Contour Presence equalizer??

[TheKingOfRock]

Happy 2013 to everyone
The title says it really, what exactly is "contour" and "presence"?
All I know is that presence brightens up the sound and at lower contour,the tone is bright and the higher it goes the darker/warmer the tone gets.
What I really want to know is how the contour and presence knobs affect the bass,mid and treble aspects of the equalizer (like if I want to cut the mids or if I want high bass and low mids and treble, what should be the knobs' position etc.)
P.S. My amp is laney lr20

[TheKingOfRock]

Oh and what is meant by boosting and scooping?

[waparker4]

EQUALISATION CONTOUR/PRESENCE: As the name suggests this set of controls can have a great effect on your sound. Basically the Contour control is a mix of conventional Bass & Mid controls, and the Presence acts more as a Bright/Tone Control.

I think the idea is to get at your basic EQ with the amp model, and tweak from there. The Laney website says "Some players like a lot of control over their tones and effects, some players are happy with simple straight ahead tone and effects combinations which sound great with the minimum amount of fuss. The linebacker range is directed fairly and squarely at this later category of players." ... you may not get the separate bass/middle/treble tweakability you're after. IDK.

In old amps, "presence" meant a separate tone control for the negative feedback loop of the amplifier. Less presence = more treble frequencies are fed back and canceled. More presence = treble frequencies are not fed back as much and cancel less = brighter sound. I'd guess all that has nothing to do with this amp.

Graphic EQ pedal: allows control over the relative levels of 6 or more different bands in the frequency range of electric guitar. Setting a band below unity gain -- "scoop", above unity gain -- "boost" you may want to look into one of these if you can't get the on board EQ to respond the way you want. I have and like the Danelectro Fish 'n Chips.

[TheKingOfRock]

Thanks for the reply
Well I chose this amp than the other modelling amps( including the laney prism series ,which had a bmt equalizer) because of its sound and simplicity so that I play more and fiddle less.It's not that I want a general bmt equalizer,I manage to get my tone just fine with a contour presence equalizer....it's just that I got a new ebow and I was reading the manual.In many places it said cut the mids or boost the bass etc. to get a good effect so I was just wondering (the amp is in the other room and I can't 'access' it at the moment but will try it tomorrow morning)
Thanks once again

[TheKingOfRock]

I just want to know that if the contour level is increased does the bass increases or the mids or both, like if the contour knob is turned to max...does it have full bass or full mid?

[Alex Strekal]

The presence control on most amps functions as a high frequency attenuator placed after the preamp. Turning it down will roll off high end, and in fact compress the sound. Turning it up will increase the frequency range of the highs, to the effect of brightening the sound. This is reversed in some amps (like VOX AC's).

One main use people may have for it is that they have a basic sound dialed in on the EQ of an amp, but find they might want to adjust for the room they are playing in. For example, if they sound muddy in the room, they might bring up the presence. A presence control allows some extra tweaking of this sort without messing with the EQ.

[czgibson]

Originally Posted by TheKingOfRock

I just want to know that if the contour level is increased does the bass increases or the mids or both, like if the contour knob is turned to max...does it have full bass or full mid?

The contour affects the mids:

Contour turned fully clockwise = scooped (reduced) mids.

Contour turned fully anti-clockwise = boosted (increased) mids.

At least that's the way it works on Marshall amps. I would think Laneys probably work the same way.