I’m fortunate enough to have a Genzler MG350-BA10 Combo and an EBMM Bongo 4 HH to begin my bass journey.
Based on my research, it’s fantastic gear that would last me a lifetime as a hobbyist (GAS notwithstanding)… but there are SO. MANY. EQ. KNOBS.
Between the Genzler’s curve circuitry and 3-band eq plus the Bongo’s 4-band eq, I am sort of at a loss at where to begin. 12 o’clock across the board? Just noodle until I find something that sounds good to my (amateur) ears?
Rationally my brains says keep the amp as neutral/flat as possible and use the Bongo’s eq to dial in something, or just keep everything flat until I actually develop as a player… but who knows.
Is there any sense in acquiring a “simpler” bass just to cut my teeth on before I try to tackle the Bongo?
Anyone have experience with either one (or both)? What would you do?
Yeah. I would suggest to set the bass flat EQ and play, and use the amp EQ to dial in a tone that sounds good and is not too boomy and muddy for the room you play in.
Now leave the amp that way forever, and use the EQ on the bass to change tone for songs.
And all of that gear is plugged into one of two AC outlets that are wired through the same circuit breaker as the air con unit. When that all goes up in a cloud of smoke, I’ll be able to see the mushroom cloud from here in France.
As others have already said: Leave everything at noon in the beginning.
When you are far enough to play songs, that is the point where you can decide to see what you need to tweak to get closer to the sound of the original song.
But: Also no harm in fiddling around with the settings to experiment what they do to your sound. Just don’t get lost in this in the beginning.
Only do it a bit for fun, but don’t let it distract you from practicing.
The way you pluck the strings will change a bit, and thus also your sound, anyway.
Here is a video that might help you eq-ing your sound later on:
I have an MG 350 combo as well. Incredible little amp isn’t it.? And your rational brain is giving you great advice all proper for this amp. Here’s more detail.
My suggestion and those of many other playing a Magellan head is to begin with the bass and treble at noon. That’s as near flat as you can get. Leave the mid boost/cut at noon as well for now but move the frequency sweep to 2 o’clock. That’s flat.
Now move over to the contour control where the voicing you want really comes from. Decide on which voicing you prefer and set a level between 10:00 and 2:00 to get a flavor for that voicing. Full counter clockwise is flat. Full clockwise is max. The blue light contour is a more modern tonality with boosted highs and lows and lowered mids. That smiley face we set on a graphic EQ. The amber contour does somewhat the opposite. It boosts the mids while rolling off some of the lows and highs to emulate more vintage heads and sealed cabs like older 60s and 70s gear.
Now comes the fine tuning which where you’ll want to use the bass, treble, and the sweepable mids. Playing at home I’m pretty happy leaving the bass and treble at noon with the mid frequency set to 2 o’clock and it’s boost/cut at noon. That’s pretty much flat for bass, treble, and mids across the board with either blue or amber contours.
With an active bass like a Bongo this leaves you all kinds of room to tweak it to something you like because the amp is running flat with a moderate amount of the contour you selected to give you a basic voicing. Keep in mind the Contour and EQ circuits are very sensitive to small changes. You likely found that out already. So then it’s just about tweaking all of that for room acoustics which if all you’re doing is playing at home in the same room shouldn’t be all that difficult.
What I enjoy so much about the Magellan as opposed to other amps I’ve played is it’s transparency and neutral voicing and it’s intentional. The idea is for it to reproduce the sound of any bass as accurately as possible so what you’re hearing is your bass and you playing it. I’ve never owned any bass amp that does that as well as the Magellan and I appreciate that. Hope all of this helps somewhat.
Exactly. As a player we always want to know where “home” is. It’s not gonna be the same on every amp/cab combination so we need to search for it and either write down our settings, commit them to memory, or lock them into memory or a pre-set if the amp has that feature.
This way when we move away from “home” to deal with room acoustics or to emulate another bass rigs tonality or another players style and sound we can just as easily return to that neutral home setting. We can also track visually and audibly what we’re altering and for what reason.
Genzler made it very simple for us with the Magellan heads. Noon is neutral for all three bands. Neither boosted or cut and 2 o’clock is the neutral mid frequency. We can adjust as needed from these settings and return to them when we want or need to go in a different direction. But the amp also sounds so good set just this way.
