Ashdown LITTLE GIANT 1000 - Manual (Page 4)

Front Panel Facilities
The Ashdown Little Giant is a bass instrument
amplifier that truly lives up to its name being
diminutive in size but a giant in terms of
sound versatility and power.
It has been designed to be very easy to use
whilst providing a vast array of tonal variation
with its simple combination of sound
sculpturing facilities. These equalisation tools
have been combined with digital output
stages of immense power and all presented
in a very small and light package giving the
ultimate in versatility and portability.
ON/OFF MAINS SWITCH - Using the mains
cable supplied the amplifier may be
connected the to the correct voltage mains
supply as selected on the units rear panel.
Once this is done turn the power to the Little
Giant ON by using the front panel ON/OFF
switch. POWER ON is indicated by
illumination of the blue LED adjacent to
this switch.
INSTRUMENT INPUT - There is a single
INSTRUMENT input jack socket, this is linked
to the ACTIVE selector switch. With this
switch in its OUT position the instrument
input is high sensitivity and also high
impedance to suit the low signal level output
of PASSIVE basses (those with no built in pre-
amp). When pushed IN this switch selects a
low sensitivity and lower impedance input to
suit the higher signal level output of
ACTIVE basses.
INPUT - The INPUT control sets the signal
level through the preamp in conjunction
with the SIGNAL level 5 LED bargraph. This
should be adjusted so that the bottom 2 or 3
LEDs are lit most of the time whilst playing
your instrument with only occasional
dynamic peaks lighting the RED CLIP LED.
Please note that the setting of this may have
to be re-adjusted after modification of the
EQ controls.
SHAPE - This pushbutton superimposes a pre
defined equalisation curve onto the bass
guitar signal. This SHAPE EQ boosts both the
Low and High frequencies whilst introducing
a cut at lower Mid frequencies. The SHAPE
may be used by itself or in conjunction with
the other EQ facilities of the Little Giant.
DEEP - This pushbutton introduces a serious
boost to the really Low frequencies of the
bass guitar signal. The boost is about +15dB
at 50Hz. The DEEP may be used by itself or in
conjunction with the other EQ facilities of the
Little Giant.
EQ - This pushbutton activates the remaining
sound sculpturing facilities of the Little Giant.
With the EQ, SHAPE & DEEP pushbuttons in
their OUT position the sound of the Little
Giant is set to perfectly FLAT.
The main equalisation controls of the Little
Giant consist of a shelving, +or- 15dB BASS
control, a variable frequency +or- 15dB
shelving TREBLE control with a range from
3.5kHz to 10kHz, and two semi parametric
+or- 15dB MID controls each with a 1 octave
bandwidth covering frequencies from 180Hz
to 1.6kHz and 750Hz to 7.5kHz respectively
for adjusting the LO-MID and HI-MID
frequency ranges.
The way this works is as follows: there are
four slider controls used to boost or cut each
frequency range by up to 15dB. To the left of
the LO-MID, HI-MID and TREBLE sliders are
rotary controls marked FREQ-HZ. These are
used to select the frequency at which the
sliders boost or cut the signal.
These EQ facilities can be used in a number
of ways, obviously the BASS control will
boost and cut the lower frequencies, and the
TREBLE control will boost and cut the higher
frequencies, with the degree by which this
affects the instruments signal dependant on
the setting of its FREQ-HZ control.
Both the BASS and TREBLE control
adjustments can be further affected by the
setting of the HI-MID and LO-MID controls,
for instance if the HI-MID frequency is set to
its highest i.e. 7.5kHz and this frequency
range boosted then this will add further to
the high frequency lift provided by the
TREBLE control. Similarly the BASS control
setting will be affected if the LO-MID
frequency is set to its lowest. This can be a
useful way of further enhancing the upper
and lower frequencies or for making fine
adjustments to these. But where the LO-MID
and HI-MID controls really start to perform
their magic is when their FREQ-EQ controls
are set to somewhere within the centre of
their ranges and the selected frequencies
either boosted or cut. This can produce some
unique sound shapes that are very useable.
Experiment with this and see what you
discover, remember that sometimes cutting
the signal at a particular centre frequency
can produce just as viable sounds as
boosting. More is not always better when it
comes to sound sculpturing for bass.
OUTPUT - The OUTPUT control sets the level
of volume through the speakers connected
to the Little Giant. Remember to set the
INPUT control as high as possible in the
manner described above and the OUTPUT
control set as low as possible for the desired
stage playing volume. In this way you will get
the optimum performance from the Little
Giant amplifier with the best possible signal
to noise ratio.