Re: Filters, filters and more filters...

[Mike.Biffle@wj.com (Mike Biffle)]

Lorenz wrote...
>i heard a lot about the 4-pole, but havn't had the chance to test it yet. 
>i
>talked to some guy at a music store and he told me, that filters, 
>including
>the 4-pole, arn't any good for bass-sound cause you wouldn't hear a lot of
>differences at low frequencies. is that right ( i kinda don't believe this
>guy...)?

Well, don't tell Bootsy Collins, or any other funkateer bassist for that 
matter,
that filters won't change their sound! The deal with resonant low-pass 
filters 
is that they aren't just rolling an unamplified cutoff frequency around 
... the 
highly amplified (dialable) resonant peak will take whatever harmonic is 
in it's
proximity and boost the hell out of it. You'll hear a difference once 
you've 
done some dialing. With bass you may want to choose to slightly distort 
the 
input signal to boost those upper harmonics. I believe there's upper 
harmonic 
structure in undistorted bass signal though which will filter just fine.

>if that's true, would there be any possipility to use filters with my 
>bass,
>for example split the bass signal, go through a pithch shifter into the
>4-pole, then mix both signals and go into the amp... would that make any
>sense?

Sure if you that's the sound you're going for ... It's probably going to 
be a 
whole lot more dramatic *and* simple if you just run the signal through 
the 
4-pole and get a distortion (Fulltone Bass Fulldrive 2?..) in front of it.

>i just want to have a clean signal mixed with the filtered signal cause i
>think that the low bass sound is an essential part for the groove of the
>(/my?) kind of music i make.

These filters can *increase* the amount of low end in your signal as well 
as 
decrease it. Cutoff from 40-200 hz boosted to the ceiling could seriously 
rumble
the building! 

If you read the reviews on Harmony Central about the Lovetone Meatball, 
many of 
them say that the unit actually increases their bottom end as well. I'm 
not a 
bassist and don't play one on TV either, so take this all with a grain of 
salt. 
Our list-mate Steuart Liebig is a Meatball owner though and might be 
willing to 
add a few bass specific comments about *that* product...

-m