Tone-o-phelia

[Corathios]

Hey there fellow bassists. I've come across quite a number of threads in the past dealing with people looking for certain types of tone. After having played bass for 13 years and studying tone shaping pretty intensely (I'm a total audiophile) for the past 6 years or so, I've come to appreciate a variety of tones and also the subjectivity involved in the aesthetics of tone shaping. I'd like to initiate some discussion regarding everyone's preferred bass tone(s).

What kind of tone do you like best, or at least prefer most of the time (given, perhaps, your preferred style of playing) and why?

I know that might be a broad, open ended question for many people, especially if you play many different styles. I play finger-style exclusively. I like to play a fusion of styles somewhere between rock, funk and jazz. I'd say that my primary influences, regarding style and tone are Jack Casady, Jack Bruce, James Jamerson and Tim Bogert. Concerning tone, I'm chiefly interested in the viscerality of the bass and how it induces feeling in the body, through the ears, rather than making sure that my notes are especially clean and polished. So, I definitely like a big, fat, swelling tone with a relatively tight, punchy attack. I play through an old Peavey Mark VIII that runs through an Acoustic 1x15...9 band EQ, compressor, low-mid boost, high and low shelving filters. I also use a Korg Pandora multieffect digital processor as a preamp: compressor, amp and cab modeling, noise gate, and fixed envelope filter set slightly below the median. Given my practice space, my EQ resembles a "seagull"...slight boosts to low and high mids, tapering off back to flat on the low and high ends. I like to "make a hole" in my tone by dropping 660hz by about 8dB. This keeps my notes singing, with the high and low mids accentuated, while keeping my attack soft and avoiding any harshness. The compressors that I use have simple controls...just a ratio modulation. I set the amp compressor at 4:1 and the digital unit compressor at 8:1. I'm not entirely sure how the two compressors interact with each other but, believe it or not, my tone doesn't suffer from being "squashed". The attack punches like an iron gauntlet in a padded velvet glove. I play a Squier Vintage Modified Jazz bass...rolling the bridge pickup back to about 90% to soften the blow, and rolling the neck back to slightly under that, giving a slight "springy" kind of sound. I also darken the tone ever so slightly to provide some thickness. With the amp modeling I get some tube-emulated fuzz. I keep the gain low so that the fuzz is barely audible...more "felt" as an "inner texture" of the tone rather than heard in the forefront of the sound...sounds like creamy-style peanut butter Haha, I could talk about tone settings all day! But, in general, the quality of "warmth" is what I go for. I like my tone to surround and saturate the ears of the listeners. A good example of what my sound is like would be the bass in "It Ain't Over Till It's Over", by Lenny Kravitz.

Ok, I've spilled enough of my guts about my own tone. I'd love to hear from other people regarding their tonal preferences, the gear that they use as well as the settings of said gear, in order to achieve their desired tone(s).

[Musky]

Roll off the highs, slight boost to the low mids and maybe a minor cut to the bottom end. Tweak according to the room. Job done.

[RandomBass]

[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1378365936' post='2199074']
Roll off the highs, slight boost to the low mids and maybe a minor cut to the bottom end. Tweak according to the room. Job done.
[/quote]

Pretty much this for me too. I like a bit of a boost around 100hz to 340hz.

[Happy Jack]

She drowned, you know. Ophelia. Drowned. Great shame it was. They say it was suicide. I'm not convinced. Great painting though. Millais, was it?

[xgsjx]

My influence re: tone is from Drum n Bass, House, Electronica & the like.
One of my guitarists last night said that he feels the bass in his chest more than he hears it.

[Merton]

I always go back to the bass tone on Empire (Queensryche) as my absolute fave but I dig most tones that aren't crap.

Award for the most helpful comment won't be going to me this year

[Merton]

Er, more helpfully. I like a big round tone with a little bit of bite but I'm not a fan of tweeters. I run my MBFusion almost flat with the deep switch engaged. I find myself preferring the sound and feel of halfwounds to roundwounds though for dirty rock sounds roundwounds are still the way forward IMO.