operative451

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1373985012' post='2143849'] You're still not asking a direct question. There are hundreds of variables. If you had a specific sound in mind we can make some suggestions. (It still takes some experimenting to get it where you like it). You also seem to be hung up on distortion which is completely separate from "tone." It's a "distortion" of the original signal. [/quote] You're absolutely correct - i don't know what the question is yet... The sound i 'want' is thick without being muddy, bitey without going fizzy when i hit the fuzz, twangy without clanking (ok, that might be my fingers). I think what i actually want is to know where to start the twiddling! There must be some rules of thumb? Other than, 'for more bass turn up the bass' - like for a lot of guitar amps for instance, its more 'for more bass turn down the treble'! This is totally a noob beginner question i know - i've not been bassing long and in my previous world (old-school goth guitar) the default setting was chorus and reverb turned up all the way and distortion on the loud bits.. ;D

I'm using 'tone' to mean sound made by the player, instrument and amp all working together - like in say the gear forum where someone would talk about 'Duff McKagen's tone' - so yes, tell me everything..! ;D I guess what i want to know is, what to adjust to get certain elements of sound - like for instance fiddling with mid-range from a total scoop can go 'muffled muffled muffled CLANKY cardboard' quite easily. And boosting overdrive can add that throb to the low end that you get when the bass is turned up all the way, but again, it's easy to go from throb to fart to speaker jumping out all over the floor... And i find that a bit of overdrive becomes sort of dirty compression on the way to full break up, which sounds nasty until it gets really distorted at which point it becomes fuzz! So (i'm told) the reason we 'like' valve tone more than solid state is that it's dirtier! The valves distort, compress and colour the sound, while transistors and digital replicate it more perfectly which makes our monkey hearing go 'yeuk!!'

[quote name='the boy' timestamp='1373971639' post='2143654'] This should be interesting. [/quote] Hopefully! I'm hoping for some useful/thoughtful responses rather than the 'that's a stupid question, go get a marshall/ampeg/vox/POD' etc responses i've seen on guitar forums..!

Bit of a question then? And apologies if this should go over in 'gear' - i couldn't decide whether it was amps/cabs or effects. What i'd love for this thread is for it to be not so much 'to get x sound, use y' but more 'this is why x sounds the way it does'. Like using analogue synths, pre samplers - if you wanted a 'brass' sound for instance, you had to reverse engineer the original sound and go 'ok, this is a square wave with a medium attack and quick decay and a splash of harmonic distortion' *twiddle twiddle*.. So for instance, my preferred sounds are kind of dubby reggae for clean tones, and for dirtied up, think RATM going into JAMC territory. I know for reggae its effectively 'cut everything but bass. Boost the bass' - for instance, but what does that *do*? Like a really rumbly bass tone does effectively distort the low notes? So to get that sound quietly or DI do we need a bit of overdrive? And at what point does fuzz become fizz? I know probably the answer is a 2 grand valve amp and 8ft of cabs, but for those of us who don't have that level of resourcing, how does one go about reverse-engineering bass tone?

Totally this!! My guitar playing has always been quite sloppy and punky, which really sounded awful on bass! I've had to get a lot calmer and more controlled. Good news is, it's done wonders for my guitar playing!!

I'm currently doing this with cheapie practice amps - actually googling the subject is how I found this forum! With capper amps it seems to work, which is kind of ironic as with guitars I always liked to play my jazz hollow body through a bass amp to get extra thud! Dunno how i'm going to get 'my' sound in a live situation though as I'm currently getting a nice hybrid ratm/ting tings tone out of a couple of practice amps! I'll need to fiddle with my DI boxes...!

Oh right, now fatima whitbread jokes. Really? Not cool at all. Tell ya what, that duff mckagen looks a right goer don't he? I'd prune his shrubbery, know what I mean? 'cept I don't want to catch something, and those leather kecks? Bit stinky down there, i bet!

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1373578971' post='2139377'] Totally with you on this. In that other thread there seemed to be a lack of understanding about how one can make jokes within the context of shared knowledge about our history. Similarly, when a new female member introduced herself recently, someone (was that you?) made a lovely joke about her choosing to have a bass rig for ... wait for it ... the kitchen! That and similar jokes are NOT sexist. It's a recognition of our sad past. It's funny too. As to the reasoning skills, the worrying part is that you seem to still doubt sometimes. Some people on every forum in the world are so thick that they don't even recognise superior minds when they see them. BC can't be an exception, and it isn't. Nice folks though. People here are (Generally) lovely! best, bert [/quote] Being that it was my bass rig, yes i thought it was funny... The spirit of it was meant humourously and while i do know a few people who would have been mortally offended, i got the joke... Especially as being a female 'rocker' is generally still considered a bit edgy and unusual (sadly)... The 'she looks like a bloke' thing... Hmm... well, there does seem to be a rise in jokes about the 'T' part of the LGBT community at the moment - due a lot i think, to a higher media profile in recent years - people like [url="http://lastofthecleanbohemians.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/paris-lees-channel-4s-first-transgender-presenter/"]paris lees [/url]popping up on channel 4 and radio1 and [url="http://www.cnlester.com/"]CN Lester[/url] putting a completely different spin on the whole bowie bit... And Juliet Jaques and Jane Fae writing for prominent (progressive) press outlets... And its sad that that the implication that someone might be transgender is considered an insult... Drummers are often muscly! But hey, heavy thread and all that... Tell you what though, on a lot of forums i've been on this thread would have been locked by now as the insults would be flying everywhere! I guess bass players are just generally more chilled and thoughtful.... ;D

When i had long hair i got joan jett or patty smith quite a lot... Now its short, tilda swinton or david bowie. None of whom are bassists..! Errrr... ;D

Nice combination of sexism and transphobia (bloke on the drums, really?) on this thread too, very welcoming, guys... For reference, i thought they were white stripesy too watching them on the telly at glasto. But the media were more interested in creaming themselves over a bunch of one direction lookielikies called 'the strypes' ripping off the early bee-attles.. Guess being derivative is ok for some people, hey?

Have to say, having been a long time geetar player and got quite bored with the luddite 'it must be a fender twin or a marshal JCMPLEXI350 and look like its from 1942' attitude on guitar forums, i'm loving all the different shapes and colours and sizes of bass rigs here!

Totally, its been boilingtastic!! I even got a bit brown! Am inherently pasty, carrying the ginger gene and used to be a goth because i looked like one anyway... ;D

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1372769189' post='2129645'] I love the idea of a female bass player having a 'kitchen' rig! [/quote] Ooh! Outrageous sexism!! ;D I never thought of that, that is actually quite funny.. ;D

Bedroom / kitchen practice stack... I DI 'usually' (ha, gigged twice in my life ) local second hand shops, 2 guitar practice amps for 15 quid each, with a behringer ultra g 4x12 emulator box up front and a bunch of pedals! I kinda like it!

Oh yeah, horizontaliste's brother, yeah! Tell him I want my shoes back! New song on the IED site, by the way, we went country!

We did country... http://www.intermittentexplosivedisorder.co.uk/2013/06/knifecrime-island/ See if you can guess how we got the steel geetar sound...!

Same here! Sort of... We're thinking of doing some live stuff, but currently everything that's not guitar and bass and singing is done by a Pc running FL Studio (formerly frooty loops) - ideally we'd also be able to run midi out to a POD for guitar effect changes (i'm fully analogue dahlink), so we were considering a raspberry pi built into a practice amp with a basic linux sequencer...

Hi! Thanks for all the responses, and yay other girl bassists!! Ok, i'm probably a bit of to be called a 'girl', but 'woman bassist' sounded odd. thanks for the comments on the song too! We aim to get something out every couple of weeks - coming up next : country!!

Hello! I'm a bass playing (surprise) girl from sunny (er) plymouth... Played guitar for years, got kind of bored with it but rescued a bass from a friend's dad's shed, resprayed it, rewired it (sort of, pickup straight to output) and its revitalised my love of music..! I play in a sort of band with a mate from work, link, see banner in my signature (hopefully that's worked) its a comedy music thing - sort of mitch benn / tim minchin inspired, which means we get to play around in lots of different styles... The bass is a marlin from the 80s (it has a sticker on saying made in the GDR!), it goes through a bunch of cheap joyo pedals and a wah, into a guitar practice amp, and surprisingly sounds ok, in a JAMC goes funkadelic sort of a way... So yes, hello!