Heavy guage flatwounds - too boomy?!

[stefBclef]

Evening all

I mostly play reggae, so I am looking for that fat, round, deep, dead, thuddy bass tone.

I play a Squier VM P and about 6 months ago I bought a set of LaBella Deep Talking Heavy Guage flats.

They do a great job of producing the above mentioned sound, however, if im being honest, I think they may be TOO good at producing this bassy tone, to the point where it can often sound boomy.

I often find myself EQing flat and the tone I get still sounds a bit boomy, which takes away from the beauty of a round fat, dull tone.

So, I guess my question is "Has anyone else experienced this and did they solve the problem by changing the strings to a slightly lighter guage?"

Also, Could the pickup height affect this factor? I.e. could this booming be because the pickups are too close to the strings?

Many thanks one and all

Stef

[redstriper]

I play reggae, but I've never used [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]LaBellas because I'm happy with GHS precision flats (55-105)[/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif].[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]You could try lowering the pick up and/or raising the action to see if it helps and also experiment with your amp eq to find the right tone.[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I prefer cutting treble and mids rather than boosting the bass, but it depends on your amp and the tone of your bass.[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Another thing that can help cut the boom is a lump of foam under the strings by the bridge if you play old skool rocksteady and want a dull, muted tone.[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I play a Jazz bass, neck pick up only with the tone rolled off, like[/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif] [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Family man and Robbie [/font][/color]

TI flats can sound deep and fat on a Precision, (Pino uses them) and a friend of mine has them on his Pino signature Fender Precision in his dub reggae band - you can hear it here:
[url="https://soundcloud.com/avatardub/kindness-dub"]https://soundcloud.com/avatardub/kindness-dub[/url]
I think the TIs sound great on this and on Pino's stuff and they never sound boomy, but they are very low tension, unlike your LaBellas.

Finding the right strings for the right bass can be tricky and expensive, but worth it in the end - good luck and irie ites.
Steve

[Happy Jack]

+1 to Steve's post, but I'd put a bit more emphasis on the cab at this stage before assuming it's the strings.

What cab are you playing through, and do you use a stand or (ideally) an Auralex Grammapad or similar?

Do you get the booming issue when you play other styles of music, or is it just with reggae?

[Raggy]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1361100710' post='1980955']
What cab are you playing through, and do you use a stand or (ideally) an [b]Auralex Grammapad [/b]or similar?
[/quote]

This will help a lot.

[Lozz196]

I had heavy gauge LaBellas on my Precision for a while. I didn`t have any problems with booming. That said, I always lower the pickups underneath the E string, as I`m a touch heavy-handed, so this may be a solution, if the boom is only on the lower string(s).