Sterling and Gain Questions

[RobertB]

afaik, it's not possible to edit your own thread title...it's something a mod has to do.

+1

 

[lowliferumble]

I think the +15dB/40Hz bass boost on the MM is going to really slam most amplifiers. Remember that's the center frequency of the bass EQ; it rolls off at 6dB per octave, which means it's still boosting about +11dB at 20Hz, and +5.5 at 10Hz.

With heavy boost, every touch of your fingers is being amplified as a subsonic thump. You can't hear that and the speakers can't reproduce it, but an amp is going to run very heavy current trying to reproduce those extreme lows, most of which simply won't happen with a sealed 8x10 cabinet. (If you had subwoofers, you might hear or see the thump, though most subs have subsonic protection to keep the cones in the cabs.)

The Ampeg 810AV and HE, for example, have a -3dB point at 58Hz, and it's -10dB at 40Hz. Making up that 3dB requires twice the power, and 10dB requires 10x the power. The 58Hz point is about Bb, 40Hz about Eb on a standard-tuned bass. You're tuning down to about 31Hz with your low B, similar to a 5-string, which is way below the cab's -10dB point. I suspect 31Hz is closer to 20dB down; you can't put enough power into the cab to get those low notes to a reasonable volume.

Much of the low-end power is simply heating the amp and especially the voice coils. As the speakers heat up, their resistance increases dramatically. When that happens, the volume drops off, because now the amp is seeing a higher-impedance cabinet.

Thank you Rick!!!

 

[Rick Auricchio]

Just passing along what I've learned from others...

A lot of what we hear with the bass guitar is the harmonics of the strings, not the fundamental. (There's been lots of discussion on this at TalkBass.) We hear the 2nd harmonic and the brain fills in the missing fundamental. With modern music, many bassists find the need to tune below the bassy guitars to be heard as a separate instrument in the ensemble. (The problem is often more with the guitars here, but that's another discussion.)

Efforts to reproduce the fundamental of the note tend to run into difficulty, mostly because speaker cabinets just can't do the job. Many amps will run happily almost down to the subsonics, but others simply roll off this stuff as unusable anyway.

Ported cabinets are able to better reproduce the low end than sealed ones like the Ampeg "fridge" 8x10 cab. But there are tradeoffs in all cab designs.

We want three things from a speaker cabinet: Efficiency, Deep Bass, and reasonable size. According to Hoffman's Iron Law, we can get only two of them at once. If you want deep bass, you either get very inefficient or a huge cab. Inefficiency isn't too bad, because high-power amps are cheap. But we don't want a cab as big as a boxcar.

Speaker manufacturers naturally want smaller cabs, to save on lumber and shipping. As a result, bottom end suffers. Those who want deep fundamentals get left out, while everyone else is happy that their low mids (the harmonics) carry their sound well.

 

[shaver]

thank you so much guys.
couple questions though. Would it be a good idea to switch my head to 2 ohms to compensate for the impedance fluctuating. and also should I think about getting a clip on fan for the back of my head to help this from happening.
I'm also getting used to all the MM eq's set to middle, I do however have to compensate for it on the amp a little, which in return makes it very hot.

 

[Big Poppa]

Rick I know you are from Cambria but I respectfully submit that you are all wet on this. Dudley will be by shortly........

 

[Guitarburetor]

What's the purpose of EQ anyway???????????????

The active EQ in the Music Man Basses was design for tone shaping. Maxing out all of the EQ bands will boost the overall output of the bass (and probably create a little distortion as well). This could certainly overdrive the input stage of an amplifier and cause it to sound ugly, but this could be avoided by;

1. Padding down the signal going into your amp as already suggested- try turning down the VOLUME KNOB.

2. NOT boosting the bass EQs and turning the amp up instead

Distortion is hard on your amplifier and speakers, so if it is part of the desired sound, better put a rig together that can handle it, but the bass is not really the problem.

 

[Big Poppa]

come on dudley address the frequency issues....

 

[Guitarburetor]

Btw...

The Sterling Low EQ is not centered at 40 HZ. In fact, there is a high pass filter in the preamp that sharply attenuates frequencies under 80Hz, and this is one of the reasons Music Man basses maintain their clear low end.

The output level of the bass is ultimately limited by the power supply voltage (9 volts) and how hard you play. True enough that the MM Sterling will probably overdrive the input to your amplifier if the EQ is heavily boosted and you're rocking out, so you might want to back off the EQ and/or Volume control.

In any case, putting high level signals into the amplifier can cause the input stages to clip, (which you can control) but beyond that it's all about the amplifier settings. Excessive clipping of the signal can be very hard on any amplifier and speakers, especially when the signal approaches a square wave.

 

[shaver]

I never said that the bass was the problem, but am only asking if my settings on the bass could be a problem with my current setup. If to much low end can freak the amp out enough for it to shut down, then I think that this might be the issue.
Thanks guys.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

From the FAQ on the MM website:

"Our 3 band basses use a standard baxandall circuit centered appx. 500hz. Frequency slope is 6 db per octave. With bass control in max position, max output will occur at 40hz and drop at 6db per octave above 40hz..."

So do we have Lo Shelving, Mid bandpass, and Hi shelving?

And the hipass that cuts freqs below 80Hz...how does that jive with the statement about max output at 40Hz?

Maybe we just need a clearer statement in the FAQ...

PS: BP, what is your avatar photo? It looks like you're about to eat a kick-drum pedal. (I know when you tell me it will be obvious.)

 

[Big Poppa]

its a mini buffing robot

 

[Rick Auricchio]

That's a really weird object...but we all have minis that need buffing now and then. Thanks!