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On Tour with Blink-182play button

On Tour with Blink-182

The MBT: Master Bus Transformerplay button

The MBT: Master Bus Transformer

Dale Becker and the MBTplay button

Dale Becker and the MBT

Kevin Madigan and the MBTplay button

Kevin Madigan and the MBT

Rupert Neve Designs

collapse expand iconDescription

The MBT Master Bus Transfortmer from Rupert Neve Designs provides an incredible array of flavorful options designed to sweeten, enhance, drive, widen and utterly transform source material, making it the ultimate tool for musical coloration. Equally at home on a full mix, groups, stems or individual sources, the MBT pairs undeniably legendary tonal quality with an immensely flexible set of controls to shape your sound.

Create Tonal Magic with the Shelf EQ

With three octave ranges, gentle slopes and minimal phase shifts, the all-new 2-band Shelf EQ section was created with an emphasis on simplicity and elegance. This smooth, musical EQ is excellent at providing just the right amount of tonal enhancement—especially when it is interacting with the other sections of the MBT. Each band has +/- 9dB of gain control, with the LF EQ corner frequency variable from 30Hz to 240Hz and the HF EQ corner frequency variable from 3kHz to 24kHz. The LF band is excellent at either taming or accentuating low-end to give source material an exacting amount of weight and power. The HF band provides a wide range of corner frequencies to choose from, allowing adjustments to be made from the upper midrange all the way up to the very top end, giving tracks extra shine and clarity.

Breathe In New Life with the Color Comp

With an optical compressor design, the Color Comp excels at accentuating the non-linear distortion and “colorful” characteristics of the Opto cell to bring source material a new sense of life and depth. The compressor ratio can be set to a low (2:1) ratio for subtle and smooth compression or high (5:1) for much more dramatic behavior. The variable high pass side chain filter removes the low frequencies from the compressor side chain circuit, allowing low-end information to pass through the compressor untouched while the compressor focuses on the rest of the signal. With a sweepable range from 20Hz all the way up to 350Hz, this is a highly flexible tonal shaping control providing the ability to leave the low end intact while taming or squashing the rest of the source material as needed. The Color Comp also contains a Blend control, making it easy to use the compression circuit in parallel with the uncompressed source material. This can be especially useful when wanting to dial back the harmonic content, dynamic range reduction, and transient squashing from more extreme compressor settings.

Control Harmonics Like Never Before with Super Silk

Introduced nearly twenty years ago, the Silk circuit has long been a favorite for Rupert Neve Designs users. First available as a simple on/off switch, then with selectable Red and Blue modes and the variable Texture control, Silk exists to enhance and control even and odd order harmonic content in any source material. Super Silk is the latest advancement to this beloved technology: featuring independent Red, Blue, Harmonics and Zener Drive controls, harmonic manipulation is taken to a whole new level with the MBT. Historically, Silk was always applied to a unit’s output transformers. But when designing the MBT, a need was felt to offer even greater control and flexibility – therefore, Super Silk also includes an extra set of transformers to further expand the possibilities of this much-loved circuit. This design provides a way to drive into Super Silk for more dynamic saturation and transient clipping, while also being able to attenuate the signal for proper gain staging after Super Silk by using the Output Trim.

Silk Red accentuates harmonics in the upper mid and high frequencies, adding sparkle and sheen. Silk Blue accentuates harmonics in the low and low mid frequencies, creating more depth and weight. The Harmonics control increases the overall musical harmonic content by saturating the MBT’s custom interstage transformers; this setting will interact with the settings for both Silk Blue and Silk Red, so experimentation is encouraged to find new blends and balances.
Rupert Neve Designs MBT Master Bus Transformer
Rupert Neve Designs MBT Master Bus Transformer
Rupert Neve Designs MBT Master Bus Transformer

collapse expand iconFeatures

  • Built around Rupert Neve’s Class-A, Transformer Coupled Signal Paths
  • Revitalize mono or stereo tracks, stems and mixes with a suite of new controls
  • Add missing weight and power with the Super Silk circuit
  • Add dynamic character with the opto-based Color Comp
  • Quickly adjust tone with the gentle and musical LF and HF shelves
  • Use the newly designed Width section to create dimension without losing focus
  • Drive and level-match the interstage transformers with the I/O amplifiers

collapse expand iconSpecs

Dimensions (W x D x H): 19" x 10.125" x 3.5"

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