequency responses is pretty straight forward in modeling products, but emulating the complexities, and the feel that goes along with this is much more complicated. The complexity increases exponentially with the more mechanisms that need to be accurately described.
 
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#38
JimmyM said:
Ya, was going to say that if amplitude, phase and frequency were everything, then how come nobody's successfully duplicated tube amps in every way with solid state? :D
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Yes Jimmy, it's very, very complicated to do so "exactly". For most players, it's all about how close we can get in the most important ways. Some models get pretty close, others not so close, but then again... not all players like tube amps, so it's all about the right set f compromises for the right players.
 
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#39
I like to breakdown the main components of tonal response into 4 basic categories:

1. Frequency response - EQ and tone controls, frequency altered internal voicing (if any), overall bandwidth
2. Linearity (distortion) - addition of harmonics to the original signal i.e. coloration, overdrive, clipping
3. Dynamic response - compression/expansion, and the way general dynamics can affect the other three (especially linearity)
4. Phase response - the phase relationship between the fundamental and harmonics (natural or artificial) to one another

I think these pretty much account for how a given piece of gear sounds (taking into account any interaction between them as well).
 
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#40
Doner Designs said:
They have a reputation for being mid-present, but I think that is partly because a lot of amps (like GK which you noted) tend to be scooped. MB will be much stronger on mids compared to those.

I had a guy at the store tell me an MB is flat when the VLE and VPF filters are at noon. That's not true but it sounds like a lot of other scoopy amps when you do that.
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This/\!! IIRC, flat on a markbass is something like 9:00 or 10:00, but definitely not at noon!! I wish I would've known this when I tried them out, I might've dug the sound better!?
 
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