How do you find your perfect tone?

[LethalLion]

I know 'the perfect tone' is personal, but I listen to some people play, and I think, "Bugger me, I'd love to have that tone."

I've never known how to EQ my amp to achieve the sound I want. I've heard taking out the mids, and having the bass and highs right up is called a 'smiley' or something, and is supposed to be a great tone for jazz? How do you lot go about finding what feels good?

Dan

[Wil]

Well, some people say its all in the fingers. I think having the right gear has a lot to do with it though, personally. Learning to tweak your EQ to get the sound you want comes down to experimentation I'm afraid, it tends to vary from bass to bass, amp to amp and room to room.

Do you have any examples of bands where the tone does it for you? That would give us a good starting point to advise you from.

[LethalLion]

In terms of slap, I think Marcus Miller's tone on his Higher Ground cover is incredible:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCv03LRS-Hg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCv03LRS-Hg[/url]

This guy's punchy tone is pretty nice for Rock:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm-68FebQTs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm-68FebQTs[/url]
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9GTct-oQTI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9GTct-oQTI[/url]

I'm playing through an Ashdown EB 15-180, with a Squier VM Jazz.

[Roland Rock]

Play! Experiment!

Try a smiley (mid scoop, bass & treble boost) EQ setting and then a frowny (mid up, bass & treble down) EQ setting*
Play with fingers and a pick.
Play with flats and rounds.
Play a vintage bass and a modern one.
Play a valve amp and a SS amp.
Mute with palm/foam.
Play near the bridge and near the neck.
Play soft and hard.
Some would argue that the material used for the nut, body, fretboard etc. has a significant effect on sound.

Try many combinations of the above till you eventually (hopefully) hone in on your perfect tone. This will take several years and much money.



*For eq, what sounds great in your bedroom at low volume may get totally lost in a band setting.

[Truckstop]

I'd say buy a good cab. Cabs, other than your actual playing style, I think have the biggest impact on the outcome of your tone.
Ampeg, Aguilar, Berg etc. They always sound so sweet and I reckon they'll get you a bit closer to getting your dream tone. Worked for me. Got an Ampeg and I wondered why I hadnt done it sooner!

Truckstop

[Cat Burrito]

I'm with Roland Rock on this one

[BassBunny]

[quote name='Wil' post='1166251' date='Mar 17 2011, 08:57 PM']Well, some people say its all in the fingers. I think having the right gear has a lot to do with it though, personally. Learning to tweak your EQ to get the sound you want comes down to experimentation I'm afraid, it tends to vary from bass to bass, amp to amp and room to room.

Do you have any examples of bands where the tone does it for you? That would give us a good starting point to advise you from.[/quote]

It is in the fingers.
Mate of mine was round last week.
Used My Bass(es), My Amp, My Settings and got the tone I have been after for years.
His Bass, His Amp, same sound.
I mean when Victor Wooten moved to Hartke, did his sound change? No

[Wil]

[quote name='BassBunny' post='1166378' date='Mar 17 2011, 10:22 PM']It is in the fingers.
Mate of mine was round last week.
Used My Bass(es), My Amp, My Settings and got the tone I have been after for years.
His Bass, His Amp, same sound.
I mean when Victor Wooten moved to Hartke, did his sound change? No[/quote]

I know your playing style plays a big role, but to get in the general ballpark of where you want to be having appropriate gear helps. If you want a modern, hi fi slap tone you're never really going to get it with a passive P bass, for instance, no matter how good your playing is.

I'd imagine Victor was still playing a high end, active bass and he'd EQ'd the Hartke to get a sound he liked.

[Wil]

[quote name='LethalLion' post='1166257' date='Mar 17 2011, 09:03 PM']In terms of slap, I think Marcus Miller's tone on his Higher Ground cover is incredible:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCv03LRS-Hg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCv03LRS-Hg[/url]

This guy's punchy tone is pretty nice for Rock:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm-68FebQTs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm-68FebQTs[/url]
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9GTct-oQTI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9GTct-oQTI[/url]

I'm playing through an Ashdown EB 15-180, with a Squier VM Jazz.[/quote]


For both those tones, I'd advise fitting a new set of strings. To my ears the Marcus Miller tone seems to have boosted lows/low mids, cut high mids, and boosted highs. The rock clips sound to me as if the low and high mids have been boosted a little.

[spinynorman]

The tone's in your head. Fingers, amps, all that stuff, is just a conduit.

Edited March 17, 2011 by spinynorman

[Doddy]

The way that I went about getting 'my tone',was initially by trying to copy the tones of my favourite players,mainly Jaco and Marcus. They are the reasons that I went for a Jazz Bass. In trying to copy their tones,and realising that I couldn't,I started to develop my own sound,but they were my references.
Try to copy the tones that you like,but don't hold back your own voice. Use your heroes as an inspiration,but do your own thing with it.

Edited March 18, 2011 by Doddy

[chris_b]

The sound in your head is not real.

Get the best gear you can afford and learn to play it the best you can. Love the sound that you make.

[rmshaw37]

I spent 13 years finding it! Turns out clean bottom, distorted top does it for me! But Roland rock is correct!

The tone is out there! Just no other bass player you know has it! Lol

No easy way out I'm afraid! All I will say is start with a comfortable bass and sculpt the amp around that!

[Lozz196]

Generally, I`ve found that if you really want a tone like a specific player, it helps to have similar gear to start off with.

Example, if you like Steve Harris? Would recommend starting off with a Precision, that type of thing.

From there, amps and cabs are going to make a huge difference as well, however I always sound "like me", irrespective of what gear I use, but some sounds I can just never get from some amps/cabs, whereas with others, its virtually instant.

Was searching for that elusive tone for years, found it was Fender Precision/Ampeg, but unfortunately Ampeg gear is too heavy for my back now

[alexclaber]

Play lots and listen hard!

[Conan]

I find that that arriving at 'your' tone is more about eliminating what you [i]don't[/i] like. What you're left with will probably be pretty close to what you were searching for...

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='LethalLion' post='1166257' date='Mar 17 2011, 09:03 PM']In terms of slap, I think Marcus Miller's tone on his Higher Ground cover is incredible:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCv03LRS-Hg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCv03LRS-Hg[/url]

This guy's punchy tone is pretty nice for Rock:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm-68FebQTs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm-68FebQTs[/url]
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9GTct-oQTI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9GTct-oQTI[/url]

I'm playing through an Ashdown EB 15-180, with a Squier VM Jazz.[/quote]

A big part of Marcus Miller's sound is the strings (DR Hi Beams or Fat Beams), also a Sadowsky preamp helps by fattening up the tone.

But you might find these sounds only work well solo, in a band situation you'll probably end up having to think again.

[JTUK]

Don't fight it..the tone you get is very close to what you will mostly always have.

A clean signal helps. Trying to squeze out sounds and nuances from the amp when the bass sounds like gunk anyway
is a fruitless task. You'll end up piling loads of EQ on and cluttering the sound even more.

Strip it down and hear the sound of the instrument and then embellish it.


Listen to good players on demos on youtube and you'll hear the sound and character of the bass, not some heavy EQ'd thing.
If your bass can't speak then how are you going to get a sound..you wont..you'll get what it will give you and if you don't like that, you'll be forever chasing your tail

[BigRedX]

I don't get it. People seem to go on about the "Perfect Tone" as if it was an absolute thing.

Maybe if you're a solo bedroom player or you only play the same sort of music with the same musicians all the time.

But surely there is only a range of appropriate tones to compliment the other instruments you are play with. What that is will depend on the sounds the other instruments are producing?

What is a great bass tone when playing in one band does not necessarily work in another.

[thisnameistaken]

At my gig tonight I used a few bass sounds. Mostly a passive Jazz with the pickups switched in series and the tone rolled off, sometimes just the front pickup with the tone full up, on one tune through a compressor and overdrive and played with a pick, another tune mostly through a Boss OC-2, also added a fuzz blended with the OC-2 on one tune, and a square wave oct+1 signal on another tune blended with the OC-2 and pitch-shifted between two octaves, added a sample-rate reducer for effect in some places, a tempo-synced tremolo in some places, blah, blah.

We only played half an hour. =D

But yeah in terms of basic tone I use a Squier Jazz with stock electronics into a Hartke head with a '60s-style passive 3-band tone stack and f*** all else. And I think it's the best sound I've ever had. I've been playing for a little over 20 years and been through a dozen basses and about as many amps. My '91 Warwick Thumb was sitting at home while I was out gigging tonight.

[KingPrawn]

There are so many variables to consider. it endless. you+ability+Bass+pickups+strings+preamp+lead+amp+cab+room =nightmare. each one of these components can be broken down.

I have been playing many years and the biggest change for me was Quality gear. I stopped struggling for my song. In particular i would say amp and cab. I have high end basses and cheaper ones, they all sound great through great amp and cab. If you took your squire in to your local music shop and put it through some high end stuff it will sound so diffrent. Try changing the pickups its a great way to change the tone of a instrument you enjoy playing.

Aside from that play with your eq. start flat with everything and go from there. Get used to changing your tone while playing. It takes a second, you don't have to set the tone and walk away. learn to listen and feel the sound you will then develop an ear that picks up the tones that make up your sound.

[ThomBassmonkey]

This is what I always find helpful when I'm EQing:

Turn all your EQ down to minimum, turn them up one at a time and find out exactly how they all affect the sound. They all have certain characteristics, depending on what EQ you're using, whether it's parametric or 3/4 band etc. e.g. the very low freequencies might be "wool", there might be something around the low mids that sounds like "honk", that kind of thing.

Once you get a feel for what all the EQs do, knock them all up to half way, then if your amp has anything like contour, play with that to get a feel for it. Same with any other EQ shaping knobs like presence etc.

Once you know what everything does, then you should try and start EQing it propery, if you know the sound of each control, it should be fairly easy to work out what needs to come up and what needs to come down to achieve the tone you're aiming for (or as close as you'll get with your setup.)

I don't really buy into the "you'll always sound the same, whatever you play through". The timbre will change a lot between different gear, but a good bassist (with a little practice) will be able to use their fingers to change the tone. e.g. playing towards the bridge adds in some mids and makes the tone much "harder", playing towards the neck makes it softer and rounder sounding.

[watchman]

I think the cabs are really important, as others have said. Essentially, the low end of a bass is always pushing the limits of cabinet and speaker design. For one thing, ideal cabinets would need to be so huge and rigid that you'd have to stop regarding them as portable. There are vast differences in sound between different cabs, for example, in relation to different amps (let's say run flat). The essential nature of the bass is also important, as in P-bass or Music Man for example, but realistically you'll want a bass that is comfortable for you and that you can afford.

I'd say that cabs are where a lot of the budget should go, assuming the budget to be finite. Cheap basses can sound great (and let's face it, there's nothing inherently expensive about the classic designs in general), but you seldom hear anyone evangelizing about the sensational sound of a very cheap rig.

My advice is to get a bass rig that is as good as you can possibly afford, preferably with decent flexible eq for ease of tweaking, make sure you're not loving the sound of a MM and trying to get it with a Vox Beatle bass or whatever, and practice like hell. How you hit the strings and what they are is also massive.

The idea that tone is in the fingers, to which I subscribe to a large degree, must also take into account one's not having to put up with gear you just don't like. I also think that when we say it's all in the fingers, usually when we hear someone we really like play different gear and still sound like themselves, what we probably mean is that we love that person's playing so much that we look beyond the precise attributes of the sound and feel the music. It's hard not to sound great if you play great.