FE126 mini monitor.

[chris661]

Yeah, when I opened up my guitar(s) for a look, I was a little disappointed at the lack of anything interesting in there.

Simple treble cut circuit...

It gets worse when you have two tone controls, you'd think one operated treble, one operated bass. Nope, it's just the two pots in series.

Modifications will have to be made!!

Ok then. <squares up to Chris>

If you opened up your Strat and saw a 9V battery powering a small I.C with a few components on would that have made you think your guitar is better than one that just has a small cap and pot to roll-off the treble?

I don't think Mr SRV, hendrix, Clapton, Guy, King, Peter Green et al wept when they discovered what sounds you can get from a passive 'tone' system.

(I've had another cup of strong coffee BTW!)

And as fer you and yer active EQ system Ivimey..... you should know better at your age...

DTB

If you want to go that way, lets imagine what they'd come up with if they had more flexibility. Having a bass cut would be nice, but a passive one would require an inconveniently large inductor...

Following this, having active tone controls would mean that you can tune your sound on-stage without getting the stool to access the controls for your stack...

Must also be noted that there is no better or worse guitar. I prefered my Squier Affinity to a £400 Mexican Strat. Mine was nicer to play, and had a greater tonal range.

[Scottmoose]

Reverting for a moment back to FE126eNs on small baffles with heavy Eq applied, I'm very much with Ed, Nick & everyone else on this score Chris.

Assuming we wish for our speakers to reproduce the truth, viz. the signal they recieve as accurately as possible, this is not a good idea. A small baffle is about the most unfriendly load (or lack thereof) possible, and you've got a driver that is not at all naturally suited to such an environment. The 126 is an excellent unit, esp. when modified, but it was designed primarily for use in back horns, or high-passed as a mid-tweeter. Linear displacement is only 0.35mm before the powertrain hits 10% distortion (the definition of Xmax). While like most Fostex units it overloads in a relatively benign fashion, it's still distortion.

By adding substantial Eq, you are compounding this by effectively reducing system efficiency; whether you cut everything above the desired point[s] or boost everything below, the result will be the same, with average powertrain deflection rapidly increasing. On top of that, you're going to quickly run into FMD / AMD & the associated phase shifts (usually lumped together under the heading of doppler distortion). And that's before you consider the massive curtailing of undistorted dynamic headroom.

I'm not anti Eq per se; used properly it can be very useful & all things being equal I'd go with active over passive (Foobar's is pretty decent TBH) any day of the week as it is generally far more precise. But there are limits, and you really need to be working with a driver as far as possible, rather than forcing it out of its natural operating environment. There are a few exceptions, such as when you have multiple drivers in an array; you can provide substantial Eq in such cases as you've got that much more nominal efficiency & total cone area to work with. But you need to go easy with unsupported small units.

[ed]

That Jazz look awesthumnely lovely. Your's?

DTB

yes it was,

which brings me on to one of my other pet rants........vintage guitars....I used to adore that 68, played well, sounded good, made me feel warm that I'd got something of sentimental value...and then...

woke up one morning, priced it up, sold it.....and with the proceeds bought:

my fretless usa jazz, my yamaha p80 stage piano, and a variax 500.....

still wish I had the 68, but the zombie troof is that the fretless plays and sounds better...so the piano and the variax were just bonus.....

vintage guitars Pah! and Poo if you can use the dosh in better ways

[Nick]

If you want to go that way, lets imagine what they'd come up with if they had more flexibility. Having a bass cut would be nice, but a passive one would require an inconveniently large inductor...

Following this, having active tone controls would mean that you can tune your sound on-stage without getting the stool to access the controls for your stack...

Yes, but, in effect the pickup selector gives you all that and much more.

[The Stratmangler]

If you want to expand your tonal palette take a look at this guy http://admin.fender.com/uk//artists/artist.php?id=29 .
No active eq Strats in his vicinity.

[Dave the bass]

If you want to go that way, lets imagine what they'd come up with if they had more flexibility.

Some manufacturers did Chris, if you research back through Alembic's history you'll discover they worked closely with Phil Lesh from the 'Dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alembic_Inc

Hasn't really caught on in a big way with Guitarists in general but was (is?) very popular with bassists, a sweepable Mid control on bass amp or bass guitar can help fix the awful 'boom' you get in some gigs where you accidently excite summat the room.

....being bass players we quite often excite luv-crayzee wimmin' too

DTB.

[pre65]

....being bass players we quite often excite luv-crayzee wimmin' too

DTB.

Aha, that's interesting.

[Dave the bass]

If you want to expand your tonal palette take a look at this guy http://admin.fender.com/uk//artists/artist.php?id=29 .
No active eq Strats in his vicinity.

EJ, awwww. I went to see him when he released his 'Tones' CD back in the early 90's. The guitarist I was living with came too, he was a huge EJ clone/fan.... during a quiet bit in the gig my mate shouts out "Eric... i want your babies!" to brillyant comedic effect

He reckoned he could hear the differences between brass and steel jack plugs.

DTB

[Dave the bass]

....being bass players we quite often excite luv-crayzee wimmin' too

DTB.

Aha, that's interesting.

When you starting Bass lessons then Phil?

DTB

[The Stratmangler]

He reckoned he could hear the differences between brass and steel jack plugs.

DTB

I read that too - prefers brass for rhythm parts in the studio, and steel for lead.
I also heard that he's fussy about batteries, and which brand goes into which stomp box.

I had a quick go on one of the EJ Strats when they came out, unplugged, just the natural sound of the guitar, and I couldn't believe how rich and alive sounding the guitar was.
I quickly put it down before it became a "must have" object of desire.

[The Stratmangler]

Mr Johnson also prefers to have the middle pickup disconnected from it's tone control, and the bridge pickup to be connected in it's place http://support.fender.com/diagrams/stra ... 02APg4.pdf

http://support.fender.com/diagrams/stra ... 02APg2.pdf

[Mike H]

It was meant to be funny! Strewth....

Now he says! I'll get you MikeH <shakes fist is pseudo menacing way!>

Good tone controls are good. Bad tone controls are bad.

^^^^Excellent. The 'War of tone' is back on!

OK. What makes a 'good tone control' good and and 'bad tone control' bad.

Details m'lad!

DTB

Erm, design, component choice ...?

A while ago someone gave me a diagram for professional like looking passive controls with separate cut and boost pots, very low input impedance though. Just found it again


 

[Mike H]

Was it any good though? Although "mostly on bypass" is not encouraging

No Not Really not enough range for that job you really require something like a 24 or 36 band job for fine tunening

Ah yes wasn't it 5 bands only?

 

[pre65]

Tweeters came today.

Just evaluating them.

[Mike H]

Wow don't mess about do you neat metal bracket and evryfink