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The origin of Scooped Mids?

petejt

By petejt
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Cougar Hunter Newbie

Cougar Hunter

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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?

 

It's not "possible", it's true. the top two, I THINK are Marshall and Vox tone stacks.

 

tone-stack-mid-boost-curves.gif

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teemuk Newbie

teemuk

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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?

 

Something like that.

 

nakedtruthFender72.jpg

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axuality Newbie

axuality

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Actually, I think it might have been the band named 'Boston' in the mid-70's.

 

Apparently two of them had Master's degree in electronics from MIT or something like that, and they were pretty inventive. I don't think they called it 'scooped mids', but I'm thinking that that's what it was.

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Cirrus Newbie

Cirrus

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There's a few reasons why the scooped tone happened I think.

 

The first thing I thought of on reading this thread was the fletcher-munson curve - your ears are less sensitive to the high and low frequencies of a sound when that sound is quieter. You've probably seen the "loudness" button on a hi fi or speakers or whatever. What that does is increase the volume of the highs and lows. This makes it seem like the music is louder, because your ear can now hear those frequencies at a level it would have if you'd actually turned the music up. Since everything is relative here, a bass/treble boost is the same as a mid cut. It makes the sound seem more louder and powerful, so you can see why it's used in metal, where both those things are good.

 

Secondly, I dunno about you guys but when I first started playing, I HATED the mid knob on my amp. When you're playing the guitar in your bedroom, your ears want to hear the kind of full frequency sound you'd get from a well mixed record. So you dial in more bass and treble to compensate, and cut the mids back which makes the tone seem bigger.

 

I'm just thinking out loud here, but in the past electric guitarists would have learned to play in ensembles, and learned as they went along that mids let you cut through and that you need to carve your tone carefully so as to not step all over the other guys in your group. But during the rock/metal explosion of the 70s and 80s a lot more kids would be learning to play guitar at home, developing their conceptions of what a guitar sounds like based on their scooped bedroom tones, then eventually going out into a world where there were amps powerful enough that even though they had scooped mids, they could use sheer volume to get over the top of the rest of the band and be heard.

 

Just a thought...

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TheEsupremacy Newbie

TheEsupremacy

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Pretty sure scooped mids have been around since amps were invented with a bass, treble, and mids pots. I think scooped mids have a practicle application in music, especially in a non-band setting. I like the tone of some amps when the mids are scooped out, but ONLY in practicing. I would never eq like that in a live setting or when playing for others.

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TheEsupremacy Newbie

TheEsupremacy

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There's a few reasons why the scooped tone happened I think.


The first thing I thought of on reading this thread was the fletcher-munson curve - your ears are less sensitive to the high and low frequencies of a sound when that sound is quieter. You've probably seen the "loudness" button on a hi fi or speakers or whatever. What that does is increase the volume of the highs and lows. This makes it seem like the music is louder, because your ear can now hear those frequencies at a level it would have if you'd actually turned the music up. Since everything is relative here, a bass/treble boost is the same as a mid cut. It makes the sound seem more louder and powerful, so you can see why it's used in metal, where both those things are good.


Secondly, I dunno about you guys but when I first started playing, I HATED the mid knob on my amp. When you're playing the guitar in your bedroom, your ears want to hear the kind of full frequency sound you'd get from a well mixed record. So you dial in more bass and treble to compensate, and cut the mids back which makes the tone seem bigger.


I'm just thinking out loud here, but in the past electric guitarists would have learned to play in ensembles, and learned as they went along that mids let you cut through and that you need to carve your tone carefully so as to not step all over the other guys in your group. But during the rock/metal explosion of the 70s and 80s a lot more kids would be learning to play guitar at home, developing their conceptions of what a guitar sounds like based on their scooped bedroom tones, then eventually going out into a world where there were amps powerful enough that even though they had scooped mids, they could use sheer volume to get over the top of the rest of the band and be heard.


Just a thought...

 

Nicely put man. This is exactly when I was trying to say. :cop:

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HumanFuseBen Newbie

HumanFuseBen

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There's a few reasons why the scooped tone happened I think.


The first thing I thought of on reading this thread was the fletcher-munson curve - your ears are less sensitive to the high and low frequencies of a sound when that sound is quieter. You've probably seen the "loudness" button on a hi fi or speakers or whatever. What that does is increase the volume of the highs and lows. This makes it seem like the music is louder, because your ear can now hear those frequencies at a level it would have if you'd actually turned the music up. Since everything is relative here, a bass/treble boost is the same as a mid cut. It makes the sound seem more louder and powerful, so you can see why it's used in metal, where both those things are good.


Secondly, I dunno about you guys but when I first started playing, I HATED the mid knob on my amp. When you're playing the guitar in your bedroom, your ears want to hear the kind of full frequency sound you'd get from a well mixed record. So you dial in more bass and treble to compensate, and cut the mids back which makes the tone seem bigger.


I'm just thinking out loud here, but in the past electric guitarists would have learned to play in ensembles, and learned as they went along that mids let you cut through and that you need to carve your tone carefully so as to not step all over the other guys in your group. But during the rock/metal explosion of the 70s and 80s a lot more kids would be learning to play guitar at home, developing their conceptions of what a guitar sounds like based on their scooped bedroom tones, then eventually going out into a world where there were amps powerful enough that even though they had scooped mids, they could use sheer volume to get over the top of the rest of the band and be heard.


Just a thought...

 

excellent post! :thu:

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Badside Newbie

Badside

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Leo, once again, 30 years worth of steps ahead of everybody.
:thu:

 

As it was mentionned, Leo took the tone stack circuit out of RCA application notes.

 

But yeah, since he put that on the Bassman, then Marshall cloned the Bassman to build the JTM45, people are been scooping their mids all the time (to not scoop the mids you have to set it Bass 0, Mids 10, Treble 0).

 

And, as was mentionned, because of Fletcher-Munson curves, scooping mids at low volume makes it sound more like high volume. Kinda like the "Loud" button on some car radios. It sounds like it's louder, without actually being louder.

 

It's also why it sounds like crap once you actually get loud

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tlbonehead Newbie

tlbonehead

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Actually, I think it might have been the band named 'Boston' in the mid-70's.


Apparently two of them had Master's degree in electronics from MIT or something like that, and they were pretty inventive. I don't think they called it 'scooped mids', but I'm thinking that that's what it was.

we aren't talking about upside down scoops? TS' tone was all mids and little else.

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sfam198 Newbie

sfam198

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i don't really know the answer to the OP's question, but i just wanted to say i hate when i go to see a band and the guitar players scoop the {censored} out the mids. i'm talking big name bands that have been around for a while too. last weekend i went to see devildriver and one of the openers was suffocation, who have been around for over 20 years. both guitar players had the mids at 0. I was close enough to see the mid knobs on both amps. it just seems and sounds so amateurish for a band that has been around as long as them.

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