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Sure, I get it, but I have never liked what a Contour effect has on my bass tone goals. Its not that I don't mind a Bass boost or Treble boost, ( like on the Shuttle heads ) but not at the expense of my midrange, where I live most of the time. Still, I'm a little intrigued by the Voicing control on this head.
I'm with you and rarely use those mid-scoop controls. The mids are where so much of the richness of my bass tone comes from.
Sounds like a useful, musical, design. If someone with an audio interface has a D-350/800/800+, it would be great if they could run some loopback tests to get a frequency response plot of the controls. People have done that with the VT Bass and other devices, and it can be enlightening if you know what you're seeing. I spend quite a bit of time with graphic EQs, moving in 0.1dB increments, so I have a grasp of the sound of various parts of the audio spectrum. Frequency masking effects can be a fascinating rabbit hole, and sometimes 0.1dB makes a significant difference in the audibility of different aspects of a mix.
I know exactly what you're talking about and have seen similar plots for the effect of SWR Aural Enhancer control knob positions, the TH heads with varying settings of the Drive and Gain controls, and for a number of the Tech 21 pedals. I'm not aware of anything that has been published (here on TB) that provides similar plots for the Voicing control on the SW heads. I agree that there were useful insights (at least for me) from all those plots that I mentioned.
I think that complexity/sophistication is what has always made it so difficult to describe the control's effect in a simple one dimensional way like one might for a mid-scoop or bass/treble boost at a given frequency. In some ways for me, and yes I know this is a Mesa thread, it's a bit like trying to describe the classic GK tone stack operation (which I've always liked) by simply referring to the specific frequencies it cuts and boosts. I'll also add that I have the same difficulty when trying to describe the musical nature of a well-designed Baxandall EQ.
I agree with this assessment…a lot.
Thank you for that. But the way Andy worded his response would have made me laugh regardless.
I often use a "contour" control to reshape a particularly voiced cabinet. Sometimes a cabinet is too mid voiced by nature and the contour control can help tame some of that.
Great point...in fact the Aguilar DB cabs came to mind as I was reading you post.
Absolutely! Very mid forward for my tastes. When I had them, I'd use the VPF filter on the LittleMark3 to tame them. I had a hard time with them and the Tonehammer500. Others may love that combo but I struggled with it.
Conversely, I will say that I don't find much use at all for a Contour control with mid shy cabinets.
Other than a bright versus deep switch the controls are very much the same. My reaction was the same as yours when I first played a prototype in terms of it just sounding really good but Andy didn't give up any trade secrets in terms of why. I think he made a few refinements in the base (and bass) voicing to preserve head room and allow the amp to sound bigger than it might otherwise have as the volume goes up. To my ear it is a bit more inherently open (i.e. less dark sounding) than the D-800 with all controls in their neutral position.
