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Genz Streamliner 600/900 tone control primer

#121
Ukiah Bass said:
I've become a firm believer in this aspect of EQ. And it's why I now leave my Fender's tone knob with treble full on. That puts the instrument's full range of tone into the SL900 .. take it from there. Sounds much better in the mix. Funny, the thing that got me originally pointed in this direction was Duck Dunn's story about recording bass at Stax. They used a Fender bass and an Ampeg B-15 for recording and most live gigs. He said the amp EQ would be bass on 5 and treble "cranked." He hated the sound in front of the cab. He loved it in the control room and on the records.
Click to expand...

This is kind of like the "much of the important information falls in between the lines" perspective that is formulated by years of experience, maturity, listening to and understanding the detials behind whatever you are trying to accomplish. At some point, everything falls together and you make a giant step forward. Certainly applies to playing the bass.
 
#122
Ukiah Bass said:
...I now leave my Fender's tone knob with treble full on. ...Sounds much better in the mix.
Click to expand...

I recently started gigging with a second keyboard player who doubles on bass. We've been having an ongoing conversation about gear and tone, and he keeps asking me to go for what I call the bedroom tone- mids cut, bass and treble goosed.

Last week, I got him to go out front while the band was playing. Sure enough, he came back a believer. He discovered that my slightly dry, edgy on-stage tone sounded fat and plush out front, but still had lots of definition. It's all about hall acoustics, baby...
 
#123
Time for some more graphs...

tbstreamlinermidfiltershapes.jpg


Here are the shapes produced by turning the bass and treble all the way down, and cranking the mids at 220Hz, 600, and 2.5K.

I included the flattest response curve I was able to plot, for contrast. It's +2.2/-1.5dB from 30Hz to 20KHz, or +2.2-0.5dB from 40Hz to 20KHz, if you're a four-string player...

Remember that these curves don't reflect the dynamic behaviour of the amp, whereby the amp's frequency response changes in subtle ways, depending on how hard you push it.
 
#124
Given the high amount of interaction between the tone controls, there's more than one way to flatten out the SL900's frequency response. You can boost 600Hz or 2.5KHz to try and fill in the mid scoop, or cut 220Hz to flatten out the low-mid hump...

Here are a few alternatives for your amusement, set up using a sweep that was level-matched to the output of my EMG-equipped bass, with the Streamliner's Gain knob at noon. It took some pretty radical adjustments of the Volume control to keep them more or less level-matched. All are with the Gain button out, except for number 4, and each one sounds a little different. All are within about +/- 3dB of flat from 30Hz to 20KHz- not bad for a "vintage-voiced" tube front end! #2 is possibly the widest and most modern-sounding, with it's near-flat response from 200Hz down to 30Hz, and the slight rise at around 2KHz. Thankfully, none of them negate the Streamliner's natural warmth and round dynamic envelope.

Once again, I've mixed clock face descriptions with decimal, ie; 9.5 is half-way between 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock on the dial. I actually drew approximate gradations on the faceplate, to facilitate understanding my settings.

tbflatresponsecurves.jpg
 
#127
the last two or so pages of this thread but tonite the setting of 11-1-11 or so, did not work with my STM-900/Neox212T/passive JoBo 5er in this room. I hadda go back to my P5 settings with much more bass knob, bout noon and treble knob; bout 1:00, to get a good tone in this Tavern-style bar tonite.

I finally got it close with these settings. I missed my P5 for punchy/tightness, its been doing it for me, lately...well sorta w/8250's last couple gigs. I just put the Chromes back on it last nite. We're at the same room this coming Saturday nite.

Gonna use P5 w/Stm-900, TB153 with same band and same room this coming Saturday nite. I love the P5 w/STM-900 and TB153 combo for the Blues/R&B/Soul Stuff we're gona do. Sorry but the JoBo 5 with this rig just aint cuttin it. I tried the suggested settings; did not work for me.

I'm gona try to swap the JoBo 5er for a Jazz-5er with a good, preamp-loaded Jazz 5er, I think. I'd love a "08 Am St Jazz 5er...Cola-colored to match my Am St P5. This bass needs a pre I feel. And the older Sadowsky pedal, I own, V/T/B, is too scooped with the STM-900.

But I'll keep trying new settings y'all suggest here. So far, this JoBo 5er has gotta go... I think. Sure balances nice tho...its a sweet, bass for sure but I think I need a Jazz bass with a pre in it.

Oh well, I'm cool with the amp for sure. My MIM, Jazz 5er I had awhile back had such a great tone. Then again, some british-babe that was between flights, she was a flight attendant, was buying me multi-Guiness'/Guinn-Y all nite. I introduced her to Patron-Silver-Tequila, and she thought the bass sounded awesome-mate. So who am I to argue; she coulda been right. STILLL, I'm taking the P5 this coming weekend and I'm going back to my usual settings on the STM-900, it works for me mate. {;>)...Oh and the British-Bird, took a "different route" home; if you know what I mean.....it happens. Still was fun talking with her most of the nite....Oy and all that sorta rot; ya know. LOL.
 
#128
Haha, love your post ErnieB and reference to 'british bird'...

Anyway, re: your JoBo5, have you tried an Aguilar Tonehammer pedal as a pre? That effectively means its still a passive standard JoBo5, but with the pedal option of a TH as a pre?

As Im a 'stock' guy, I don't mod my basses apart from strings/scratchplates, so the TH pre was a great addition to my collection.

My new 2011 Fender Jazz AS sounds warm, woody, and as middy as I like if I concentrate on the back pup more. :)
 
#130
Can anybody recommend a hosting service that doesn't mess with your files?

I wanted from the start, for this thread to be useful to people thinking about buying a Streamliner, not just for guys trying to figure out the front end on amps they already owned. I thought that sound clips would be a great addition to go with all the graphs and reported knob settings.

Unfortunately, I just uploaded a bunch of hi-res MP3's to Soundcloud, and it seems to have transcoded them to a lower resolution for playback.

If I download the files, they are unaltered from the original, and small differences remain noticeable. However, they are less discernable when I use the Soundcloud player. Or maybe it's just my ears, or my hardware?

Have a listen, and let me know what you think:
TB Genz Benz Streamliner tone control thread, various EQ settings by steve_rolfeca on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
 
#132
@Steve
These clips are great through headphones. Listeners can hear the different eq settings clearly. Thank you!
Suggestion: These clips would be even better for most listeners if you used a p-bass and/or a jazz with each pup soloed and then both pups full on. These are relatively standard sounds most of us know. This way we could really hear what the Streamliner brings to the party ;-)
Thanks again!
 
#133
woolysock said:
Suggestion: These clips would be even better for most listeners if you used a p-bass and/or a jazz with each pup soloed and then both pups full on. These are relatively standard sounds most of us know. This way we could really hear what the Streamliner brings to the party ;-)
Thanks again!
Click to expand...

+1.
 
#134
steve_rolfeca said:
I wanted from the start, for this thread to be useful to people thinking about buying a Streamliner, not just for guys trying to figure out the front end on amps they already owned. I thought that sound clips would be a great addition to go with all the graphs and reported knob settings.
Click to expand...

That's why I'm here.
I've had mine less than a month, and now I'm experimenting with these settings and I'm finding a very easy to use amp.
In fact, this thing is nuts.

Warm. Fat. Fuzzy. Crunchy.
throck-2.gif


Thank you for the graphs, Steve.
They are really very helpful visualizing what's going on with the settings.
 
#135
woolysock said:
Suggestion: These clips would be even better for most listeners if you used a p-bass and/or a jazz with each pup soloed and then both pups full on. These are relatively standard sounds most of us know.
Click to expand...

I thought about this when I first started recording the clips.

I've got a bunch of other clips in the can, and more graphs to go with them. The trouble is, I don't own any "regular" basses. Oddly enough, all the people I know locally who would loan me a bass, have either off-brand or exotic instruments. It's the same thing with cabs- I don't own any standard-issue music store gear...

That's why I included the straight, unaffected DI clip. At least that way, you can compare with the other clips, and hear how the amp is shaping the dry sound of the bass.

To be frank, I'm kind of hoping that somebody else with more conventional gear will step up to the plate, as I've already invested a ton of hours on this project. I've been out of work for six months, and should really be devoting this time to my job search.
 
#140
So, a gig story from the weekend...

I played a small restaurant with a trio - bass, piano, vocal. Not a big room, tables in an "L-shaped" array straight ahead of, and of to the left of the band, a bar off to the left towards the back at a 45 degree angle. Also, a small enclosed entry (glassed in) of about 8' x 5' directly behind the band.

To make a long story very short, with the STL900 and the single 15" cab I took to the gig, it was very difficult to get a useable sound. There are some variables to be considered... The room sounded wooly from the word go, the piano player was plugged in through a Bose column with sub-woofer that went into home theatre action movie mode every time his left hand went below G below middle C, and I should likely have taken a single 10 cab with me as a just in case option. Needless to say, a difficult evening was had by all.

I tried cutting 220, boosting 600, and boosting 2.5. I tried diming the mid and treble, and flatlining the bass. I tilted the cab back, and put it up on a chair. As much as I know that the conditions weren't in my favour, I had to keep trying 'cuz you want the group to get hired again.

Why bring this up here? Well, a number of people on this thread have worked pretty hard to dispell the notion that you can't get this head to run with a fairly flat. The settings information provided here goes a long way to get new users (and at this point we still all pretty much qualify there) zeroed in on useful settings quickly. It has taken Steve and a number of others a good chunk of time and effort to take measurements and post response charts.

Here is my only caution/concern/query... I think that frequency sweeps provide a useful beginning to the issue of tone shaping, but I think it would be useful to get a few gig reports with a focus on cab/room/genre combinations. After all, live performance offers variables that test conditions do not. I realize that I could start a whole 'nother thread, but it seems silly to do that considering all the solid ground work that has already been done here, and that tone shaping on a gig with an amp/cab is a pretty relevant issue.

Or, I could be out to lunch. :eyebrow:
 

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