MTD Kingston: Lower Output = Better Tone
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When comparing MTD Kingston basses with other basses, you may notice that the Kingston has a lower output. This is not a flaw in the design or a failure in the preamp, but a conscious decision that Mike Tobias made when he created the Kingston line. Boosting the output often compromises tone and headroom. Mike never resorts to limiting or compression in his preamp designs. Mike's focus has always been on tone. Conservative honest preamp design provides a richer tone, with more headroom, dynamics and harmonics. Especially for players who demand a lot of dynamic range when switching from fingerstyle to slapping, careful gain-staging opens up the sound while keeping the noise floor low. Hot outputs can easily be driven to distort when the tone controls are dimed. That does not happen with Kingstons. Michael's design philosophy is supported by many of today's top recording engineers and mastering technicians. In the race to make every CD louder than the last, artists started requesting that their recordings get mastered at hotter and hotter levels. The result was loud, compressed recordings that lost many of the dynamics and details. Now, there is a growing movement to master recordings at lower levels so some of the life can return to the music. In 2008, mastering engineer Bob Ludwig offered three versions of the Guns and Roses album Chinese Democracy for approval to co-producers Axel Rose and Caram Costanzo, and they selected the one with the least compression. Ludwig wrote, "I was floored when I heard they decided to go with my full dynamics version [the quietest master] and the loudness-for-loudness-sake versions be damned." Ludwig feels that the "fan and press backlash against the recent heavily compressed recordings finally set the context for someone to take a stand and return to putting music and dynamics above sheer level." So, Mike Tobias is in good company with his concept for setting the output level of his Kingstons. The moral of the story is let the amp do the work! Some adjustment is possible depending on playing style by simply raising the pickups so they are closer to the strings. When explaining the Kingston's max-headroom design concept to your customer, nothing explains it better than this simple formula: LOWER OUTPUT = BETTER TONE. |
