tone

[timmo]

How do you get tone. Is it the equipment, or is it in your fingers/pick? I read somewhere but not on this forum that tone can only be achieved by the way you hit the strings

[BassBus]

All of the above. Type of pickup. Type of wood. Type of string. Type of cables. Type of amp. Type of speaker. Type of picking approach.

I'd also add that the type of surface your amp sits on is important too. I have put my amp on a hard wooden table and get a hideous , mid heavy tone. Place it on a soft cushioned surface and a much warmer tone.

[ezbass]

Tone is merely what you hear and every instrument has it; pleasurable tone is another matter entirely. As Bassbus say everything adds to the final sound, but the biggest contributors to tone are the transducers in the signal (pickups and speakers) and their placement. Next is probably fingers (or pick or thumb, whatever you use) and their attack and placement, then probably strings, followed by construction materials of the various parts of the chain. Good tone is subjective, what you like, and what you use to achieve it, may not please the next person. Personally I find the tone of John Entwhistle's later rig really nasty, whilst his earlier tone (Quadrophenia) really lush; if he were still alive I'm sure he'd disagree with. Find what you like and stick with it.

[timmo]

Thanks for the replies. There are a lot of factors involved then

[shizznit]

Tone is always subjective and personal approaches and methods to achieve what you want is almost infinitely diverse. There is no law set on how to achieve a desired tones...just very subtle guidelines. Beyond every individual's physical playing technique the choice of bass, amp, strings, leads...even setup plays a significant part in the overall tonal result.

Because there are so many assets that contribute to your desired tone it's not always simple to immediately aim at the tone that you want. That's why so many of us here on BC spend a lot of time and money hunting down our 'go to' tone. Above all else, playing technique is the main attribute to getting to that sonic paradise that you want to expect from yourself. All the gear needed to polish off the end result comes later and more than often takes a lot of experimentations/trials and errors.

It also takes a lot of time to train your ears and understand how bass frequencies work and the physics that effects them. It's a very difficult sonic spectrum to work within. That takes time and experience to understand and manage. Playing bass requires a lot of thought!