"The BEST bass D.I. that I have ever used...and I have used them all." |
| Behind the Motherload Name |
| Motherload - The History The quest to develop a means of recording guitars played through powerful amplifiers without loss of hearing or good neighbour relations has lead to many paths of ingenuity. To achieve it with the sound intact and convincing led to an un-trodden path. Every attempt has its' merits but no one could achieve the goal with a broad range of amplifiers as used by a broad range of guitar players - and as for bass - forget it! It was to this deserted path that a live-sound engineer friend pointed during discussions about projects to undertake. Beginning with the development of a circuit that could properly load a valve amp, we rapidly left behind conventional techniques in favour of a more radical approach that achieved an ideal load that enabled amplifiers to perform at their best. The sound from this load is inherently good. The filters were developed to add versatility with real, solid tonal variations. To achieve top class professional results we had to evaluate the individual components by ear during seemingly endless trials, using a battery of amps and guitars. This lead to the commissioning of several components from appropriate specialists. The result of this long development was a speaker simulator with authentic sound that seemed to come from large cones moving air, and the '58 strat test produced a sound that encapsulated all that the instrument stood for. Pure pleasure! This is the history of the Motherload and the desire to build "The Best" loadbox and speaker simulator system. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let's begin. I was looking for a new project and had been messing about with strange guitar tone controls. I bumped into Dave Gladden and told him what I was doing and asked for his thoughts. Dave used to make guitars and had distributed pro audio goods. We met shortly afterwards to discuss things. He recommended giving guitars a wide berth but the field of dummy loads and speaker simulation for valve amps was wide open for improvement, if I could design something suitable. Dave used to distribute Palmer products in the UK and US but gave it up when he no longer liked what they were making. I pondered and rummaged in my workshop, my head full of valve amps and speakers, calculator and soldering iron set to solve the problem. Numbers, ideas and components seemed to come together so I took the 1st attempt round to Daves' room of guitars and amps. It sounded pretty awful so back to the drawing board. I realised my error and soon had another attempt to test. This one was right, with firm deep bass, warm natural mids and clear open treble. Dave was impressed. It was the best dummy load he had heard. At that time I had never heard a speaker simulator so I could not compare it, but it sounded nice. Further tests with bulbs as variable elements did not match the performance, so we did not pursue that direction. We had got the amp sound out, now to add the cab sound. Concepts and filter designs were worked out and constructed leading to a long period of design, build, measure and listen as things developed. This whole process was exciting. We were getting right inside the sounds of the instruments and amps. This process was enhanced by Daves' forays into pickup windings and magnets. The simulator chassis proved to be a good test bed for guitar sound and he did make some amazing sounding pickups, which in turn encouraged our quest for excellent clean sound. The distorted sound came mostly from an animal SG overdriving a Mesa Boogie amp. This was then replaced by a Marshall Silver Anniversary 100w as the test amp. Tannoy 15 monitors were brought in, as were guitarist test pilots. Some preset sounds were added and we listened to the differences in sound between capacitor types as the test bed was being upgraded to pro standards - these were even more pronounced than expected. I added a low power variable speaker output, which proved to be very useful. Time to visit some small studios to test in more precise monitoring environments. Things sounded good, so we thought it could be ready to move up a gear. We arranged to visit Nik Kershaw and tried it out in his studio. Nik set up some simple tests using Amp Farm as a comparison and a Matchless amp. During these tests a peculiar grunt appeared at the tail end of notes, faint but definite. Otherwise the sound was fine. It showed an improvement over the digital simulation. The simulated amps also sounded better through the chassis. Back at the workshop investigation revealed that the 'grunt' was coming from certain power resistors. Calls to manufacturers led to the conclusion that the resistance winding construction used by some makers caused the problem, so I have used only one brand ever since. The design now seemed pretty complete. We took it to show Jan Cyrka for his opinion. During this test, using Jans' Gold Marshall, a horrible 'raspberry' sound came out of the monitors. I thought something terrible was happening so we switched off and examined the chassis and connections, found nothing so took it back.... In the workshop I found no fault, it worked fine. We had tried it with Vox, Fender, Orange, Marshall, Mesa Boogie and Matchless. None of these produced the kind of distortion that Jans' Marshall did. Up until that point I thought I could get away with not having a filter for high harmonics...wrong! I worked out a multi-position progressive roll off filter with the extremes pitched at piezos at one end and heavy 15" bass cones at the other for control and versatility. It switched out for the full bandwidth sounds. This seemed to do the trick and the unit was tried with signals ranging from drum tracks to vocals. The results were surprising, particularly when weak recorded tracks were run through it. A lot of body and solidarity could be added. It enhanced and focused any weak sound. We also found that rack fx and pre amps sounded a lot better when routed through the units' filters. So now for the production design. I decided to go with a 1 load, 2 separate filter channels format with connection facility to enable the load and filters to be selected independently. This gave us a load input which fed both channels, thru ins and outs for live work and line level inputs. The channels could be separated by breaking in with a thru or line input. I also wanted a headphone output. Dave came up with a name for this concoction - The Motherload. Selecting suitable components was far from straightforward but I ended up with oversized chokes and transformers, beautifully made to measure, and custom wound polypropylene caps. Pots and switches are also made to order, the switches being difficult because a passive circuit with presets needs lots of switch capability, and good audio needs high quality switches. This caused some redesign because I had to work around the switches practically available. Eventually components, circuit boards and metalwork came together as a production prototype. When confident that everything was as it should be we visited Nik Kershaw again...What would he think? After listening and twiddling knobs Nik announced 'I'll have one'. Good result, unambiguous. So production begun and demo visits were arranged, Jan Cyrka being one of the first to try the Motherload, now offering an exemplary performance and instantly becoming a fixture in his studio. He records a lot of the Guitarist Magazine stuff, using the Motherload of course! Guitarist Magazine gave the Motherload a glowing report. Road testing was set up following a visit to a Camden sweat pit where my nephew Andrews' band 'Junk' were playing. I was impressed by the way the soundman, Waynne Smart, handled the gig. He was interested in trying out the Motherload so we arranged to set things up at a following gig. Waynne has used the system ever since, for live work and recording. The results with the various PA's used have been incredible and have sometimes attracted comment from the venue management, where they have never heard such good sound from their systems. This is largely down to the way bass is handled. Tightening things up has a big impact on the overall sound quality. The reliability also proved exemplary. Some serious studio use was made by top producer Kevin Bacon, beginning with the Pretenders at Rak and continuing with a variety of applications on numerous singles and albums with many artists in many major studios. Another early demo trip was to LA, during which we encountered an unexpected technical difficulty. When connected to the Motherload a system put together by some 'rack guru' would not work properly but just produced a nasty thin wasp sound, and the Motherload controls had no effect. We noticed that as we checked connections the signal improved when a hand was near to the connector. Changing leads made no difference. I realised that there was no signal return path, but was shocked to discover that the return connections had been removed from the units in the rack and all returns were taken to the rack frame. This rack included a speaker load box so therefore got connected to amp outputs. This means that the rack will bypass the load box isolation and connect a common return to the amp and rack. A mistake on the phasing of a speaker cable could result in meltdown - not cool! I got around the problem by connecting the Motherload chassis stud to the rack frame and switching the chassis to the braid connection on the output jack. A mono jack lead was then used which joined the braid to the balanced line negative and provided the return path. The Motherload internally isolates the load from the output and chassis, so it stays safe. Nearer to home, Dave heard a young band, Rocking Horse, performing at a local May Fair and was very impressed. I saw them shortly after at another gig. He thought we could arrange some promotional stuff with them. We arranged to take them to Spring Vale studio, where Mark was keen to try out the Motherload. We set up 2 guitars and bass in the control room going amp-Motherload-digidesign interface-Mac/Protools. Wedge monitors were used and all worked well and proved easy and quick to set up. Several amps were used with no problem. This proved to be a very workable arrangement. Rocking Horse recorded 6 tracks, which became an EP to supplement their self - recorded 'The Siren' album. I use the tracks recorded as demo material. It shows the Motherload working alongside vocals which is important to vocal bands, a point missed by many guitarists. A number of units were then sent to the North American distributor Motherload USA, to be tried out by customers in the US and Canada. These trials yielded some different results; the feedback was at times confusing. The US preferences were different to the UK and Europe. At times I was convinced there must be problems with connections - if you use an incompatible lead the result is similar to the rack problem encountered previously. The signal you hear is an induced 'ghost' i.e. it is faint, insubstantial and ghastly! Without being present it is difficult to tell what goes on. Some light was thrown on to the objections sometimes encountered when I met Jules and Preben. This was a more tangible situation, where things were working ok but they did not like the distortion sound. It was not filtered enough for them. They liked the clean sound but were not very interested in clean sound. I decided to go with their views as representing those who did not like the distortion sound. I could now identify the offending part of the signal and set about modifying the distortion filter. This was tricky if I was not to screw up the general open quality of the unit. Fortunately I hit upon a solution that left the clean sound alone but effectively dealt with the fizzing part of the distortion. This residue of fizz is present in speakers and can cause problems when using a cab mic. It depends on the amp and set up but it has been nailed in the Motherload. I also took the opportunity to raise the tone filter Qs to give more marked changes to the control settings. This makes it livelier to use. These mods are now standard, the comments on 'so much gear, so little time' indicating some approval of the results. The Motherload has now become a 1 channel 1u box to make it more accessible as most guitarists only ever need 1 channel. So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed reading the history of the Motherload. If you have questions, comments, or feedback you can email me at sequis@eidosnet.co.uk . Rick Cawley Motherload Designer Sequis, UK. |
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