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Amps with no middle control: does it make a difference? do you care?


elsupermanny14

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So how much do you care if an amp has a middle control? Is a middle control important? I think about amps like the Fender Bassman, the Deluxe Reverb, the Vox AC15 and AC30. Those are some great amps with only treble and bass controls so it left me thinking if the middle control is important or not.

 

What do you guys think?

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Mid controls are weird compromises.

 

The Treble and Bass controls have fixed cutoff spots that you are cutting off the signal above (Treble) or below (Bass). The Middle control cuts *everything* inbetween. It has such a blanket effect that it is less apparent, you have less range than the Bass or Treble controls. So, as the others have noted, you can enhance or bury the mids better by setting the Treble and Bass controls relative to what you want to achieve.

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Yeah, I might even get better results without that mids knob. Their function is so hard to determine anyway, since we don't know what frequency and Q value that knob has, not that you'd want a full parametric EQ on your amp but I don't feel one way or another for that mids knob because any amp I'd trust, I can also trust that the engineers have it EQ'd to sound good.

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If I can get the sound I want without a mid control, then obviously it's not needed. I think it becomes more important if you have one amp and a lot of guitars. You might be able to get the sound you want on some guitars without the mid control, but not others.

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I would never buy another high-gain amp with no mid control. But for cleans I can live without it.

 

 

+1

 

With high-gain (and depending on your personal tastes), it's useful to be able to scoop out the mids. But for cleans, eh. My mids generally don't move unless I'm seriously tweaking.

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I suppose you could use a pedal to scoop your mids. I don't see why not. Though to answer your original question, I suppose I don't think a mids dial is really a selling point to me. If it's got one, great. If not, I'll live without it. And thinking about it, my amp's EQ generally stays as is. I do most of my EQ tweaking on the multi-effects.

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I suppose you could use a pedal to scoop your mids. I don't see why not. Though to answer your original question, I suppose I don't think a mids dial is really a selling point to me. If it's got one, great. If not, I'll live without it. And thinking about it, my amp's EQ generally stays as is. I do most of my EQ tweaking on the multi-effects.

 

 

I think most people may not care. I have a Blackheart BH5 head with treble, mid, bass and I also have a Blackstar HT1R head that only has a tone control. I can honestly get more out of the Blackstar with tone only than I can out of the Blackheart.

 

I think if it was a Duel Rectifier or a DSL I would want a mid, but for vintage type amps it would not be an issue.

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I suppose you could use a pedal to scoop your mids. I don't see why not. Though to answer your original question, I suppose I don't think a mids dial is really a selling point to me. If it's got one, great. If not, I'll live without it. And thinking about it, my amp's EQ generally stays as is. I do most of my EQ tweaking on the multi-effects.

 

I don't understand the point of scooping mids for high gain when you can just use single coils instead and get an aggressive sound that actually sounds good.

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It's nice to have options I guess, but if an amp sounds good you won't have to do endless tweaking, if it doesn't a mid control isn't going to save it ...

 

This times a bazillion. Some amps, good old 5F1 comes to mind, don't even need a tone control

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I don't understand the point of scooping mids for high gain when you can just use single coils instead and get an aggressive sound that actually sounds good.

 

 

I suppose it's a case of horses for courses. Like somebody already said, it's nice to have options. I don't own any single coils that are able to produce the sounds I want with high gain, except maybe the Washburn when coiltapped. Perhaps it is time to rethink some of my pickups.

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