What is "Time Domain"

[Rockbobmel]

I've been playing bass in only one time domain for about 30 years and did not know there was another-- or more!!!

Mesa pdf quote "As the GAIN control is increased past 12:00 a richer, more “well-rounded” voice becomes dominant and headroom starts to diminish in increments until eventually, a tube overdrive sound appears as the 12AX7 input tube is driven into saturation.
The region between 12:00 and 2:30 is where the classic, warm tube sound resides and within this narrow band you will discover a world of tone. Tiny increments here produce subtle, but important differences
in the attack characteristic which in turn, feel like changes in the time domain.
By experimenting with the amount of gain, you can actually voice the amp to feel as if it bounces just ahead of the groove - or lays back a little deeper to produce a more Fatback feel. The difference in attack and sustain produces striking results as to how the bassist
- and in fact the whole band - perceives things in the time domain."

 

[KJung]

What they are talking about in typical Mesa 'marketing speak' is that when you crank up the pre gain control on a tube pre, you start to get a feeling of more give and compression as the tube is driven hard. They are equating this with the concept of 'playing behind the beat' (hence the 'time domain').

So, they are just saying that the tube 'giving a bit' will help create an allusion of a more laid back time response.

I think this is overstated, but I can see what they are talking about. It's the opposite of those very clean, present upper mids in a solid state amp that gives the impession that many call 'quick' response.

 

[rbonner]

Bag End is getting way serious with its INFRA Technology. They've been discussing time domain for some time. However, I think in this instance Mesa is just busy throwing around techo-buzzwords for effect.

I'll stick with Antidisestblishmentarianism and rubberbabybuggybumpers BOB

 

[xk49w]

"time domain" and "frequency domain" are signal processing concepts. Sounds like Mesa might be trying to work one of those phrases into the marketing literature, even though the use here has nothing to do with the original concept. It has probably been done before, and will be again.

 

[greenboy]

Actually fundamental and different overtones of a plucked string attain prominence and recede during its duration, and when that signal is amplified in a distorted tube amp fashion, some of them "bloom" - an exaggeration of some partials' envelope shape. That's about all this would be.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Similar to BBE. The ear/brain gives priority to whatever information gets to it first. BBE delays the mids a little, and the lows a little more, which makes the highs seem more prominent than the mids and the mids more prominent than the lows, without altering the actual response. Using the inherent time/phase relationships of tone controls could do something similar, though I question the benefit of touting a feature when almost no one has a clue what you're talking about.

 

[jokerjkny]

Similar to BBE. The ear/brain gives priority to whatever information gets to it first. BBE delays the mids a little, and the lows a little more, which makes the highs seem more prominent than the mids and the mids more prominent than the lows, without altering the actual response. Using the inherent time/phase relationships of tone controls could do something similar, though I question the benefit of touting a feature when almost no one has a clue what you're talking about.

woah...

 

[KJung]

Actually fundamental and different overtones of a plucked string attain prominence and recede during its duration, and when that signal is amplified in a distorted tube amp fashion, some of them "bloom" - an exaggeration of some partials' envelope shape. That's about all this would be.

Yeah, they are defininetly trying to communicate that it will put you a little behind the beat. I guess I can understand that, but as posted by everyone above, it's a lot of words that mean very little

 

[Petebass]

Similar to BBE. The ear/brain gives priority to whatever information gets to it first. BBE delays the mids a little, and the lows a little more, which makes the highs seem more prominent than the mids and the mids more prominent than the lows, without altering the actual response. Using the inherent time/phase relationships of tone controls could do something similar, though I question the benefit of touting a feature when almost no one has a clue what you're talking about.

Sounds to me like BBE are taking the long way around for simply adding more highs with EQ to me. I'm always synical about "Time shift" type effects because they always assume a "flat" room which won't add it's own time shift effects, and we all know those don't exist in gig-land.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Sounds to me like BBE are taking the long way around for simply adding more highs with EQ to me. I'm always synical about "Time shift" type effects because they always assume a "flat" room which won't add it's own time shift effects, and we all know those don't exist in gig-land.

What BBE mainly addresses is the typical time/phase delay in the mids and highs that naturally occurs in many electronics and speakers, supposedly restoring time/phase closer to what they should be. This has nothing to do with room interactions. The delays involved are as little as fractions of a millisecond, which doesn't seem like much, but that's quite a lot of phase shift at 5kHz. BBE seems to work very well with low end gear that has poor phase response, and badly with high end gear that has good phase response.

 

[JimmyM]

BBE seems to work very well with low end gear that has poor phase response, and badly with high end gear that has good phase response.

You don't need a degree in audiology to know that little tidbit, either Never saw the point in a BBE, and now I know why.

 

[KJung]

You don't need a degree in audiology to know that little tidbit, either Never saw the point in a BBE, and now I know why.

+1 Again, this is not what Mesa is talking about though. You really can hear that sort of 'delayed response' when, for example, you crank the tube input gain a bit on the MPulse line of cabs. It almost sounds like a compressor that is turned up a touch too much, with that 'quashing' of the initial note attack that results in a bit of give, that as they say, can give the impression of playing 'slightly behind the beat'. It sounds like their using the term 'time domain' somewhat too loosely to describe the issue (i.e, the feel of the whole band laying back a touch) took this discussion to a different place

 

[JimmyM]

+1 Again, this is not what Mesa is talking about though. You really can hear that sort of 'delayed response' when, for example, you crank the tube input gain a bit on the MPulse line of cabs. It almost sounds like a compressor that is turned up a touch too much, with that 'quashing' of the initial note attack that results in a bit of give, that as they say, can give the impression of playing 'slightly behind the beat'. It sounds like their using the term 'time domain' somewhat too loosely to describe the issue (i.e, the feel of the whole band laying back a touch) took this discussion to a different place

Typical Talkbass

 

[billfitzmaurice]

It sounds like their using the term 'time domain' somewhat too loosely to describe the issue (i.e, the feel of the whole band laying back a touch) took this discussion to a different place

Could be. Time and phase are well defined issues with respect to sound reproduction, and have nothing to do with timing in the sense of being ahead or behind the beat. It wouldn't be the first time an adman heard a term somewhere and then misused it in his copy.

 

[synaesthesia]

Both of you are still talking about the envelope of a signal, no?

 

[anderbass]

I've been playing bass in only one time domain for about 30 years and did not know there was another-- or more!!!

Mesa pdf quote "As the GAIN control is increased past 12:00 a richer, more “well-rounded” voice becomes dominant and headroom starts to diminish in increments until eventually, a tube overdrive sound appears as the 12AX7 input tube is driven into saturation.
The region between 12:00 and 2:30 is where the classic, warm tube sound resides and within this narrow band you will discover a world of tone. Tiny increments here produce subtle, but important differences
in the attack characteristic which in turn, feel like changes in the time domain.
By experimenting with the amount of gain, you can actually voice the amp to feel as if it bounces just ahead of the groove - or lays back a little deeper to produce a more Fatback feel. The difference in attack and sustain produces striking results as to how the bassist
- and in fact the whole band - perceives things in the time domain."

That sounds kinda familiar. Was that quote from the Mesa Buster manual by any chance?

When I got my Buster I carefully tried to adjust its gain knob to hear/feel what they were suggesting. With my Buster, I only noticed a somewhat more or less gainy tone and no real diference in the "time domain" or whatever.

 

[Rockbobmel]

You guys are very kind! I know my OP was cynical, but Mesa is great reliable, well built stuff and they deserve every penny they get for it.

My beef, if you will, with them is their marketing mumbo jumbo that is insulting.

I would rather hear how the power section of the amp works well with their cabinet design or their tone shaping takes the honk out of the mids.

This, to me, is useful real world info.

Rather than trying to tell a child that this kind of horsepower launches you from the abyss to the peaks of Everest--- bla bla bla-----Why don't they match their marketing more seriously to their gear quality and applications.!!!

We don't live in la-la-land....

Thanks for letting me rant...



.

 

[David Jayne]

I've got an M6. It's awesome, sounds great. And the folks who wrote the manual smoked some 'kind' bud before getting to work, that's all.

 

[Honk'n_down-low]

And hear I thought the "Time Domain" was the relationship of your controls to the hands on a clock

 

[JimmyM]

I would rather hear how the power section of the amp works well with their cabinet design or their tone shaping takes the honk out of the mids.

This, to me, is useful real world info.

Rather than trying to tell a child that this kind of horsepower launches you from the abyss to the peaks of Everest--- bla bla bla-----Why don't they match their marketing more seriously to their gear quality and applications.!!!

We don't live in la-la-land....

Thanks for letting me rant...

Gotta sell the sizzle with the steak, you know? I've always preferred the direct approach myself. If I want flowery prose, I'll read "Too Fat To Fish" by Artie Lange.