Bass tone - Mostly the player isn't it?

[Mikey R]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1357509759' post='1923887']
Yes, I think you're right that the instrument does indeed play a part but I don't think we'll work out how much it affects it, whether it's 50/50 or something different. However, if you're investing in good tone, the value is in investing in your fingers IMO.

As my bass tutor said when I mentioned I was thinking of buying another bass "stop being silly, all you have to do is play your current one more".
[/quote]

If you have a bass you like playing, you will play it more. If its a nice one that cost you a bit of money to buy or if its and old beater that just suits you, it doesnt matter provided you play it.

If you have an interest in kit, you'll want to explore that. Sure - learn to play till youre confident in your abilities, but then if you want to experiment then you should.

EDIT: should also mention, I find this stuff goes around in cycles. When I started learning bass, I tried playing around with a few pedals. I bought a half decent bass to replace my beater a little later, ditched the pedals, got a Trace so I was loud enough to compete with the guitarist and was happy. The decent Bass Collection replaced bass #2 when I dropped it in the studio, and I was set up for the next decade. Now Im starting to play around with other bits of kit, just because thats what I want to do and because Ive only just realised the difference playing through different amps.

Im sure in a few years time, I'll break it back down to one bass, one amp and just play it like that, but I would have learnt alot between now and then.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Mikey R

[redstriper]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1357495083' post='1923524']
I'll mention it again, a bit of tutoring on my fingering technique (stop sniggering!) improved my tone massively. It made my good Overwater sound amazing. Nothing to do with the bass, all to do with how I was playing it.
[/quote]

What exactly did you learn about fingering technique?
I want to improve my tone massively and I know the instrument is only a small part of the equation.

PS:
Sorry if you've already told this story

[mr zed]

Quality gear will always sound better than cheap sh*te whatever the players abilities. A great player will sound great with great gear - less so with cheap low end stuff. A poor player will sound poor through great gear but poorer through poor gear. I consider myself to have average abilities (not great but certainly not crap either) so I gain an advantage by using the best gear I can afford. Interestingly, when we have a break in a rehearsal and our singer (who also plays bass in another band) fancies a quick go, he sounds TOTALLY different to the sound that I get. No settings have been changed at all, just the bass player. So, yes, it's all in the fingers but quality gear gives us a big advantage.

[Mook]

As I wise man once told be and I always use it as my mantra......'sh*t goes in....sh*t comes out. You can't polish a turd'

I think it's all how you interact with any different instrument, each one reacts differently so you have to learn how to tickle it in the right places. Some people don't seem to have the patience to find the G-spot and move on to a different instrument hoping that it'll solve their problems.

[Stan_da_man]

I firmly believe that the three main factors in 'your' tone are the way you hit the strings, the pickups on the bass and how fresh/dead the strings are. That's why I always sound like me whatever bass/rig I play.

[Conan]

[quote name='Inti' timestamp='1357595154' post='1925193']
Are you implying that a musician who improves the whole paying attention to the details is egocentric?
[/quote]

To a certain extent, aren't all musicians egocentric?

[Conan]

[quote name='Stan_da_man' timestamp='1357643336' post='1925718']
I firmly believe that the three main factors in 'your' tone are the way you hit the strings, the pickups on the bass and how fresh/dead the strings are. That's why I always sound like me whatever bass/rig I play.
[/quote]

I would say that it is pretty much just the first one! But the way you hit the strings will vary depending on the feedback that your ears are giving you. I think this is most noticeable when I am too low in the mix (IMO). As a result I try to dig in more in order to be louder, and therefore the sound changes... Fresh strings tend to be a bit louder than old ones, but can also be a bit scooped in the mids - which again gives a perceived volume drop. Weak pickups are easier to deal with as you obvioulsy just up the gain on your amp.

So many factors. So many variables. But the biggest one is the player themselves (IMO of course!)

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Inti' timestamp='1357595154' post='1925193']
Are you implying that a musician who improves the whole paying attention to the details is egocentric?
[/quote]

I think we're hitting a language barrier here.

What I was trying to say is that "tone" of the bass (or any instrument for that matter) has to work within the context of the musical piece that it forms part of. IME lots of musicians can't always see that. There are plenty of threads on this forum extolling the virtues of a particular player's tone, but what they don't seem to appreciate is that the tone is great because of its place in the mix/arrangement of the music. Solo'd you might find that the bass part in isolation sounds rather ordinary if not downright strange, and in a different musical setting it probably wouldn't work at all.

What I find is that players who get singled out on musicians' forums for their "tone" tend to mostly play the same style of music so you never get to hear how they alter how they play and sound in a different genre supporting different instruments. My feeling is that some would be able to adapt, but they would no longer sound as we expect them to, others will be like fish out of water.

I certainly don't sound anything like the bassist I was back in the 80s, in tone or in my note choices. For me I know it's as much down to differences in the instruments and amplification I use, as it is to the styles of music I've play, and my technique as a musician. For me they are all equally important. To say that tone is all in the fingers is to oversimplify.

[chris_b]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1357644108' post='1925740']
....To say that tone is all in the fingers is to oversimplify....
[/quote]

+1

You're all taking this too literally.

Of course good players can sound bad on bad gear. This saying is not about equipment or who sound can sound good on what.

"The tone is in the fingers" is just another way of saying "talent will out".

Good gear will always make you sound better, that's why, unless you have a deal, the best players usually use the best gear, but the point is that it’s you, and how you play, that makes the difference between players.
[font=Arial][size=2] [/size][/font]

[cheddatom]

Come to my studio and plug your fingers into my bass, 25 pedal set-up, bi-amp rig, and see if you think you still have "your sound"

I'll readily admit it won't sound exactly the same as me playing, but it won't sound very far off. How you play obviously affects your tone, but depending on what you do to the signal, that effect can vary from moderate to subtle to pretty much non-existant.

[Mikey R]

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1357643949' post='1925736']
So many factors. So many variables. But the biggest one is the player themselves (IMO of course!)
[/quote]

I agree - but for different reasons. It is the player who knows that he sounds better with [i]that[/i] compressor set in just [i]that[/i] way, which allows him to sit better in the mix, and allows him to concentrate on playing rather than being heard.

Alot of people misunderstand the old phrase "A bad workman blames his tools." This doesnt mean that a good workman does good work with whatever tools he or she has to hand - it means a good workman will use the correct tools to get the job done to the desired quality. This may mean that the tools themselves need to be of a high enough quality and maintained to a level to achieve this goal.

Saying that choosing and maintaining your kit isnt important is total rubbish. If you hired a carpenter to fix your shed, you wouldnt care if he turned up with rusty saws and used his hammer on his mortice chisel, but you would care if this meant he couldnt do a decent job on the shed.

Billy Sheehan spends tons of time setting up his intruments so that he is able to play the way he plays.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1357646237' post='1925801']
Come to my studio and plug your fingers into my bass, 25 pedal set-up, bi-amp rig, and see if you think you still have "your sound"

[/quote]

You're right, it would sound like me playing through your electronics. No doubt wouldn't sound like me playing through my own stuff but I do doubt I would sound like you. Unless that was my intention and I eventually got good at it.

[Mornats]

[quote name='redstriper' timestamp='1357566362' post='1924530']
What exactly did you learn about fingering technique?
I want to improve my tone massively and I know the instrument is only a small part of the equation.

PS:
Sorry if you've already told this story
[/quote]

I didn't even think about explaining!

Ok, so left hand technique was all about making sure I was fretting properly (fingertips, not mashing the strings with the pads of my fingers) and getting used to one finger per fret. I'm now able to fret more confidently and and move around quicker, resulting in more time spent pressing the fret down the right way. So this helps with the tone coming from the left hand.

But it was my right hand technique that made the biggest instant difference. I noticed that when Matt played my bass, it sounded rounder and fuller than when I played it. I was fingering the strings with my fingertips, raking almost vertically up the strings. Matt taught me to play a bit more "into" the string, moving down towards the body slightly, using a bit more of my finger and bring them down to rest on the string below a bit more. The result was a much fuller, meatier bassier tone. It was like changing basses.

And overall, the improvements in technique, and again confidence, have given me a much more prominent, upfront and bassier sound. There's a lot more to it, many minor nuances that have helped but I've described the larger changes.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='Mikey R' timestamp='1357647698' post='1925848']

Saying that choosing and maintaining your kit isnt important is total rubbish.
[/quote]


Is that why no-one has said that?

We've established we don't say 'what a brilliant game from Ronaldo in his Nikes', it's just Ronaldo. Neither do we say 'Oh, that's Nigel Kennedy and his Stradivarius', its just Nigel Kennedy, nor do we say 'what a beautiful Constable with his sable brushes', its a Constable. Ansell Adams' stunning photos are from creative use of his camera and (perhaps moreso) his playing around in the dark room. However, who knows what make of camera/enlarger/chemicals etc he used? Who cares? Just look at the photos!

I'm sure they were taken and developed with the best he could afford (after all, a photo needs to be sharp before anything else - unless intentionally out of focus etc - just like a bass needs to have correct intonation and stay in tune before anything else. But why do we rattle on so much about cameras when all that lives is the photos? A great photographer is going to take great photos on an i-phone. Give a beautiful Olympus to most people and you'll get snaps. Nice and sharp, but snaps.

Shouldn't we be putting our efforts into playing our basses better rather than playing better basses?

[redstriper]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1357674879' post='1926580']

And overall, the improvements in technique, and again confidence, have given me a much more prominent, upfront and bassier sound. There's a lot more to it, many minor nuances that have helped but I've described the larger changes.

[/quote]

Thanks, it's interesting how we all play and I think there is no universally correct way.
I have quite a heavy touch and heavy gauge flatwound strings help with my tone.
String type has quite a big effect on my tone, but I still sound like me on any strings.
I have never had a lesson and I'm happy with my tone, but I often wish I could sound like some other players who use a lighter touch and play faster than I can.

I would say tone is about 90-95% in the player and 5-10% in the gear.
It's not all in the fingers though, the head and the heart have their parts too.

[Mornats]

[quote name='Inti' timestamp='1357678577' post='1926709']
Do you sincerely think you could hear the difference by an open string played by Jaco, Berlin and DiPiazza?
I really feel the tone is more determined by the gear than you think. Just put an od on your bass and try to get a clean sound with your fingers.
[/quote]

You could tell the difference between Matt playing my bass, and me playing my bass. The difference was at least the same, if not more than if I'd plugged a different bass into the amp. The bass was my Overwater by Tanglewood Contemporary J4 and Matt's Markbass 1x10 combo (sorry, don't know the model number). This was in fact, on open strings too as it was my right hand fingering technique that we worked on.

[Mornats]

[quote name='Inti' timestamp='1357678577' post='1926709']
I really feel the tone is more determined by the gear than you think. Just put an od on your bass and try to get a clean sound with your fingers.
[/quote]

Sorry, totally skipped this bit in my reply. I don't think we're talking about technique making a bigger difference than an effects pedal - after all they're designed to very specifically alter the sound. My point is that I believe my tone has changed and improved for the better by taking bass lessons more than it has from upgrading my Dean Hillsboro to any of the other basses in my signature.

[Mikey R]

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1357676161' post='1926628']
Is that why no-one has said that?
[/quote]

Sorry dude, that was the message I was getting - that tone is entirely in the fingers. I only wanted to say that gear choice is also important and is something a player can influence.

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1357676161' post='1926628']
Shouldn't we be putting our efforts into playing our basses better rather than playing better basses?
[/quote]

Indeed we should. But music is one of those things you never stop learning. You can put effort into learning to play, if you want you can also put effort into learning how you like to set up your instruments, how to fettle them to get the sounds you want, how to stroke them to get other sounds, how you might want to mix up the combinations for musical effect.

I think we're violently agreeing here. I dont know anything about cameras, but I guess there may be an aspect of getting the best results that is a combination of skill in setting up and skill in using the kit?

[Mornats]

I have to say that I'm not knocking good gear of course. 4 Strings hit it on the head when he said "[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][size=3]Shouldn't we be putting our efforts into playing our basses better rather than playing better basses?."[/size][/font][/color]

[4 Strings]

[quote name='Mikey R' timestamp='1357680660' post='1926774']
I think we're violently agreeing here. I dont know anything about cameras, but I guess there may be an aspect of getting the best results that is a combination of skill in setting up and skill in using the kit?
[/quote]

Great to violently agree! There is, and you are a right.

I think, tbh, I was rebelling against the amount of posts, articles, opinions etc that are expressed regarding ash vs alder, how molecules in wood line up with resonances making older electric instruments sound better and people going to pains to have a bass in a less hardwearing finish all to achieve differences in tone I'm pretty sure will always escape me (and, frankly, I don't mind if they do).

These are subtleties which would be massively out-weighed by simply improving bass playing and playing like a fab player such as Seth Govan, where you can hear the quality of his playing so much more obviously. If I want to sound as good as Seth, I need to play something like as well as he and put in something like the same amount of hard work, there's no shortcuts, for example, try the exercise at 12.45 in this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZSa9niKKE4
More wholesome that reading opinions about bright sounding maple fingerboards.

(Regarding sounding different on different gear, if you're interested, go to 14.00 and listen, that's Jaco, his Jazz is even fretted, for what is recognised as 'Jaco sound' needs a fretless, but this is still unmistakenly Jaco. (He's not going to sound much different on a cheap Jazz copy.) Now go to 44.45 or so when he's playing that horrible looking fretless. Often, untypically for the Jaco sound, on the front pup, sounds different but still sounds like Jaco. Its got more knobs and probably expensive wood and pups, does it sound better than his simple Jazz? Does it sound more, or less like Jaco? How about at 1:18:00 when he's go that fuzz thing going?)

Edited January 9, 2013 by 4 Strings

[TimR]

What concerns me here is everyone talking about 'my tone'. It's almost like you all play every note exactly the same way.

I'm reading things like 'I dig in', 'I play with the tips', 'I play with the flat', and 'I tend to play harder when I'm buried in the mix.'

Seems to me that there is a lot of learning to be done with respect to expression. Every note should be played differently. With a good instrument you should be able to control the subtleties of tone using your hands only. If you're buried in the mix then it's not your playing, it's your level and EQ that need sorting.

It's these subtleties and your phrasing that make the music and they won't change from one instrument to another.

[Mornats]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1357691120' post='1926980']
With a good instrument you should be able to control the subtleties of tone using your hands only.
[/quote]

Would you say this is only true of good instruments or any instruments? I'd have thought it would be the same for any instrument. That is, you can control the tone in the same way with the same effect, even if the instruments natural tone is not as good as another's.

[chrismuzz]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1357691120' post='1926980']
It's these subtleties and your phrasing that make the music
[/quote]

True.


[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1357691120' post='1926980']
they won't change from one instrument to another.
[/quote]

Not necessarily true however. The basses that I play respond very well to my style of playing, whereas I have played on basses worth 10x as much where no matter how I played or where I set the knobs I didn't sound the way I wanted to. I couldn't possibly knock the equipment as it sounds phenomenal in other peoples hands.

To me, it's not about having the 'best' gear, it's about having the gear that compliments what you do. This is proably why there are hundreds of instrument manufacturers who all have their fans, rather than just everybody playing a Fender Precision and saying it's the only bass worth having.

Very interesting topic this

[Conan]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1357691120' post='1926980']
'I tend to play harder when I'm buried in the mix.'

Seems to me that there is a lot of learning to be done with respect to expression. Every note should be played differently. With a good instrument you should be able to control the subtleties of tone using your hands only. If you're buried in the mix then it's not your playing, it's your level and EQ that need sorting.
[/quote]

Yes. Thanks for the lecture but I am well aware of this! It was me who made the comment about being buried in the mix. But I was actually referring to a specific situation that occurred last weekend.

We were recording in the guitarist's house and all the instruments were DI'ed. It had taken ages to get a "reasonable" mix for the five of us through headphones and although I was happy with it at the start, once we started playing I found that I was too low in the mix.

I couldn't just wander over to my amp and turn up, and the only way to get my level boosted was to stop playing, halt everyone else, and adjust the level at the desk. I didn't want to do this so I just played a bit harder!!

Edited January 9, 2013 by Conan

[Mikey R]

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1357689848' post='1926971']
Great to violently agree! There is, and you are a right.

I think, tbh, I was rebelling against the amount of posts, articles, opinions etc that are expressed regarding ash vs alder, how molecules in wood line up with resonances making older electric instruments sound better and people going to pains to have a bass in a less hardwearing finish all to achieve differences in tone I'm pretty sure will always escape me (and, frankly, I don't mind if they do).
[/quote]

Yeah, people tend to want to understand everything and assume that everything must be predictable, but the truth of instrument design is that nothing is predictable due to the explosive number of variables involved. If its a good instrument and you like playing it, play it.

However, I think we all agree this wont guarantee greatness - you cant buy your way into being a better player. When you start out, a typical thought might be "if I got that amp or that stomp box then I could finally nail that line" when in fact to nail that line, you just need to play it again and again till you get it. You see this alot more with sports, where people buy kit to try to get an advantage, but its the same mental process that causes GAS.

A better player will know what they want from their kit, that is the absolute extent of it.