“Plug and play never sounded so good!”
Taking all that made the original, award-winning Forté D bass amplifier such a widely accepted tone champion, Jim Bergantino has taken it up another notch by implementing his all new Big Fat Tube II (BFT) circuit.
The BFT II circuit delivers exactly what bass players crave out of tube amplifiers, but in an easy to use, compact and lightweight format. From pristine and sparkling clean tones, to mildly pushed tube drive, to super heavy, mix-shredding saturation and everything in between, it’s all here. Not to worry though, if you desire perfectly clean tone, simply turn off the BFT II technology and you got it!
The world of bass tone can mean many things to many people and often it can be hard to replicate the desired essence and tone of a real tube amplifier. While you can get part way there with distortion circuits and pedals, to truly master the ultimate tube tone, one needs to examine how the amp module compresses, sags and reacts to its load.
We’ve painstakingly analyzed those core drive attributes to give the modern bass player all of the good and none of the bad. You want that sweet, intoxicating soft clip purr? It’s in there. How about grit and growl to give you some more presence in a mix? Yep, it’s there too. What about a massively saturated tube amp pushed within an inch of its life? You’ve absolutely got it with the Forté D.
This drive is just as tight and controlled at a soft clip as it is full bore. Try it at low settings for just the right harmonic chime or max it out to really saturate your bass tone. With just a single knob, Bergantino has distilled drive and its nuances right down to the lowest common denominator – TONE. Tone that you don’t have to spend hours dialing in – we’ve done all the hard work for you!
Bergantino’s new Parallel Dynamic Circuitry™ builds on all of the best attributes of our compression wizardry found in some of our other products and optimizes it for bass, automatically producing a sweet, note-thickening magic.
This new technology seamlessly integrates with the BFT drive feature, allowing for a very sensitive, touch dynamic that inspires, not only to achieve that pushed tube amplifier tone, but get the wonderful FEEL of total interaction between the player and amp.
Many brands sadly often rate their amps without real-world, verifiable figures. Forté D features a custom tuned, yet powerful amplifier module and will provide up to genuine 800W RMS power depending on the speaker load. At 8Ω (for example: a single small cab) Forté D will provide 350W RMS, @ 4Ω this is increased to 700W RMS, while at a 2 or 2.67 Ω load the power output goes to 800W RMS.
Speaker impedance of the connected cabinets can also be matched from the front panel, this permits for optimal power transfer and allows the Forté D to function safely right down to a 2-ohm minimum load.
The Forté D features a myriad of connectivity options to suit many situations. Dual Speakon outputs allow you to hook up multiple cabinets without daisy chaining. The built-in studio-quality XLR Direct Output is selectable Pre or Post EQ from the front panel. This is ideal for recording in the studio or just for giving the house PA a suitably balanced line signal to work with. In addition, the secondary Line Output gives another option whether you want an additional preamp output or perhaps want to run the amp to an external tuner.
The front-mounted 3.5mm/1/8” Auxiliary input allows you to hook in your phone, computer or an MP3 player and play along with recorded music or another line level signal like synths or drum machines.