james/baxandall passive tone stack

[mountianjustice]

   Who has used one and what did you love/hate about it. I ahve one boarded up and I really like what it does but would like to get a little more mid boost from it. I have tried the duncan tone stack calc and just cant get it to do what i want id like to be able to boost the 400hz-4khz range. I do however think that this design would be amazing for a bass guitar. Here is a schematic of the version im using.
http://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah234/mountianjustice/baxandall%20tone%20stack_zpsal0laqnv.gif

[samhay]

This might be an issue with your terminology, but you can't boost the signal with a passive tone stack.
However, you might get more of the response you want with a FMV-style 3-knob tone stack. You could always replace the 'mid' pot with a trimmer if you must have only bass and treble controls.

[GibsonGM]

The other option would be something to just work on the mids, before the tone stack...Anderton freq. booster or something, to give you a mid control, followed by the James...or, something active and more able to boost AND cut...

[deafbutpicky]

And if you go active on the James be aware of BOOST, as boost may overdrive the following stage.
I had a stab at the active James control a while ago which I called "gyra banx" but never tested it. If you're
interested in this try a search in this forum (and only here!)

[mountianjustice]

Thanks for the info guys yeah boost the mids wasn't exactly what i was trying to say. But i did get it to do what i wanted by changing the 180k resistor in the middle of the circuit. I played around on the duncan tone stack calc and if i put a 500k resistor in place of the 180k i can get the mid spike i was looking for with both treble and bass rolled completely down i get a great spike from 400hz thru 4khz

[GibsonGM]

Cool. Hopefully it will work out ok...depending on the output impedance of the circuit driving it, the results might be a bit different. But I'd just try it out, see what it sounds like!

[Renegadrian]

I just put a james in an amp I had to buy and modify the hell out of it, the Fender Champion 600.

The new tone stack is very good and gives a lot of different nuances, I like it!

[PRR]

James and Bax are two entirely different networks.

I won't quibble about James' "boost" because the James adds 10:1 of loss, so you will *always* need to put more gain in the system to to get back where you were.

> boost the 400hz-4khz range.

What both plans will NOT do is modify the midrange. They are hi-fi controls. You reference the midrange for overall loudness, and boost/cut the extremes to taste.

Technically they will "boost mids" if you cut the heck out of bass (maybe treb too) and turn-up the Volume. However this is not how you think on stage. And that's a LOT of lost gain to make-up.



Here's the thing. Straight naked steel strings are already very midrangy. Many guitarists turned to a more wide-range sound, Fender's notched mids and boosted bass/treb. Gibson built some amps with a mid-notch the player could not defeat. If your style is to a strong midrange, then you probably need something other than the classic guitar stacks.

A bass-cut (possibly steep) and a high-cut is a "mid boost" without gain loss.

[pee-j]

[...]
Technically they will "boost mids" if you cut the heck out of bass (maybe treb too) and turn-up the Volume. However this is not how you think on stage. And that's a LOT of lost gain to make-up.

enlightening...
the conclusion seems to be that to control the mids, one needs to address them directly
with, perhaps, an additional mid control... like BMC by MXR ( https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?t=21945 )

we should also bear in mind that perhaps in digital world now you cut, now you boost back what you've cut,
but in analogue reality -- I know this sounds wise, which I'm absolutely not -- what has been lost once, might never be brought back...




................ a little bit OFF:
personal experience:
there was a record by Jethro Tull, which I listened to through a mono tape player, made by Telsa Czechoslovakia...
and sounded DULL... somehow...
The other record, which loved, Thick as a Brick, sounded perfect on the same machine...
in a hi-fi context, my experience was a joke... I know...

but some decades later, I listen to the same record, using my PC, and mp3 compression / decompression,
and a cheap but (in my experience) good pair of phones...
and it sounds exactly like back then... dull as crap... even making you claustrophobic...

and then I did some reading, and it turned out that that record which I never liked, although one legendary great piece was on it (at least),
had been screwed up in the studio somehow...
at the recording..

so much so that they -- as I remember that quick reading session of mine -- even kept the original tapes, studio tapes,
and later, in the digital world they thought to remaster it...
which they did...
but it kept that dull as crap character... it was the same thing...

point seems to be: they should have done another recording session right there, right then...
cause breathing life into a recording afterwards is not possible if it isn't there already

[iainpunk]

ive been experimenting with the Ray Bone Tone stacks.
they are a tilt control, and a mids control, which gives the same flexibility as a bax or james, but more intuitive in use.
also playing with a bridge-T based tone stack, that leaves bass alone, and cuts mids and treble. the idea is that a separate bass cut should be placed before the distortion.

cheers