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Jule Amps Monique

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#803
An update of sorts...In which I get to know Monique a bit better and start to 'figure' her out beyond her pretty face...

Ok…a few more weeks down, and I’m firmly into the ‘how does this work and how do I get the things I want out of it’ part of the learning process (the real “getting to know you” stage). Last week I recorded direct out of the unit for practice and found that the sound of the DI is really as good as people say. After using a Fender style tone stack, I find that the preamp can tend to be more present and bright in the upper mids and beyond than I'm used to, if I’m not careful. I also found one thing that was surprising to me. I’ve been running the ‘bass’ control up around 1 o’clock or 1:30. I noticed last week and this week that given the same volume level, roughly same output level to my power amp, the Monique is feeding enough unrestrained lows to clip my IPR (very briefly and when sitting or churning on the B and E strings). I also noticed that the Monique REALLY was making my speakers jump although my perceived volume wasn’t that ridiculous.

It sort of clicked into place that Monique has a VERY wide shelving bass control. I would have guessed that it was centered in the 40-50hz range, but I’m guessing it goes WAY lower than that effectively too, and I’m fairly certain that there’s no filtering of the subsonic-lows involved. This is teamed with the fact that the tone controls are plus/minus 20db, so a very little goes a long way. For the purposes of quick adjustment in the rehearsal recording setting, I ended up rolling the low control back to noon, then boosting the bass control on my Dingwall (OBP-1 to make up for the loss of the boost I had been pushing with Monique, but with much less ‘width’). The end result was that it ‘cleaned’ up my tone in the lows while giving me some body to my sound and not being nearly as deep reaching.

Looking forward to trying out the new fdeck HPF so that I can push the great sounding Monique tone controls without overloading my amp and potentially speakers, and take full advantage of the preamp.If you're not a person who boosts the lows, you're probably not going to have an issue, and If you work subtractively with your EQ you'll probably be much better off.


I was having fun last night (as we work on a new track or two and also work towards demo-recording a few of our stock tracks)…really workin’ the guys (and girl) over with the material to tighten it up) but also working over the Monique to tweak my tone. For heavy 70’s style roots groove stuff turning up the “Sensitivity” control and getting more of a hot driven compressed tube tone, and for other songs pulling the “sensitivity” back and getting more clean open uncompressed tones that keep the vibe and harmonic complexity but stay ‘neat’.
 
#804
Used the Monique on a gig last night at a medium sized club. Sounded FAAAAAANTASTIC. Warm, deep, loud, and clear! I was playing Afro-Cuban stuff most of the night, and I was running the sens at about noon. I rolled it back a bit and it made a serious difference in mix. It's like a "warmth/grit" knob but with no loss of articulation. As I rolled it back, the "tube"-ness seemed to back off and let more of the poignant rounded edge creep back into the tone. Just awesome...

In other news: I will be switching to a new power amp (CA6) and cab (Aggie DB410) set-up soon. If anyone is interested, I will report back on how it performs.
 
#805
Fretless5verfan said:
Used the Monique on a gig last night at a medium sized club. Sounded FAAAAAANTASTIC. Warm, deep, loud, and clear! I was playing Afro-Cuban stuff most of the night, and I was running the sens at about noon. I rolled it back a bit and it made a serious difference in mix. It's like a "warmth/grit" knob but with no loss of articulation. As I rolled it back, the "tube"-ness seemed to back off and let more of the poignant rounded edge creep back into the tone. Just awesome...

In other news: I will be switching to a new power amp (CA6) and cab (Aggie DB410) set-up soon. If anyone is interested, I will report back on how it performs.
Click to expand...

When I backed off the 'sensitivity' control to noon or a bit before from the 1 or 2 o'clock range the whole band noticed a difference. Given a third take of a track where I had had it up to about 1:30 or so, I rolled it back and EVERYONE in the band felt that the track was 'way tighter' even though I know for a fact that I wasn't playing any differently than the other tracks.
 
#807
Thank you for the review Mr. Skies! Very fun.

Yes, when Tom did his great review of Monique (Link Removed) he also mentioned that there is a deceptively large amount of control available in these few knobs. Very true.

A couple of players have privately wondered if they would need a sub-sonic cut switch on Monique to protect their speakers, but you hit the solution on the head. There is a large amount of frequency sensitive "cut" available in each of those three EQ ranges. Taking that "Low" pot to the left does that nicely.

You also hit the center frequency of the "Low." Mathematically it is at 53 cycles if I remember correctly. And yes, she will pass 5 cycles sweetly if you want to.

There are two philosophies to designing gear for making music. 1. Give a middle range of features that are understood to be currently "hot" and nothing more, so the profit is good and customers don't ask questions. 2. Give a wide range of features (everything you've got) and realize that it is the customer that is the important creative element - not the designer.

I pick #2. :)



BurningSkies said:
An update of sorts...In which I get to know Monique a bit better and start to 'figure' her out beyond her pretty face...

Ok…a few more weeks down, and I’m firmly into the ‘how does this work and how do I get the things I want out of it’ part of the learning process (the real “getting to know you” stage). Last week I recorded direct out of the unit for practice and found that the sound of the DI is really as good as people say. After using a Fender style tone stack, I find that the preamp can tend to be more present and bright in the upper mids and beyond than I'm used to, if I’m not careful. I also found one thing that was surprising to me. I’ve been running the ‘bass’ control up around 1 o’clock or 1:30. I noticed last week and this week that given the same volume level, roughly same output level to my power amp, the Monique is feeding enough unrestrained lows to clip my IPR (very briefly and when sitting or churning on the B and E strings). I also noticed that the Monique REALLY was making my speakers jump although my perceived volume wasn’t that ridiculous.

It sort of clicked into place that Monique has a VERY wide shelving bass control. I would have guessed that it was centered in the 40-50hz range, but I’m guessing it goes WAY lower than that effectively too, and I’m fairly certain that there’s no filtering of the subsonic-lows involved. This is teamed with the fact that the tone controls are plus/minus 20db, so a very little goes a long way. For the purposes of quick adjustment in the rehearsal recording setting, I ended up rolling the low control back to noon, then boosting the bass control on my Dingwall (OBP-1 to make up for the loss of the boost I had been pushing with Monique, but with much less ‘width’). The end result was that it ‘cleaned’ up my tone in the lows while giving me some body to my sound and not being nearly as deep reaching.

Looking forward to trying out the new fdeck HPF so that I can push the great sounding Monique tone controls without overloading my amp and potentially speakers, and take full advantage of the preamp.If you're not a person who boosts the lows, you're probably not going to have an issue, and If you work subtractively with your EQ you'll probably be much better off.


I was having fun last night (as we work on a new track or two and also work towards demo-recording a few of our stock tracks)…really workin’ the guys (and girl) over with the material to tighten it up) but also working over the Monique to tweak my tone. For heavy 70’s style roots groove stuff turning up the “Sensitivity” control and getting more of a hot driven compressed tube tone, and for other songs pulling the “sensitivity” back and getting more clean open uncompressed tones that keep the vibe and harmonic complexity but stay ‘neat’.
Click to expand...
 
#809
juledude said:
Thank you for the review Mr. Skies! Very fun.

Yes, when Tom did his great review of Monique (Link Removed) he also mentioned that there is a deceptively large amount of control available in these few knobs. Very true.

A couple of players have privately wondered if they would need a sub-sonic cut switch on Monique to protect their speakers, but you hit the solution on the head. There is a large amount of frequency sensitive "cut" available in each of those three EQ ranges. Taking that "Low" pot to the left does that nicely.

You also hit the center frequency of the "Low." Mathematically it is at 53 cycles if I remember correctly. And yes, she will pass 5 cycles sweetly if you want to.

There are two philosophies to designing gear for making music. 1. Give a middle range of features that are understood to be currently "hot" and nothing more, so the profit is good and customers don't ask questions. 2. Give a wide range of features (everything you've got) and realize that it is the customer that is the important creative element - not the designer.

I pick #2. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Jule! I know in my original impressions of the Monique I thought that the low was centered around 50hz, so its good to know that my ear is 'on'.

I'll probably be playing with sculpting my low end a bit further...that's where my 'money' is as a reggae player, and I'm really detail oriented because I don't like all low lows and nothing else, I really work to keep detail in the low mids and mids to keep definition and 'punch'. I'll probably work by way of riding between a touch of boost from Monique but not enough to overload the speakers and power amp and a little from my bass which doesn't give as much of the subsonic lows, by filling out the bottom (Monique) but giving a little more at the 50-60 range (my bass' pre). I actually like the mid control set at noon, and I end up rolling off the Highs nearly all the way which keeps content up into the 1000-3000hz+ range .

I should have a HPF-3 in my hands shortly and I'll figure out how to implement it to keep the big Monique lows without reproducing content that sucks the headroom out of the power amp and causes unnecessary excursion in the speakers. Francis has done some neat work on this new unit and it should work fairly precisely for this.
 
#810
I picked up an [sfx] micro-thumpinator to cut out the audio content lower than 30hZ a while back. It worked great for my last rig, so I know for a fact that I'm going to get a lot of headroom out of my monique/poweramp rig to be :D
 
#811
lburton2 said:
I picked up an [sfx] micro-thumpinator to cut out the audio content lower than 30hZ a while back. It worked great for my last rig, so I know for a fact that I'm going to get a lot of headroom out of my monique/poweramp rig to be :D
Click to expand...

Yep. The Thumpinator is a good little unit.

fdeck's new design is interesting:
FDeck_HPF3.jpg


Its got a fixed 2nd order 35hz slope, then another 2nd order slope that's sweepable between 35hz and 140hz. So, it gives a bit of flexibility in how you implement it, as a 4th order 35hz HP or beyond.

Should be in production soon, and I think he's also considering making some DIY kits for it as well.
 
#816
lburton2 said:
I picked up an [sfx] micro-thumpinator to cut out the audio content lower than 30hZ a while back. It worked great for my last rig, so I know for a fact that I'm going to get a lot of headroom out of my monique/poweramp rig to be :D
Click to expand...

Great little pedal! I have one, too. :cool: :bassist: :D
 
#820
chadds said:
She has all RCA NOSs.

Rectifier 6CA4

Black Plate 12AT7

It's just smooth!
Click to expand...

While I was rolling I started hearing this chicken frying sound. Sometimes when playing sometimes just at idle.

I did this rolling in a scientific way one area at a time to hear the changes. Thought this crispy crackle was from the 6SL7s cause that was the first change. Swapped back to Sovteks then even turned on a different amp to make sure it wasn't some line noise. After those storms anything is possible.

It was the EH 12at7. Think it new it was going to be replaced? :)

The JJ ri and the RCA rectifier are similar in that they deliver feel rather than sound.

The whole complement of RCAs feels very strong and sounds musical.
 
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