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Thumpinator = HPF?

calmb4tehpwn

calmb4tehpwn

Jan 2, 2011
607
0
Burnsville, MN
#1
I've been looking hard at the thumptinator, as the volume my band plays at, I'm working my cab pretty hard. To combat this, I've been told to invest into a HPF, and someone else had mentioned the thumpinator, which I've taken great interest in.

Now, my question, is the thumpinator just a HPF with a bit of science in exactly what level sonic becomes subsonic, and a set Hz? I've read a few descriptions of the workings of the thumpinator, and what little of these descriptions I could understand, seemed to describe it as an HPF.

So, my power amp has a build in HPF, but it's lowest setting is 50Hz, which alters my sound. I've read I should be shooting for ~35Hz, as thats about when your start entering subsonic territory.

I'm spitting out a few things I've pieced together, and mainly am looking for someone to confirm or deny.

Also, I can't for the life of my find an HPF pedal. Am I missing something?
 
#6
The Thumpinator is a HPF 30db @ 30 Hz it is specifically designed to combat the sub harmonics that are present in a bass guitar's output, especially when using some effects like filter and octavers, that are below what we can hear. Those subharmonic frequencies can rob your amplifier of headroom and cause extreme speaker excursion that may result in heat that can lead to failure.
If you scroll down the page to the spectrograph to compare the uneffected signal and one processed thru the Thumpinator.
I am getting a Thumpinator because my new amp GK MB500 does not seem to have a HPF filter and it's wreaking havoc on my old speakers.



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#7
Okay. So it looks like the EHX Enigma has a HPF mode. Does anyone have an experience or knowledge on the use of this mode? Does is work as a hard HPF, and if so, does anyone know if I can take it down to 35hz? or 30, for that matter.

I've been interested in trying an envelope filter, and I'd like taking two birds with one stone.

Just considering options.
 
#8
You wouldn't want to use that unless you either want an envelope filter all the time (and with an HPF envelope filter, that means that the majority of the sweep will have little to no bass), or you can set it as a static filter, which means you'll just have this big pedal doing nothing but acting as a rumble filter. The cutoff on the Enigma is not going to be anywhere near as steep as a dedicated rumble filter like the Thumpinator, and there will also be a peak in response at the cutoff frequency, giving a bump in bass right around the area you are trying to cut.

In other words, the Enigma or any other standard Envelope Filter effect is not ideal for this purpose!
 
#10
I know that envelope filters are a completely different thing than what I'm looking for, but their use of the term "HPF" had me wondering if this pedal might in fact serve a second function, the standard HPF function. Now it's clear that it's a mode of the envelope, which is not what I'm looking for.

So, Rumble Filter is what I'm looking for? Because HPF is yielding no results.
 
#11
Well, I'm seeing plenty of people saying that HPF at 50hz is working for for their low B. I'm currently low B with nylon wound strings, so I'm thinking I need to swap the strings out. They just fill the low end so much that my cab is having trouble keeping up and the volumes my band plays at (and I'm using an acme low b4). So will it make a significant difference if I swap to roundwounds or flats?
 
#12
You aren't finding alot of high-pass filter pedals because there just aren't a whole lot of them that exist. The reason being that most preamps in commonly used bass amplifiers have had built-in high-pass filters (one notable exception being many of the amps made by SWR). The more that bassists have branched out into more full-range preamplifiers and more powerful amplifiers, the more the high pass filter has become a necessity to help protect speakers and tighten up the sound. The Thumpinator was actually made to address this shortage specifically for the needs of bass players (I think it was a custom design request from a member of Talkbass that brought it to life).

Whether or not 50Hz will work for you is just a matter of choice. Most cabs don't really put out much below that anyway (though I think Acmes might be an exception). Either way, if you are obviously stressing your speakers to get the volume you need, a high pass filter might not be enough to fix your problems.

The general trade off for a cab that goes deeper frequency-wise is that you sacrifice overall loudness/volume to get there (which I believe is the case with the Acme). So if you need more volume while retaining your current tone, using more speakers is the best choice. If you are willing to sacrifice some low-end for more overall volume, then you can check out some different cabinets.
 
#13
Well, I'm in the process of attaining a second acme b4. So volume wont be an issue. The amount of movement in the speakers almost disappears when I enable the 50hz hpf. I suppose I need to look up if my preamp, gk 2001rbp, has one already. I can change my sound to save the speakers, but a large part of my sound is nylon wound strings, which seems to press heavy on the low end. I might just get flats and a/b them, see if it doesn't kill my cab. I'm still considering getting a thumpinator just for redundancy sake. Between my alembic, pre/ and power amps and two acme b4s. I have enough invested to drop 160 just to make sure no sub sonic vibrations are making it through.
 

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