Fender Contour and Presence Controls

A

Alden_Sloe

New member
I asked this in another thread but after doing some research thought it might be worthy as a thread of it's own. I'd love to get some thoughts from long time Fender users.

Presence (from the Fender manual for the Hot Rod DeVille):
"Adjusts the tone at a point in the signal path after the distortion circuitry for unique ultra high-frequency tone shaping.

Contour (copied from a thread on the Music Electronics Forum. The post is referencing a Marshall amp but seems to be about the same thing I found on the Fender site but with a little more detail. Fender calls it a midrange scoop.):
"The contour knob is what some call "the old man knob", it changes your eq. With the contour turned down think of a multi-band equalizer with a big hump in the middle. /\ Lots of mids. Turn up the contour and the hump turns into a big smile. \/ Lots of highs and lows."
 
My marshall amp has a presence knob! It seems to add upper mids & some top.
 
I've used Fenser amps for years and think I've tried every possible way of setting the controls. Without getting into the technical part of how the presence and contour work (both sort of work like EQ but not exactly) I'll try to explain what they do. Presence is somewhat of a brightness control. It enhances treble without boosting it. Used with clean it makes guitars sound crisp (turned up) or more mellow (turned down.) With the gain turned up it give you a range from a growl (low) to a more grunge or fuzz (high) tone. Setting both the gain and presence high will tend to sound grainy. Contour works like a variable scoop, setting it low filters the highs, set high it filters out some lows, set neutral (straight up) it works like a midrange scoop. There isn't a right or wrong way to set either, but either or both can be used to help balance tone to get the sound you want. Play with both controls until you find a tone that suits you. I play mostly rock/blues, normally I set the contour about 7 and the presence to 3 or less but for a more country sound (a bit of twang) I set the presence higher to 7 or 8.
 
I've always thought of the presence knob as adding "air". Meaning it modifies frequencies even higher than the treble knob to give it a really, really sparkling sound if you want one.

I'm not a fan of contour knobs. However, my B-52 has one on channel two and I leave it dead center (at 12 o clock) because it sounds the best there. I'm assuming that if my contour knob was graphed, it would just be a flat line across a graphic EQ.
 
Yeah prescence is high-end. Isn't contour present on the cheaper Marshalls? It always struck me as a marketing angle, as it seemed to be follwoed in most cases by the term 'classic metal'.
 
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