Tiny Tone x Bartolini: The TCT Stompbox!
Introducing the preamp
Bartolini TCT tones
All the tone of the original TCT, featuring the classic 80’s preamp that fills dancefloors to this day.
The beating heart of each and every unit is a genuine Bartolini TCT preamp and Bartolini MCT-375 mid module.
Tiny Tone construction
We took this iconic preamp along with it’s MCT375 EQ module, and ported it into a guitar pedal enclosure to create a versatile stompbox which can be taken anywhere and used with any bass! We wire each and every one by hand, to order- this is not mass-produced- each unit is handmade at our Manchester workshop using freshly-harvested TCT/MCT modules direct from Bartolini along with the finest electronic components we can source.
Pragmatic Design
Not content with rendering a legend even more useful by porting it into a stompbox, we made a few changes to ensure it would be as useful as possible in live situations:
->3-band EQ and volume are top mounted and easily adjustible. Traditionally the mid frequencies on this preamp are set on a trimpot inside the bass, but having an easily-adjustible knob ensures mids can be tweaked to suit the room you’re playing in.
->true-bypass on/off switch- just in case there are any songs in the set that require the less hi-fi natural sound of your bass
-> +15dB gain boost on a second footswitch. Perfect for spotlight moments, bass solos, epic outros… this additional boost offers you great power. Use it wisely.
Few bass guitar preamps have achieved the same level of notoriety as the Bartolini TCT. From 1983 onwards, one in particular was heard on hundreds of recordings by a legendary session bassist with whom the module became synonymous: Marcus Miller.
Miller’s TCT-equipped Fender Jazz Bass can be heard on recordings by; Luther Vandross, Miles Davies, The Crusaders, Donald Fagen, Bryan Ferry, Aretha Franklin, David Sanbourn, Dizzy Gillespie, Lonnie Liston Smith, Wayne Shorter, and many more, besides a glittering solo career that took off after the release of The Sun Don’t Lie in 1993.
Obviously, the only way to sound like Marcus Miller is to have his hands grafted onto your body in a Dr Moreau-inspired surgical nightmare, but playing a maple-necked 70’s jazz bass fitted with a TCT module(plus MCT-375 mid control sub-module) will get you most of the way there.
So what is the TCT/MCT375 sound?
What about it has captured the attention of generations of bassists, and filled countless dancefloors and venues over the years?
For us, it’s all about the punch, snap, and subtle analogue grit of the circuit, and the FMV style tone circuit; a’la early Fender, Marshall, and Vox amplifiers, it has similar tone shaping, and if all bands are set to minimum, the output is muted.
When overdriven, it has a gorgeous asymmetric tube-like clipping style which sits well in the mix- the bottom end of the signal remains tight without descending into mushiness.
Bartolini’s preamps have continued to evolve over the years, becoming even more Hi-Fi and featuring modern tone circuitry- to the point where their own website states that, “The TCT is a vintage, complex design with a limited yet loyal following. Most musicians prefer the ease and flexibility of our more recent products”…
…And yet, something about that tone keeps that following EXTREMELY loyal, and dancefloors around the world filled by those iconic sounds to this day. The popularity of vintage guitars, vintage amplifiers, vintage pedals, vintage speakers, vinyl, etc etc all just shows that sometimes, for some folks, modern tech and audio fidelity is less desirable, somehow less authentic. Sometimes, or for some musicians, producers, or listeners, nothing will beat a bit of that oldschool analogue warmth and magic.
And this is where we come in.
The folks that understand, appreciate, and respect the awesome power contained in this preamp don’t always want to dust off the router and rip apart their bass to fit a battery box and new active circuitry.
By porting the TCT and MCT-375 modules into a TCT stompbox, we’re able to offer the exact same tones as you’d get by fitting it in your bass, in a package which is more user-friendly as all of the controls are available, visible, and ready to be set and modified for each show or session (no more hiding the mid control on a micro trim pot inside the bass’s cavity). Plus, bypassing the module can be done at the press of a button, and the +15dB gain boost can be activated via a second footswitch- perfect for bass solos, fills, or sections where the bass needs to be a little more prominent.
“Will the TCT Stompbox sound different to installing one in my bass?”
-Not noticeably. If you’re using a super long cable (which will roll off some top end), or a wireless kit (which will isolate the preamp from your bass’s electronics) there may be some difference on paper, but in practice if you have a passive bass, you won’t hear a difference compared to if the preamp was wired directly into your bass.
“Ah ok- so can I still use it if my bass is active already?”
-Yes, but for best results set your active bass into passive mode, or at least flatten your EQ to get as neutral as possible a sound from your bass.
“What settings did Marcus Miller use? I want to nail his sound!”
-Honestly we don’t know. And what’s more, it doesn’t really matter.
Unless you’re playing a maple-necked CBS jazz bass, with DR Fat-Beam strings, and have Marcus Miller’s hands, you’ll probably need slightly different settings anyway. We recommend starting with Bass and Treble at around 2 o’clock, and the mids all the way down, then roll in the mids until it sounds right.
Don’t forget that what sounds good on it’s own won’t always sound good in a mix or when the band join in. A huge rookie mistake is to just scoop out ALL of the mids, forgetting that actually in most mixes and live situations, it’s the mids that cut through the mix and make you heard. Too many mids might not sound great, but too few and you won’t be heard at all.
A dream made real
As bassists and longtime fans of this module(one of both of our earliest discoveries as bassists was a video on a fledgling video site called ‘YouTube’ about 16 years ago of Marcus Miller absolutely ripping through a slap-bass cover of Teen Town) -so we’re honoured to be working with Bartolini to present this TCT Stompbox to the world in pedal form, ready to plug in and rock out!
Each pedal will be individually and meticulously hand-wired here in our workshop in Manchester and fully tested before shipping worldwide!
