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The origin of Scooped Mids?

petejt

By petejt
in Amps

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petejt Newbie

petejt

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I've been thinking of starting this discussion for a while, but feel compelled to start it now after reading the thread on 'who used to be a mid-scooper' or whatever it's called.

 

 

 

Well, who did it first? Or who was the first to popularise it? When where the times when it was done the most?

 

 

Instead of jumping straight to ...And Justice For All........, I'm going to go to black metal band King Diamond.

 

Check out the tones in the following videos. They are barely a year apart.

 

 

[YOUTUBE]h9UUJmp0DIoM[/YOUTUBE]

This is from 1986-1987. Although there's heaps of splashy reverb on everything like a church hall, and there's some modulation going on, it's quite a mid-boosted tone, very much.

 

{EDIT: If the video doesn't load, just go listen to The Family Ghost by King Diamond. YouTube is messing me around at the moment...}

 

 

Any honkier and it'll squawk like a Rockman, like the guitar tone in No More Words from two-three years before in 1984...

[YOUTUBE]7MSYzT_LuZ8[/YOUTUBE]

 

And I admit- that tone makes me fucking wet :love: .

 

 

Or is it just blue-eyed chicks with two-tone haircuts :lol::o

 

 

 

[YOUTUBE]pP_CeJ2tx0s[/YOUTUBE]

Although there's a sharp mid-spike in the tone, since the chorusing gives that kind of squawk when used- notice how it sounds a lot 'thinner', more scooped in general?

 

And yet it was only a year later, in 1988.

 

 

 

 

 

And of course, 1988 was the year of ...And Justice For All. James Hetfield is regarded as the King of Scooping the Fuck out of the guitar tone so it can stomp out the bass player and be so seething & rasping and dry it bakes your mouth to a crisp...

 

[YOUTUBE]DU_ggFovJNo[/YOUTUBE]

 

 

 

But do you know what? Would it be that James Hetfield was trying to perfect and push to the extreme- Tony Iommi's treble-boosted tone from 1971?

[YOUTUBE]nB84hUxTD0w[/YOUTUBE]

 

 

 

Was Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath really the first one that started the idea of mid-scooping?

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petejt Newbie

petejt

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UM, Tony Iommi's tone is all mids, WTF are you talking about?

 

 

But listen to how sharp and crunchy the top end sounds in Children of the Grave. To me it sounds like the beginning of mid-scooping...

 

 

Or at least James Hetfield dialling up that sound then scooping out the mids, and to compensate for the lack of body in his tone he boosted the bass right up.

 

 

But who else scooped the mids, prior to the ones that are usually copped for it?

I'll check out the Venom clip- that could be part of the genesis too.

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teemuk Newbie

teemuk

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The generic passive tone control circuit that's been in 90% of guitar amps since 1960's scoops mids almost no matter how you dial it. So I guess the scooped-midz thing was invented by someone from Gibson Corp - or possibly Fender.

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Cougar Hunter Newbie

Cougar Hunter

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The generic passive tone control circuit that's been in 90% of guitar amps since 1960's scoops mids almost no matter how you dial it. So I guess the scooped-midz thing was invented by someone from Gibson Corp - or possibly Fender.

 

VERY true.:idea:

 

Pretty sure some guy at RCA invented that tonestack for radios/stereos/hifis.:thu: (I could be totally wrong)

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petejt Newbie

petejt

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No seriously, he's pretty well known for scooping the mids on his NMV JMPs and running a distortion+ into the amp, that combined with the AL speakers is scooped mid central.


Your mistake is thinking it's a bad thing.

 

 

Huh? I thought he was a mid-booster? Honestly to me his tone sounds fairly midrangey, particularly at that concert (I've got the tracks at home). Unless it's just the modulation giving that squawk like how I demonstrated with King Diamond's stuff.

 

 

I'm not saying that mid-scooping is bad. I'm just trying to work out/discuss its origin- who started doing it and the reasons why etc. Particularly the reasons why, say for example why does Mark series Mesa/Boogie amps have a 750Hz slider on the graphic EQ instead of a 600Hz slider, or 800Hz slider?

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petejt Newbie

petejt

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The generic passive tone control circuit that's been in 90% of guitar amps since 1960's scoops mids almost no matter how you dial it. So I guess the scooped-midz thing was invented by someone from Gibson Corp - or possibly Fender.

 

Wow, interesting... :idea:

 

 

So could it be possible that the Fender/Gibson generic passive tone control circuit was designed with scooping the midrange in mind?

 

Was it to thin the tone a bit? Act as a type of volume control without directly lowering the amp's volume, since the electric guitar is predominately a midrange instrument?

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