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Tonemender

Started by bassmannate, November 08, 2010, 09:05:35 AM

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bassmannate

I've searched and can't seem to find anything about this. I'm wanting to make a tonemender but with good frequencies for bass guitar. Does anyone have cap values that would work for this or at least some frequencies I can plug into a tone stack calc? I really don't know where to begin.

PRR

Double all the cap values.
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PRR

And give a link so lazy-but helpful folks don't have to search for clues:

http://www.runoffgroove.com/tonemender.html
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bassmannate

Thanks! I guess having a degree in music I should have figured out that doubling the cap values would cut the frequencies in half and lower everything by an octave but I guess I'm just a little too dense for that!  :icon_lol: I'll remember the link next time I ask a question, too!

PRR

> having a degree in music I should have figured out that doubling the cap values would cut the frequencies in half and lower everything by an octave

The music school I used to tech for, nobody knew what a cap was.

And I think you could get out without knowing an octave was 2:1.

It was a snap-answer to stir wiser answers.

It is mechanically correct: the electric bass is a half-pitch electric guitar.

It may be musically wrong. In ensemble playing the guitar stands out front and dances all over, the bass is supposed to hide in the corner and riff foundation notes for the guitar's melodic chords. So the voicing should be quite different. Not just same an octave down.

That tone-stack is a slightly re-valued Classic Fender Guitar Amp network. Very much intended for wide-range virtuoso out-front guitar. Cap-doubled, it leads to a half-pitch guitar-ish voice, which may not be what you were hired for.

Research, understand, then plagiarize BASS amp tone controls.

BTW: the tonemender took a tonestack designed for after a stage of tube-gain, and put it after a unity gain opamp. Working at low signal voltage and high impedance, its hiss may be audible. It need not work at such high impedance after an opamp. Divide all the resistors by 100 (2K fixed, 5K pot) and multiply all caps by 100 (and then another 2 for octave-down). That will get hiss-voltage down by a factor of 10. It may require very fat caps and pots not normally stocked in pedal-shops. And tonemender clearly works OK as-is.... just saying.
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ckyvick

Quote from: PRR on November 10, 2010, 02:11:15 AM
And I think you could get out without knowing an octave was 2:1.
It was a snap-answer to stir wiser answers.
It is mechanically correct: the electric bass is a half-pitch electric guitar.
It may be musically wrong. In ensemble playing the guitar stands out front and dances all over, the bass is supposed to hide in the corner and riff foundation notes for the guitar's melodic chords. So the voicing should be quite different. Not just same an octave down.
I thought it was commonly known that every time you go up an octave the note is vibrating twice as fast, and twice as slow an octave down. This means you can speed up and slow down a tape to change pitch. That led to many effects like chorus, flanger, vibrato, harmonizers, ect...

bassmannate

Any ideas on what I should be looking at? All the bass amps I've owned have been Hartke. I'm looking for something not so modern sounding. I've kinda been searching for a more upright sound for a while now.