Relativistic Tone, It's important to get it right.

[derick]

Hi Ken,

Your treatise on how the L-1000 position 3 is not a "bass boost" but rather just a massive treble cut is wrong.

Please, travel the ten miles to G&L and actually play an L-1000. Position 3, or OMG, keeps all the highs of single coil, but adds in the bass response of the series humbucker. Sonically, Leo's description as "single coil with bass boost" is precisely what is experienced. Your theoretical thought experiment on this is simply wrong.

Regards,

-Don

[Ken Baker]

Here's my piece on this from the main page.

That piece, more than anything else, is about perceptions. It's also about "market-speak" vs what "market-speak" describes. At some point, the market speak meets technical characteristics and that's where we are.

Here's the summary:

Summary: It's all about perceptions.

You may have noticed that throughout this whole ordeal we have not added to the signal. We've only taken away some or all of the signal, depending on which control we move and how much we move it. The reason we haven't added to the signal is that we have some hard limits placed on the output, and those limits are the maximum output voltage and the native frequency spectrum of the pickup(s). We can only subtract from these things. What we perceive to be additive to one thing is really our ears and brain fooling us into thinking that we're getting more of thing "A" when we're actually getting less of thing "B".

Perceptions can vary a lot from person to person. How I perceive a bass' tone can be wildly different than how you perceive that same tone. Perceptions are personal. The electrical energy (AC voltage) created by a pickup is limited by physical characteristics. To get more than this limited amount of electrical energy requires amplification, which would mean that our device is now active and not passive.

If I play an open E on my bass and my bass' EQ is set flat I should hear all sound the string/pickup creates; the fundamental and all the overtones and harmonics, even my finger plucking the string. Now if I cut the treble 50% what do I perceive? Most people will perceive that they're hearing more bass. But they're not hearing more bass; we didn't amplify the signal.

The market speak is "Bass Boost". The technical speak is "Treble cut".


Ken...

[derick]

Hey, I am actually serious. You are wrong and you really don't understand what is happening here.

Your first mistake is the assumption that the total output of a series humbucking pickup is the same as the output of one coil of that same pickup.
This is a hill that is indefensible.

Seriously, go play an L-1000 and report back.

[Ken Baker]

Your first mistake is the assumption that the total output of a series humbucking pickup is the same as the output of one coil of that same pickup.
This is a hill that is indefensible.

You would be correct if that is what I'm actually assuming, but it's not what I'm assuming. I'm considering the total output of the total circuit as perceived by a normal human. The definition of the word "boost" is help or encourage (something) to increase or improve. In this narrow scenario (an L-1000 bass), nothing is or can be boosted without amplification.

Ken...

[bigtone23]

There is no boosting in a passive circuit.
It's a subtractive science from the jump.