Mesa/Boogie TITAN V-12

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GAIN:_(Continued) As the GAIN control is increased past 12:00 a richer, more “well-rounded” voice becomes dominant and headroom

starts to diminish in increments until eventually, a tube overdrive sound appears as the 12AX7 input tube is driven into saturation.

The region between 12:00 and 2:30 is where the classic, warm tube sounds reside and within this narrow band you

will discover a world of tone. Tiny increments here produce subtle, but important differences in the attack characteristic

which in turn, can feel like changes in the time domain.

By experimenting with the amount of gain, you can actually voice the amp to feel as if it bounces just ahead of the

groove - or lays back a little deeper to produce a more Fatback feel. The difference in attack and sustain produces

striking results as to how the bassist - and in fact the whole band - perceives things in the time domain.

BASS: This control is responsible for the basic mix of low frequencies in the tube pre-amp. The BASS control is an active shelving

type control as opposed to a passive style control. This means that a center Q point has been chosen and this control allows you to

either boost or cut that frequency.

The BASS control is actually a gain and frequency control all rolled into one with the Q center at 55Hz and harmonics in

both low and high directions are affected because of its broader band nature. As the control is increased past 12:00 there

is a 6db per octave rise in gain with the frequency topping out at 321Hz. With 12:00 straight-up representing “ﬂat” (a no

boost/no cut setting). As the BASS control is dialed below 12:00, 55Hz and all associated har monics are reduced and

eventually notched completely out of the signal. Conversely, there is a 6db per octave cut beginning at 55Hz going down

to 20Hz where the shelving ends with a cut gain of -20db as the control approaches 7:30 (off).

This type of broad band, active rotary control makes it possible to achieve bass characteristics far beyond that of a conventional

passive type control. It can increase the low end to an almost absurd level and with a ﬂick of the wrist, dip it to near transistor radio

skinniness. Needless to say, with any control this powerful a certain amount of ﬁnesse must be applied to achieve musical results. Be

especially mindful of this when using the 5 Band Parametric in conjunction with the BASS control.

PASSIVE_MID: This is the only passive style control in the string of rotary tone controls. This scheme was chosen for its inherently

musical blend and for the way the passive style midrange control, with its wide spread and smooth taper, ﬁlls in the holes. Unlike the

BASS, this control is a boost_ only, and while it can competently remove this broad spectrum of midrange from the mix, it cannot

provide the extreme attenuation of an active style control.

You will ﬁnd, as we did, that this control works amazingly well for shaping the midrange frequencies with a natural earthi-

ness and character that is a perfect counterpart to its neighbors. It is hard to dial wrong with this more forgiving control

as it seems to give you just enough and no more.

For radical and speciﬁc scooping of the midrange frequencies for modern R&B and Funk styles, there is plenty of notch-

ing power that is inﬁnitely more accurate to be found in the ACTIVE MID. Because of this, we opted for the tried and true

passive style midrange control that has been working great in all of our ampliﬁers for decades. It’s hard to improve on a classic.

FrONT PANeL: CONTrOLs & FeATures (Continued)