Active electronics - How do you use yours??

[HotelEcho]

Scooped, Fully-on, bit of a boost?

I just discovered last night how good my Spector Legend 5 sounds with both ends of the 2-band EQ screwed fully on. Nice way to drive the front of the amp. Not convinced that this'll do the battery life any good though - and I'm a bit concerned about the 'purity' of the tone

So, how do you use yours?

[mep]

On my MM Ray 2 band eq I have both on full with the amp boosting the low mids. I may tweek the bass eq to suit room acoustics. On my active Charvel I only have 1 eq that is again on full treble unless I'm practicing through cans or a practice amp then I have to roll it off a bit.

[Lfalex v1.1]

With actives, I usually aim for a sort of sweet-spot, a bit like you'd get from fiddling with the volumes on a Jazz bass. I set everything flat, get the pick up pan where it sounds best, then adjust the Eq. I invariably end up running a little boost to compensate for the fact that I tend to favour the bridge pick up a little (assuming there is one!)

[xilddx]

For live, I set my Warwick active bass and treble flat (no mid sweep on mine), the active level is set to more or less match the passive level. I also combine this with the pickup sweep control though, which sort of acts like a mid sweep.

I use the bass and treble controls to cut and boost in parts of songs that need it, and use the pickup sweep for mid tone changes.

For recording I mess around with them a bit to see what feels nice in the raw mix, the pickup sweep is amazing for subtle tonal changes, even a couple of mm can make a great difference.

Then there's how all this interacts with the string brand, age and gauge. I've recently switched to Warwick EMP 100-40 (from DR Black Beauties 105 - 45)and they made a very big and pleasant difference to my overall tone character and increased the effectiveness of my tone controls and pup sweep, so a little readjustment was necessary.

Edited May 31, 2012 by silddx

[chris_b]

I go for active and passive basses (and amps) where running the controls flat gets me the sound I want. I then tweak slightly if needed.

My view is that excessive EQing probably means that I've bought the wrong gear.

[Lozz196]

Not used my SBMM Ray34 in a band setting yet, but at home on my practice amp, its bass & mids flat, with treble fully off. That is with the same amp settings for my Precision though, with mids on 1, bass & treble both on 9. If I set everything on the amp on flat/midday, I do the same on the bass.

[BigRedX]

On those basses which have active controls, mostly flat (or at least at the centre positions). I prefer to use the more sophisticated and effective controls on my amp when playing live or on a channel strip when in the studio. Usually if I want a different sound I'll use a different bass.

The one exception to this are my two fretless basses with ACG EQ01 pre amps that have filters and therefore do something that the amp or channel strip can't do. Then I normally set the filter on the bridge pickup to emphasise the bite, and that on the neck pickup the emphasise thump and use the blend control to get the right balance of the two depending on what the song arrangement needs.

[Rayman]

Start flat and add a little EQ to find the tone, that's normally where I go. With the Spectors for instance, if you turn it all up full you'll destroy your amp, and everybody's ears in the process, same with the Stingrays. It really depends on the bass and it's EQ I guess, some are more subtle than others, but generally it's steady as she goes for me.

[mrdirtyrob]

I've got active EMG pickups (the switchable single/double coil ones) and a 2-band active eq as well. I usually have the pickups up full in single coil mode, and roll off a bit in humbucker mode to compensate for the volume increase. I hardly touch the EQ to be honest, maybe occasionally a wee bass boost but it's usually the mids I want to muck about with and I do that with my pedals/amp.

[Doctor J]

As little as possible. The bass should sound good without it, if not I move it on. The EQ is there just to give you the last 10%... that push over the cliff.

[garethfriend]

on my SBMM SB14 I tend to crank the treble all the way and bring up the bass until it sounds a little fuller (but not a massive boost). The amp and cab I have are fairly dark but respond well to EQ so this ends up getting it about right in the room. Although my amp has fancy parametric EQ on it I find this is better for tweaking the exact contour of the mids and I leave myself with "on bass" control over the top and bottom end.

The OLP 5 string I am doing some work on is having a classic 2 band musicman clone preamp put in it. No redundant mid knob and all that malarkey and just have what I actually use.

When I had an Orange Terror Bass head I found combining both EQs (bass and amp) cleverly to add or cut frequencies before and after the tube preamp section to be a powerful tone shaping tool too. Bass boosted after the tube sounds really different to before.

[brensabre79]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1338467036' post='1674983']
My view is that excessive EQing probably means that I've bought the wrong gear.
[/quote]

This. I run mine flat and add 10-20% of treble or bass to suit the track, then back to flat

[JTUK]

Both my pre amps are Bass, 15 db boost only, so I run one bass @ zero bass and the other no more than notched/half
Too much bass destroys your tone.
The treble is +- 15 bd so I run treble not more than central on either

I do the most of the work of the mid sweep..but try not to get away from the inherrent passive sound so the active becomes merely a kicker to that passive sound.

If you run to anything like extreme EQ settings on some pre amps they are unusable and.you totally screw the sound and. MM pre amps are a case in point. IMO.

[stingrayPete1977]

I run flat out bass boost on all my Rays mid and treble on the centre points plus or minus a smidge to taste

[Rayman]

Well that's better than full treble boost, as I found to my cost when I tried to slap and pop through a RHCP track and blew the horn on my combo. I could see people at the front actually crying with the pain.

[LukeFRC]

on the warwick start flat. then boost the bass about 33% to fatten out. Then treble boost if the song needs it.
Warwick 2 band is interesting though as the Eq points are quite high for a bass and low for a treble.

When I briefly tried a Glockenklang it was utterly different and didn't shape the tone as well, just added low and highs.
All being well I'm going to go for an ACG which will be utterly different!

[Mornats]

On my Overwater (Tanglewood made, but still with a John East 2 band EQ preamp in it) I usually keep the bass and treble flat or slightly boosted. The bass, I move a couple of mm up, or have it flat. The treble I either keep flat or boost it by 2-10mm of a turn depending on how much extra treble I want to have to help cut through the mix. I tend to keep them flat mostly and pop the 5khz 6db boost control if I need string noise or an added edge to cut through. For most of my playing style I prefer to roll the pickup pan about 10mm towards to P pup. Gives a nice P-ish sound with a bit of J hiding in there. This tends to work well when put through flat EQ on my amp.

I've never tried putting the bass and treble on full boost. The bass on full boost belts out a lotta bass so it's probably good that I don't!

[garethfriend]

The "EQ is a fix for having bought the wrong gear" argument is rubbish.

For a start so long as you can get the sound you want out of a setup any and all approaches are equally valid, at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the sound that comes out of the speaker, the position of a few knobs matters not one little bit.

Secondly the "it sounds right with no EQ" approach is fine until you want versatility. I have long suspected the "EQ is cheating crowd" sit in one of two camps - don't know how to use it properly or only use one or two sounds.

Nowt wrong with having one or two sounds but if you use many different sounds plenty of EQ might actually mean you've bought the right bass after all.

[BigRedX]

In the studio, best practice with EQ is always to cut the frequencies you don't want and adjust the gain to compensate. Few active bass pre-amp circuits are flexible or sophisticated enough to do this.

[EmmettC]

I have a John East in my Stingray 5, and I boost the bass a little, boost the treble when it's needed, and I'm still getting to grips with the sweepable mid, so usually just boost a little hi-mid when I need to cut through. I mostly use the bridge pup, but add in the neck one for a fatter sound. For softer songs I use both pups as single coils. I use the eq on the bass a lot, generally my EBS HD350 is pretty flat, but I us all the controls on the bass to enhance certain characteristics of the bass.

I get the "wrong gear" guys idea, and clearly a shorts scale gibson wouldn't be any good to me, but I like a versatile bass, that can cut it for any gig. What kind of band do the "wrong gear" people play in?

[Doctor J]

I'm stunned that people use full boost, especially on low frequencies. With preamps usually giving at least +-10db, that's a hell of a lot of extra low end. If you're boosting all three bands, though, would you not just leave things flatter and turn up a bit?

[Conan]

[quote name='Doctor J' timestamp='1338538514' post='1675899']I'm stunned that people use full boost, especially on low frequencies. With preamps usually giving at least +-10db, that's a hell of a lot of extra low end. If you're boosting all three bands, though, would you not just leave things flatter and turn up a bit?[/quote]
[quote name='garethfriend' timestamp='1338489823' post='1675393']The "EQ is a fix for having bought the wrong gear" argument is rubbish.[/quote]

Both of these! When you buy gear, it is yours to use as you see fit - without having to worry about what others might think! Tone controls are also "effects". Remember that a wah pedal is just a foot-operated tone control...

On my Status I only have bass and trebvle cut and boost. I use both a lot - for various reasons. Sometimes subtle, sometimes over-the-top! By experimenting I soon get a feel for what works and what doesn't. Same with the amp (although the LH500 has far less to "play with" than other amps I have owned).

Some people use one bass for one tone and like to stick to that. That's fine. I prefer versatility from one instrument. By utilising the pickup pan selector and active tone controls, the variation I can get from the Status is incredible. It would be a shame not to use it! Horses for courses though - depending on the situation.

[garethfriend]

Yeah you can get all pedantic about whether "flat" eq even exists in bass gear if you wanted too. All you are actually doing is changing a value of resistance in your signal chain when you turn an eq knob. Just because you don't have or don't use control of that resistance doesn't mean it isn't there shaping the signal. the current preamp I'm building has no centre positions on the pots so there is no "flat" only too much or too little, the way it should be imo - eq with the ears not the knob

[brensabre79]

I'm all for variation of tones. But I think for people who just turn all the knobs up to 11 there is no variation, this isn't really using EQ as an effect either, its just turning up the on board pre and having to turn the outboard pre down to compensate, or having the outoard pre distort from too much level (which is an effect, but not as good as an overdrive pedal!).

The idea of setting the EQ flat as your basic start point means you have somewhere to go in either direction, it means you have got your setup right to start with and, if you want a bit more of one thing and a bit less of another you have options. flat EQ isn't right for every application, sometimes you need a brighter or bassier tone. If you set everything on full you have nowhere to go but down.

After playing 3band stingrays (all boosted) through a preamp with a graphic (big sine wave curve) for years, I finally realised that I wasn't getting what I wanted tonally. Now I have a Jazz with an EMG Eq that runs flat mostly, and an amp which I run flat, I know I've got the setup just right for me, I have lots of options up and down too.

[chris_b]

Yet another thread where we're being told we can't do what we want with our gear. ffs!