Markbass eq issue

[oldprussians]

Hi guys!

 

I have a Markbass 121p I think old one no horn.

 

Combo Head II

 

Love it, light and powerful

 

I put my DB through it with a shadow nanoflex pup, flat eq and the sound is so close the  acoustic instrument. Love it

 

My electric basses.... hmmmm

 

I love the sound coming out of my vox ampPlug tone set to 1 and AKG headphones.

 

The the Markbass amp is thick  and bassy and very hi-fi! but lacks the growl and percussive attack, I get from a 30 quid piece of plastic.

 

Any one here got some quick cheat eq settings 

 

Many thanks.

[peteb]

 

You're not going to get much 'growl' out of a MB amp, that's not what they do. They are very transparent (so you really hear the sound coming from the actual bass), very clean and have a nice thick sound with plenty of power. I reckon that they come to life a bit when you play with the VLE and VPF filters, but to be honest they are not very intuitive - you just keep mucking about with them until you come across a sound that you are happy with. My starting point was to have all the EQ knobs at 12 o'clock, including the VLE and VPF filters. 

 

I was completely underwhelmed when I first played through various Markbass amps in a shop. However, I heard someone using one live and I was very impressed. They really seem to work well in a mix. I've since had two combos (a 210 & a 310, both excellent) and I still have an old Italian LM3, which is a great workhorse amp that I have kept even though it isn't my go-to amp for gigs these days. 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by peteb

[lemmywinks]

Stick one of these in front of it?

https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Behringer-BDI21-V-Tone-Bass-Preamp/6LV?origin=product-ads&gclid=Cj0KCQiA8vSOBhCkARIsAGdp6RR2tdo7HgeWES2Xr1hFlZfEZkSqj3Dq6QSO_o8NE0JvAX_OOpUdJ-saAnK4EALw_wcB

[Downunderwonder]

Turn the filters to 0/10 is a good start.

[peteb]

6 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

Turn the filters to 0/10 is a good start.

 

He's already got the EQ set flat and its not working for him! 

 

[Downunderwonder]

6 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

He's already got the EQ set flat and its not working for him! 

 

Flat for the filter knobs is off = 0

 

Many people assume incorrectly that noon in keeping with the EQ knobs is neutral. So that is why I point it out from time to time.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Downunderwonder

[peteb]

2 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

Flat for the filter knobs is off = 0

 

Many people assume incorrectly that noon in keeping with the EQ knobs is neutral. So that is why I point it out from time to time.

 

I found that having the knobs at noon (i.e. not flat), including the filters, was a good starting point when trying to sort out the EQ. To me, they sound rather lifeless completely flat. 

 

[Lozz196]

I found Markbass to sound fairly “meh” isolated but in the mix they sound great.
I bought my old set up as every time I heard a covers band in pubs where the bassist had a good tone it seemed to be a Markbass rig. 

So when I got it and set it all up at home I was a bit disappointed, but once I got to rehearsal I realised where its strengths were. 
I generally had the VPF on full though.

[Downunderwonder]

1 minute ago, peteb said:

 

I found that having the knobs at noon (i.e. not flat), including the filters, was a good starting point when trying to sort out the EQ. To me, they sound rather lifeless completely flat. 

 

That's a whole different song you're singing.

 

OP has a complaint of too much low mid and not enough spank on the high end.

 

I'm of the opinion turning those filters down to zero is a good place to start playing with the EQ. They are very powerful.

[peteb]

6 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

That's a whole different song you're singing.

 

OP has a complaint of too much low mid and not enough spank on the high end.

 

I'm of the opinion turning those filters down to zero is a good place to start playing with the EQ. They are very powerful.

 

Personally, the filters straight up (then backed off a little) is when the amp started to come alive. To be honest, I don't think the OP is going to get 'growl and percussive attack' out of a Markbass amp - in my experience that's not really what they do. 

 

[peteb]

16 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

I found Markbass to sound fairly “meh” isolated but in the mix they sound great.
I bought my old set up as every time I heard a covers band in pubs where the bassist had a good tone it seemed to be a Markbass rig. 

So when I got it and set it all up at home I was a bit disappointed, but once I got to rehearsal I realised where its strengths were. 
I generally had the VPF on full though.

 

Similar thing here... 

 

[oldprussians]

Hi Guys. I should have been clearer.

 

The EQ is at 12 and the filter and speaker emulator are 0.

 

I realise that the EQ is also pre set from the company, so 0 isn't really zero.

 

I think peteb is probably right, they took over from SWR i suppose for that Hi-Fi sound

 

I also found the high eq knob does pretty much nothing.

 

I have passive basses mind...

[peteb]

 

@oldprussians are you going to be gigging the MB amp??

 

[oldprussians]

6 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

@oldprussians are you going to be gigging the MB amp??

 

Yep done gigs. and sounded great. Most were DB gigs. Electric gigs I can't remember what I thought... but I may have had active basses.

 

But I agree that it is worse on low volumes. Mitigation I have found is basically have the Low eq down to 9 o'clock and Mid-Low to 2 o'clock at low volumes

Edited January 11, 2022 by oldprussians

[peteb]

14 minutes ago, oldprussians said:

Yep done gigs. and sounded great. Most were DB gigs. Electric gigs I can't remember what I thought... but I may have had active basses.

 

But I agree that it is worse on low volumes. Mitigation I have found is basically have the Low eq down to 9 o'clock and Mid-Low to 2 o'clock at low volumes

 

As Loz has said, I find them a bit underwhelming in a room on their own, but work really well live. Maybe you should try playing about with different EQ settings with a band on the soundcheck at a gig (because everybody loves the bass player doing that)! 

 

[Muzz]

A friend of mine, (who's worked in the industry all his life) they make everyone sound a bit better, and it's true it's hard to sound exactly bad with one...once said I had one (with a MB 410) for a while...I found that putting a Sansamp/BDI21 in front of it made it growl much more the way I liked...until the drummer (of all people) said "You always have that pedal on, why don't you just get an amp that sounds like that?"  So I moved it on, and did...

 

Again, those filter knobs aren't exactly intuitive with their 0=Flat thing, but even playing with them, I was never really happy with the sound...

[Al Krow]

Hi @oldprussians my tuppence worth, if I may: 

 

The key EQ issues I found with older MB heads and cabs were three fold:

1) the bass EQ is centred at 40 Hz which is a little lower than I would typically like: 65Hz to 80Hz would be my preference;

2) not surprised that you feel that the treble EQ does precious little - it's centred at 10 kHz which is way too high to be usable and there's a massive EQ gap between the high-mids at 800Hz and the treble EQ at 10kHz;

3) MB cabs have a tendency to roll-off the high end frequencies, which gives them their characteristic "warmth".

 

Solutions that worked for me:

1) leaving the bass EQ at 12 noon or cutting it, as you are doing, to avoid boominess i.e. almost never boosting it;

2) & 3) using an EQ pedal to boost by about 6dB at around 1.5kHz and 3.5kHz, which is the equivalent of a "presence" switch in other amps - this had the effect of "removing a blanket" from over my MB combos, and made all the difference.

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by Al Krow

[peteb]

2 hours ago, oldprussians said:

I think peteb is probably right, they took over from SWR i suppose for that Hi-Fi sound

 

 

I'm not sure that Markbass quite have the sparkle / Hi-Fi quality of old SWR amps, but they are very transparent. 

 

1 hour ago, Muzz said:

Again, those filter knobs aren't exactly intuitive with their 0=Flat thing, but even playing with them, I was never really happy with the sound...

 

To me, the counter intuitive thing is that as you turn up the VPF filter you are cutting mids and boosting highs and lows, but as you turn the VLE up you are boosting low-mids but cutting hi-mids and highs! As @Al Krow has said, the bass and especially the treble EQ controls are not necessarily centred at the most usable points, so its better to try and balance the filters to find the EQ you want. It does work and the sound will be in there somewhere, but it takes a bit of experimentation! 

 

FWIW, I found the two combos that I owned (both old Italian models that were, I believe, based on the LM2) a bit easier to EQ than the LM3 amp. I think that the LM2 had different frequency centres for the EQ controls than the later models. 

 

[fretmeister]

I love MB amps but even if you swapped to one with better EQ like the Marcus Miller versions you won't get any grit from it.

It's just not designed for that - not even if you punish the preamp with EMGS 1mm from the strings and an onboard booster.

 

That being said, the little combo is a great thing to carry around and is great for EUB as well, so a pedal of your choice is the best bet. Something with a clean blend is always a good start so you can add in just what you want.

[Sparky Mark]

LM2 and LM3 had same frequency points for their EQ sections. The high EQ control actually boosts and cuts a range of frequencies, not just 10kHz, which I can hear make a clear difference even on my non tweeter cabs. 

[BillyBass]

On 11/01/2022 at 22:47, Al Krow said:

 using an EQ pedal to boost by about 6dB at around 1.5kHz and 3.5kHz, which is the equivalent of a "presence" switch in other amps - this had the effect of "removing a blanket" from over my MB combos, and made all the difference.

 

The Marcus Miller Markbass amps have EQ points at 1.4KHz and 3.8 Khz and dialling them to 3pm does really remove the blanket.  Mr Miller, presumably, came to the same conclusion as you and asked Markbass to alter the amps accordingly.

[yorks5stringer]

On 11/01/2022 at 20:23, oldprussians said:

Hi guys!

 

I have a Markbass 121p I think old one no horn.

 

Combo Head II

 

Love it, light and powerful

 

I put my DB through it with a shadow nanoflex pup, flat eq and the sound is so close the  acoustic instrument. Love it

 

My electric basses.... hmmmm

 

I love the sound coming out of my vox ampPlug tone set to 1 and AKG headphones.

 

The the Markbass amp is thick  and bassy and very hi-fi! but lacks the growl and percussive attack, I get from a 30 quid piece of plastic.

 

Any one here got some quick cheat eq settings 

 

Many thanks.

Pretty sure, if as you say, it is a CMD121P, that the P stands for 'piezo' and it has a small piezo horn. You should be able to see it.  Many in fact disconnect it but the difference is not that noticable IMHO(and I have done the disconnect)!

[40hz]

Bit late to the party here, but when I had a LM2 (which I absolutely loved), I wouldn't go anywhere near those filters. VLE just took all the treble and hi-mid off your sound and the VPF, to me, was just an old fashioned 'scoop' switch. I, personally, found neither of them remotely useful.

 

Having played the Marcus Miller 800w model at a rehearsal room, I found the eq points, much improved. They make much more sense and made the already great MB sound, even better.

Edited January 30, 2022 by 40hz

[lemmywinks]

The filters are just a way to easily get specific sounds that a lot of players are after - VLE for some old school treble rolloff and VLE for the scoop. That's all all they ever claimed to be hence their names, you know what's going to happen when you dial them in. 

 

Seeing as the OP is happy with the clean sound when used with DB but wants some grit with EB it seems the eq points and filters aren't the issue, just stick some drive in front of it.

Edited January 30, 2022 by lemmywinks