Tone...The Holy Grail

[Pete Academy]

We're all chasing that elusive tone that we hear in our heads. But is it all down to our fingers and how we play? Are we wasting our time and money buying new gear?

[Chris2112]

No. I love trying out new sounds, and new instruments. If I wanted one tone that I could have been happy with all my life I would have kept the Kubicki Ex Factor bass I got when I was 16. There is much fun to be had in chasing the tone. Once you find it, you'll decide you want something else!

[51m0n]

Nah, sorry yes the gear we use can only make the input signal we put into it sound louder, but it can also degrade that signal immeasurably.

Tell you what, you give me your Roscoe, etc etc and pick up one of those cheap as chips starter packs from Tescoe that are your favourites and see what that does for your tone matey

Personally my ability to produce the sounds I want to has been a far shorter road than most peoples on here, mainly because when I decided to get back into playing bass my mindset was very much "no compromise" on kit quality, I got the sa450 first, massive improvement over the old amp I had, then the ae410, total and utter revelation, and finally my Roscoe, and that took a few months to really start to get my head round (being a 35" 5 string) but timbrally it was all there the minute I plugged it in.

Still makes me grin like berk every time I play through the whole rig.

[lettsguitars]

Your technique is what makes your sound YOURS. I get so tired of people asking how they can sound like other players. Of course good, or more accurately, the right gear for you gets you the right sound but voicing, attack, phrasing, dynamics and all that other stuff are all down to the player. An honest set of scatterwound pickups are probably the most important part of the gear chain. That and a decent amp.

[icastle]

Absolutely

If I swapped kit with anyone on here and played around with the tone controls for 5 minutes, I'd still sound like me and vice versa.

It's not just equipment, it's playing style, technique, feel and empathy for what you're playing.

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='Pete Academy' timestamp='1359500161' post='1955945']
We're all chasing that elusive tone that we hear in our heads. But is[b] it [/b]all down to our fingers and how we play? Are we wasting our time and money buying new gear?
[/quote]

depends what it is.
Tone is partly from an instrument
and partly from the player.

I think as you learn more you realise that one half is more important than the other

[leroydiamond]

in my experience a class player using a squire will get a better tone than an average player using a high end/boutique bass. I tended in the past to focus on gear in the pursuit of tone, but feel that concentrating on technique and control yields greater dividends

[bigjohn]

All depends on what gear. I've just forked out on an Alembic FX-1 Pre-amp. I'm looking for a smoother deeper tone than I get easily out of my Ampeg SVP-Pro. The Ampeg does does get close to where I'm trying to get, but I have to remove a lot of gain from the signal, which sort of defeats the object of having a five valve pre-amp that sounds great when it's cranked. It's just that at the moment, I'm not really cranking it like that.

That's not in my fingers.

[lettsguitars]

[quote name='bigjohn' timestamp='1359505970' post='1956024']
All depends on what gear. I've just forked out on an Alembic FX-1 Pre-amp. I'm looking for a smoother deeper tone than I get easily out of my Ampeg SVP-Pro. The Ampeg does does get close to where I'm trying to get, but I have to remove a lot of gain from the signal, which sort of defeats the object of having a five valve pre-amp that sounds great when it's cranked. It's just that at the moment, I'm not really cranking it like that.

That's not in my fingers.
[/quote]No, it's all in your head!
No you are right. Tone is [u]mostly[/u] a gear thing. All the countless other factors are down to the individual. Anyone can sound like an amp. The trick is making the amp sound like you.

[bigjohn]

[quote name='lettsguitars' timestamp='1359506662' post='1956033']
No, it's all in your head!

[/quote]

Ha ha, Too true. There's something to be said for using the right tools for the job though. Even if it's just to provide some comfort that you're doing something right

No doubt I'll end up cranking the Alembic and trying to make it sound like the Ampeg. I'll probably end up running them in series.

Edited January 30, 2013 by bigjohn

[gjones]

After going through 8 basses and 5 amps in the last 4 years I now have the one bass and one amp that will allow me to achieve the sound I have I my head. They're not top of the range by any standard but they do the trick.

But without going through that buying and selling frenzy I would never have gained the knowledge that allowed me to be where I am now.

I no longer have amp envy.








[size=2]Although I still fancy a Stingray (it's a sound you just can't get from a Jazz however hard you try) [/size]
[size=2] [/size]

[Lowender]

WIth amps, I find something that works and don't think about it. But I've found you can't get every tone with one bass. A Jazz won't sound like a Ric and a Ric won't sound like a P and a Music Man won't sound like a jazz and so on and so on. You don't NEED all those tones but they exist. Oddly enough, I found boutique basses to have the most innocuous tones.

[wateroftyne]

I'm pretty much there with the tone I have in my head.

The big challenge now is getting FOH guys to share the vision. In general, they use bass to rearrange people's insides rather than let punters hear the notes.

[casapete]

A wise local muso once told me that most people spend 6 months trying to get their new guitar/amp to sound
exactly like their old one. Many a true word etc................

[JamesBass]

This is a subject that many people are divided on because we all have different ideas of tone. I for instance have worked pretty tirelessly over the past year or two learning new techniques and getting the attack and dynamics right with my right hand playing, while strengthening my left hand so that after a good hours playing I feel no burn and no slacking in terms of grip which leads to fret buzz. I'm really comfortable with my technique now, especially when it comes to playing finger style. Now slap I can't do and pick I'm pretty alright at but, my best tone comes from playing finger style predominantly and while I'm playing Rock genre esque music.

However, all the time I worked on my technique I had a Traben active bass that had 2 rockfield hum buckers, incredibly bass-y tone and very heavy almost metal like tone even when bass was scooped and the amp was set up with less bass again, it just didn't suit me and I knew it was the bass cause my Squire P sounded pretty good still, so I've recently bought a new bass, a Rickenbacker 4003 and now my tone is almost there, for the next few months I'm gonna sit next to my amp and fiddle with the EQ as I play to get that right balance.

So tone, like beauty is in the eye or ear of the beholder

[thumperbob 2002]

I must admit I have bought gear in the past hoping for it ( amp/ cab / bass / pedal ) to give me a particular tone, but overall that was just codswallop. It really is in the fingers- I find that setup and strings do more than anything else really, when the right technique is applied.

One stack of gear , without being in a band mix can sound very much different to another stack, but in a band environment- ( where its important to judge ) its all in the playing.

As Marcus Miller said - you can buy all the cool gear etc but when you have two pickups, fingers, and an amp with EQ, you have a LOT of options open to you.

[Musicman20]

I'm pretty sure that when I used a cheap Sue Ryder P Bass for fun at a run of Spring gigs, the compliments on the band and the drum/bass work was more than I expected.

Tone is fun, and its great to mess around with new sounds. Technique is a massive part of who makes you though. I was always a bassist fighting for limelight over the guitarists, so it has reflected in my playing.

[ubassman]

For us DB boys tone is the holy grail of what we do ...sweet vibrato like a cello, nice pizzicato 'pung', fluid graceful arco string section sound etc . There so much in the set up of our gear to get the strings and action right, a decent bow, sound post lined up etc and then theres the whole gear issue about amplification and getting a natural sound ...and thats all before we add a player's technique , ear and ability into the mix. The most important bit is the musicality bit where we want to make the right tone at the right time to add texture and bring a piece to life.

So, to sound like a good'un ....all three elements deserve our attention :-

Gear
Technique
Musicality ( without this last one the other two aren't really on the radar !)

A good musician can make a rubbish instrument sound good !

[Musicman20]

[quote name='ubassman' timestamp='1359543830' post='1956268']
A good musician can make a rubbish instrument sound good !
[/quote]

+1

[xilddx]

[quote name='casapete' timestamp='1359536580' post='1956132']
A wise local muso once told me that most people spend 6 months trying to get their new guitar/amp to sound
exactly like their old one. Many a true word etc................
[/quote]

Excellent! Although I'm not convinced this is true

[Lozz196]

Much of it is most definately in our fingers/plecs, and the way we play. I put on a new set of Nickel Roto Rounds on my 78 Precision yesterday, and just by hitting the string differently could get a motown type sound, or a Mike Dirnt type sound, or a Bruce Foxton type sound. Must admit, they all sounded like a Precision through an Ampeg, but since it was a Precision through an Ampeg, that rather pleased me.

[xilddx]

It's not just tone that we're after with kit though, the attack and release, and the envelope, are as important, or even more so, than tone. Tone is a misleading word.

True that a lot of our sounds come from what we do with our hands, but if your bass, amp and effects are not reacting to your hands in the way you need or expect, or in a way that pleases and inspires you, or in a way that fits your musical vision or the music you play, then it's time to change that kit for something that does. Of course, there is a lot of inexperience or ignorance around too, which the industry likes to capitalise on.

I change my sounds quite often, I am on a journey of improvement. But because I have a POD X3 LIVE, I dont need to spend loads of cash buying and selling amps and effects to get what I want. And I have the ONE bass which delights me.

[KevB]

Depends to some extent where you are coming from musically though. Those creating their own music have a more 'personal' interaction with the music than hacks like me knocking out covers in pub bands. Thus i can see why those on the 'personal' side might have more of an odyssey to find [i]their [/i]perfect sound. It's not that I don't care about my sound but I'm approaching it from a different perspective. I'm listening to material first played by someone else and though I don't slavishly try to emulate what's been done before I try to produce an overrall sound that's in keeping with the style of material I'm asked to do. If I was doing rock stuff with generally bright zingy sounding bass on it i wouldn't set my gear up in the same way i would if I was asked to do Motown with mostly softer edged 'thuddier' sounding lines, nor would i be necessarily using the same playing techniques either.

[Lowender]

No one tone works for all things. There have been guys that have built bands and albums around their tone (Stanley, Chris Squire,Claypool etc) but those tones would not work in other applications.

So don't be surprised if you find the ultimate sound and the engineer or bandleader says, "Mmm, what else ya got? "

[plumbob]

Unless your going to be some sort of individual virtuoso I now think it doesn’t matter.

If you play in a covers band surely the emphasis is to get the tone to match the track as best you can, whether that means playing more on the back pickup for a more throaty bark or more on the front pickup and palm muting for a motown track. Unfortunately Joe public won’t even notice.

We also have the problem that we and the general public have been conditioned for nearly 50 years to the Fender electric bass sound due to the amount of tracks that it has been used on over the years, I remember reading somewhere in the bass for sale section that someone was selling a stunning boutique bass, because they’d bought a fender jazz which would cover all there work, and that it would make the studio engineers happy because they new what to do with that bass tone!

I recently picked up a 2[sup]nd[/sup] hand first generation Roland V bass system it has pretty much most of the bass tones covered, in isolation you could nit pick over the sounds but in a band studio situation you honestly wouldn’t know, I have a running joke with the drummer when we record anything as to whether I’m playing my bass or I’m playing a plank of would with strings (the V bass) which is all it is when just running off the midi pickup only.
So to cover most tones I am now using a combination of things, my plank of wood with strings is actually a Yamaha TRB5Pll, a Roland V bass, an EBS HD650 amp and a BFM Jack 12.

Also remember if going through a PA, your bass tone goes into a mixing desk preamp, desk eq, desk gates etc, and then out through there amps and probably out through 15’’ or 18’ speakers, so where’s your tone now, I think its probably more important to just be able to hear yourself !!

Edited January 30, 2013 by plumbob