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Top-notch tube DIs: why no mid control?

Johnny Mac

Johnny Mac

Supporting Member
Sep 28, 2005
996
625
Springfield, MA
#1
This thread brought to you by the Noble DI and the Broughton P15, both of which have bass and treble controls but nothing for the midrange.

Anyone have any idea why that is? I know the P15 is designed to model the sound of an Ampeg B15 which also lacked a mid control (I'm sure @Azure Skies can chime in as well), but considering the importance of midrange to being heard in a mix, it strikes me as an odd thing to omit. My personal tonal preferences need a healthy amount of mids, and given that I have to compete with loud distorted guitars in both of my bands, I'd likely be buried in the mix without the ability to bump them a bit. You can always add an EQ pedal, but now you're using two pieces of gear when one could do the job.

Thoughts? And are there any tube pre/DI's in the same class as the Noble or P15 that have a mid control? (I currently use a Le Bass but that's a much lower price point.)
 
#4
Johnny Mac said:
True, but those of us who want to control a particular section of the midrange are out of luck.
Click to expand...
A Baxandall 2 band EQ might help some, but even then you won't have the precise control of the mids you might get with dedicated mid controls (especially semi parametric types). That having been said, the 2 band Baxandall style on the Bass RC Boost pedal allows seamlessly musical sounds with virtually any knob positions.
 
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#5
Regarding the whys and hows of a Baxandall tone stack (and why you might want one) vs the more standard variety check out this article.

A version of the Baxandall is what Ampeg used in their classic B-15N and a few of their other amps. Ampeg's circuit actually can boost the midrange with only a bass and treble control. Fender's tonestack paradoxically can't boost mids despite the presence of a midrange knob.

Read the above article for details.

Another article with scope output showing things a little more clearly can be found here.
 
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#6
Having read those materials previously I can attest that they are some of the best explanations of tone stack designs, attributes and limitations I've seen. It was an eye opener for me and I'm an engineer, albeit not an electrical engineer.
 
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#7
Al Kraft said:
Having read those materials previously I can attest that they are some of the best explanations of tone stack designs, attributes and limitations I've seen. It was an eye opener for me and I'm an engineer, albeit not an electrical engineer.
Click to expand...

Then you're ahead of me in qualifications. I'm from a family of engineers. But I'm one of the few in mine who isn't one. :laugh:

And I'll agree - it is pretty eye opening when you discover what's actually going on with those two tone stacks. They don't work at all the way you'd think they would looking at the controls.
 
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#8
It's amazing what we take for granted or at face value (like assuming all bass, mid and treble controls work the same way) until you do a little reading. The more I learn, the more I realize I know a lot less than I thought I did.

Folks sharing resources and facts like the ones you brought up are what makes this forum so much more useful than people just giving opinions off the top of their head and reciting urban myths folklore.
 
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#9
40Hz said:
Regarding the whys and hows of a Baxandall tone stack (and why you might want one) vs the more standard variety check out this article.

A version of the Baxandall is what Ampeg used in their classic B-15N and a few of their other amps. Ampeg's circuit actually can boost the midrange with only a bass and treble control. Fender's tonestack paradoxically can't boost mids despite the presence of a midrange knob.

Read the above article for details.

Another article with scope output showing things a little more clearly can be found here.
Click to expand...

Now my head hurts.
 
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#11
If you are playing a passive bass, your outboard/pre/DI can add a fatness to your sound if you know how to use your tone control.

For an example, I play through a Lakland DJ5 with a Sadowsky outboard. Since the pedal is boost only, I set both bass and treble at 9 o'clock (7 o'clock is the starting point), run both pickups all the way up and add a bit of tone.

The thing is massive and punchy in the mids. And you barely have to adjust the tone control on the fly to get some funky slap tone.
 
#12
Johnny Mac said:
True, but those of us who want to control a particular section of the midrange are out of luck.
Click to expand...

well,try your luck elsewhere. I found Noble DI and few other with no midrange control quite usefull soundwise and I like them for simplicity. These companies set frequencies just the right way and they work good without the middle control knob. On the other hand, Aguilar doesnt sounds that good if you turn the mids all the way down and use just bass and treble. it's how they centers their EQ. My Sadowsky pre had no mids too,yet it was super versatile and I never had problem to dial right sound and be heard on the stage.
 
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#15
Johnny Mac said:
This thread brought to you by the Noble DI and the Broughton P15, both of which have bass and treble controls but nothing for the midrange.

Anyone have any idea why that is? I know the P15 is designed to model the sound of an Ampeg B15 which also lacked a mid control (I'm sure @Azure Skies can chime in as well), but considering the importance of midrange to being heard in a mix, it strikes me as an odd thing to omit. My personal tonal preferences need a healthy amount of mids, and given that I have to compete with loud distorted guitars in both of my bands, I'd likely be buried in the mix without the ability to bump them a bit. You can always add an EQ pedal, but now you're using two pieces of gear when one could do the job.

Thoughts? And are there any tube pre/DI's in the same class as the Noble or P15 that have a mid control? (I currently use a Le Bass but that's a much lower price point.)
Click to expand...


The P-15 is not designed to model the sound of a B15, it is the preamp circuit of a B15. As has been mentioned, you could affect the mids by cutting the bass or treble and boosting the volume. But, at the end of the day, the P-15 is a B15 preamp. You start adding a different tone stack, it's not a B15 anymore. While there are a few improvements to lower noise, and @Azure Skies can detail those, the beauty of the P-15 is that it is an authentic B15 preamp.

Personally, I could not care less since I already have a pedalboard full of things that give me mids control. Honestly, if you wnat a Noble and/or a P-15 but want mids control, get an EWS BMC (super small). If you wnat even more control, get an Empress Para EQ or get @Azure Skies to build you one of his parametric eq pedals he builds with modules. At least one TB member has a 3 band para eq pedal in a top jacks 125B pedal.
 
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#16
Johnny Mac said:
This thread brought to you by the Noble DI and the Broughton P15, both of which have bass and treble controls but nothing for the midrange.

Anyone have any idea why that is? I know the P15 is designed to model the sound of an Ampeg B15 which also lacked a mid control (I'm sure @Azure Skies can chime in as well), but considering the importance of midrange to being heard in a mix, it strikes me as an odd thing to omit. My personal tonal preferences need a healthy amount of mids, and given that I have to compete with loud distorted guitars in both of my bands, I'd likely be buried in the mix without the ability to bump them a bit. You can always add an EQ pedal, but now you're using two pieces of gear when one could do the job.

Thoughts? And are there any tube pre/DI's in the same class as the Noble or P15 that have a mid control? (I currently use a Le Bass but that's a much lower price point.)
Click to expand...

That is why I won't use the sans amp ... no mid control ... also basses with 2 band preamps are also lame ...

BASS IS ABOUT MIDS
 
#17
People have different mindsets when it comes to DI's. Initially, they were way of taking a signal, conditioning it and sending it to a mixer where gain and tone could be adjusted. The advantage of relagating gain and tonee to the mixer is consistency with the other channels. The notion that purity of the tone is important and is held by many. So they don't want a tone stage in a DI.

A passive tone stage has an insertion loss. Often a gain and impedance matching stage is added after the tone stage to make up for the loss and condition the signal. More complexity in the signal path.

Mids can be complicated. A mid scoop is easy, a true mid boost requires more to implement. It costs more.

If the DI is a preamp, adding a gain adjustment and a tone stage with mids makes sense. If it is just a DI, the mixing board can address those needs.
 
#19
Dragan said:
well,try your luck elsewhere. I found Noble DI and few other with no midrange control quite usefull soundwise and I like them for simplicity. These companies set frequencies just the right way and they work good without the middle control knob. On the other hand, Aguilar doesnt sounds that good if you turn the mids all the way down and use just bass and treble. it's how they centers their EQ. My Sadowsky pre had no mids too,yet it was super versatile and I never had problem to dial right sound and be heard on the stage.
Click to expand...

Exactly. A lot of people don't fully understand how EQ works. If you are not a studio guy who knows how to mix a record, it can be deadly to mess with EQ too much anyway. There is nothing worse than a bass player who boosted his mids too much. It's like a guitar player with scooped mids - just screams "local band".

The Q on the 2 band pres is pretty wide on the Noble. Additionally, I believe the peak points are 80hz and 4k. So when you boost the lows, you are also boosting the low mids, and the 4k point is also boosting the upper mids. The 2 knob setup saves a lot of bass players from themselves because those are really safe EQ points and you can easily hear when you need to dial it back down. A key part to understand this is while you are still getting mid boosts from turning the bass knob, you are not boosting at that midrange point. That's what can start to sound like crap real fast. Get an EQ setup with a narrower Q and boost at 80hz. Then try that same boost at 250k. It's not a great sound. Try a wide Q at 80hz and watch your lower mids come up as well, but it will sound a lot more natural.

It has similar EQ points as a Sadowsky preamp, except it also has tubes so you get way more mids due to the harmonics. Like you said, people always rave about how easy a Sadowsky fits into a mix. Well, go listen to a sadowksy through a Noble. That's when things really start to get sexy. And it is when you really start to hear what a good engineer does - he knows he can run a passive J or P, or a bass with a 2 band pre through some of his tube gear and get natural mids brought back in.

The Bartolini or MusicMan pres are set more extreme - 40hz and 10k. Its a lot easier to blow it on those pre's by over boosting and have way too much highs and lows if you don't know what you are doing. Additionally when you boost some frequencies going into a tube, it's a big difference compared to something like a Tech21 BDDI. I used one of those for years and know all about it. It's a totally different sound than the Noble in terms of richness and natural midrange.

Again, key words - natural midrange boost. Directly boosting mids with EQ when you don't really know what you are doing (or even when you do) can be a real bad idea.
 
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#20
I get the two-band control can can allow you to boost the mid range if you cut the bass and the treble. I know that's how some of the SansAmp gear is intended to be used. However, I find it funny that the Noble is boost only for bass and treble. Obviously, it makes a lot of people happy, so it is hard to fault them. I've never played one so I don't know.
 

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