High mid vs low mid voiced amps

[mboogman]

In my world view, this is like Marshall gain vs Mesa gain. Both useful in the right situation.

excellent analogy

I recently acquired a Mesa Studio Preamp to go with all my Marshall flavors. The biggest thing I noticed was the wonderful, chewy lower mid chunk that's there, that the Marshall, nor any of the Egnater stuff (at least that I have in my collection) really excels at. Great for smoother, legato lead work, IMO.

 

[rottingcorpse]

parametric mids rule. whatever i am feeling can be obtained. and if i am having a hard time cutting though, just boost and twist the mid freq till they do. shape knobs work just as well, cant wait for the new DAR stuff.

 

[Meathead]

Low mids, in general.

Ya, it's not hard to get cut with the presence and treble control on most amps, but an amp with lacking low mids is hollow sounding and thin, hard to fix that without an EQ in the loop or maybe a speaker change can help.

 

[Audioholic]

Hard to say, sometimes low mids can make things boxy, sometimes high mids can make things bright and ice picky. I guess it depends on where the frequency is sweeping!

 

[srinivassa]

Prefer High Mids on an amp. I do have to dial them out occasionally though. I don't really play metal, so it works. The low chunk of a lot of metal would never happen on my amp. It would be there, but it would just be too muddy. I keep a cheap amp that has good low mids in case I ever play metal, which is probably a joke at this point in my life. Still cheap amp to hang onto.

 

[CaseyCor]

This is why you run 2 amps in stereo .

My rig shall be a Mark IV and a Friedmen Brown Eye together.

Someday....

 

[petejt]

What I like is Upper Mid Bark and Lower Mid Growl.


I use my Mesa/Boogie MarkIV. I crank the Midrange knob, engage the Lead Fat which boosts the low mids, and also engage the Mid Gain switch. It further boosts the lower mids giving it that girth and growly sound. But at the same time I have to scoop a lot of the 240Hz band otherwise it can get quite muddy and tubby sounding. There's upper mids enhanced by the EL34s that run in Simul-Class with the 6L6s, plus I boost the upper mids too with the EQ.

The 'central' mids are dipped a little bit, but not "Classic V scooped". It's just enough so it doesn't sound bloated.

I also have an old Marshall JCM 800 which I'm running in stereo. Naturally it has a lot of upper mids, but I like to get it as dark-sounding as possible.

 

[richedie]

What are some of the best examples of low mid voiced amps? I was told the Bogner Shiva is more upper mids, but.if that is true, why does the Shiva work so well with V30s? I have a PWE Event Horizon, 20th Bogner Shiva and will have a Splawn Streetrod in a few months I keep thinking of owning a Mesa Rectoverb for the low mids.

 

[petejt]

To update my earlier post- I bumped up the 'central' mids a little bit and it made the low mids growl even more.