setting EQ

[Kevin Dean]

Has anyone one else spent hours on playing with their EQ & then gone back to their origanal setting & thought  they'd spent hours making a crap sound instead of rehearsing a set ?

[casapete]

Know what you mean. Gave up all that faffing a while ago now, nearly always just set the eq flat and make slight adjustments

if necessary on the fly. Works for me 

[JBP]

So many times... and recently acquiring a bass with coil taps and a 3 band EQ does not help. 

[Ghost_Bass]

Yep! Spent a few years faffing around with my old TE amp trying to get find a tone that in the end was just a flat setting with a bit of HPF. Thank god for the class-D boom!

[PaulWarning]

yep, I've got a TE GP12, that combined with 2 preshape settings is a recipe for endless twiddling, since it dawned on me that what sounds good on my own and what sounds good in a band situation are two completely different things I just cut the 30 and 40Hz sliders and maybe 5Hz and above depending on the state of my strings and the room, I should add I also use a Zoom B1on bass drive sim mode to try and compensate for my dodgy technique 

[lownote]

Got my ideal setting by accident.  Spent ages setting EQ then brushed against the pots cos I'm clumsy.  Resulting sound was mega, but the setting would look crazy on paper.

[Doctor J]

I usually bypass the EQ at home. Every bass which wants to stay must sound good with no EQ otherwise I move it on. Any adjustments for gigs are no more than a couple of db either way to suit the room.

[uk_lefty]

Graphic EQ just leads to drawing weird facial expressions. When I got a three knob amp that settled it for me, all flat then tweak as needed. I'm now on a five knob amp so I ignore two of them and tweak the other three. A decent amp and decent bass will sound good with flat eq I think.

[Kevin Dean]

I use a Roland GR55  & I wished I hadn't come across its EQ section .

[casapete]

1 minute ago, Kevin Dean said:

I use a Roland GR55  & I wished I hadn't come across its EQ section .

[taunton-hobbit]

Back in the Stone Age I was sharing a stage with Shakin' Stevens -

the lead gitard has just got an amp (Fender?) with eq, & asked if I could help set it up

(what did I know?) - we landed up with everything level.................

[stingrayPete1977]

My 'for big gigs' head is one of these, I struggle with a basic eq at the best of times so I can get myself in a right mess with this, in fact I can mess up the FET channel along the top row, then mess up the valve channel across the bottom before messing up the global EQ for the main output section on the right, that's before you start pushing in the extra buttons! There's just as many things to mess with on the back panel if you do finally master the front,  lol. 

[Japhet]

Everything flat pretty much. Sometimes a room creates a few problems but then I always try to cut before I boost anything.

[lownote]

These are my chance EQ settings.  For my sound, and on a Markbass only I suspect, with a P bass clone and ToneRider pup, these are awesome.  Bass, around the middle, both mids rolled way down, treble slightly over middle, both VLE and VPF half way to full. So that's a double scoop.  The result is a very thuddy bass sound, not unlike old dead strings with a mute, with real 'smokey' atmosphere and character.  But with the options of dialing all the bright clang back in if needed, for instance to cut through a band mix. For me, poifick. 

 

[Lozz196]

13 minutes ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

My 'for big gigs' head is one of these, I struggle with a basic eq at the best of times so I can get myself in a right mess with this, in fact I can mess up the FET channel along the top row, then mess up the valve channel across the bottom before messing up the global EQ for the main output section on the right, that's before you start pushing in the extra buttons! There's just as many things to mess with on the back panel if you do finally master the front,  lol. 

And don`t forget the on-board eq on that `Ray, Pete,

[stingrayPete1977]

6 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

And don`t forget the on-board eq on that `Ray, Pete,

Oh yeah and sometimes I have a Fishman plat pro EQ for the double bass too, di to the digital desk so another 31 band EQ on there! 

[Ghost_Bass]

22 minutes ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

My 'for big gigs' head is one of these, I struggle with a basic eq at the best of times so I can get myself in a right mess with this, in fact I can mess up the FET channel along the top row, then mess up the valve channel across the bottom before messing up the global EQ for the main output section on the right, that's before you start pushing in the extra buttons! There's just as many things to mess with on the back panel if you do finally master the front,  lol. 

Why do you have problems with your tone? The EQ on both channels looks perfect to me on that picture!  I bet it sounds awesome like that.

[Skol303]

I think a lot of people just don't really know what tone they're looking for.

So they twiddle about a bit with EQ; try out a few different options; think "meh...does that sound right, I dunno?"; and then zero all settings back to neutral.

They then gander about online shopping for a new amp/instrument/strings/whatever to help achieve what EQ couldn't - again, without really knowing what the desired outcome should be.

Pot Luck ad infinitum  

[Osiris]

Over years I've found that less is usually more when it comes to getting decent bass sound. Start with everything flat and just make small adjustments to the room if necessary.

And I always go for a sound that works well with the rest of the band - it may not sound as sexy as a massive mid-scoop (which always seems to make the bass disappear from the mix when I've used it), but it works in context, and that's got to be the critical point, hasn't it? 

5 hours ago, Ghost_Bass said:

Yep! Spent a few years faffing around with my old TE amp trying to get find a tone that in the end was just a flat setting with a bit of HPF. Thank god for the class-D boom!

Agreed, I had a GP12SMX back in the day, it had a million tone shaping options but it was the only amp I've ever played that I could never get a good, usable sound out out of, no matter what you did with it. 

IMO/IME a simple 3 or 4 band EQ is way more effective. 

[casapete]

1 hour ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

My 'for big gigs' head is one of these, I struggle with a basic eq at the best of times so I can get myself in a right mess with this, in fact I can mess up the FET channel along the top row, then mess up the valve channel across the bottom before messing up the global EQ for the main output section on the right, that's before you start pushing in the extra buttons! There's just as many things to mess with on the back panel if you do finally master the front,  lol. 

You see, having that amount of controls would instantly put me off the amp! I struggle with the 4 bands

on my GK stuff but know pretty much to mostly leave them alone. 

Still can't understand too why some people buy an expensive amp with lots of tonal options and then choose to run it 

with a preamp with even more going on. 

[barneyg42]

The worst thing I find is setting up what seems a good sound then halfway through the first half finding it sounds like shite to my ears and then having a fellow bassist give me a big compliment on my offstage sound! A regular problem I guess but so frustrating! 

[stingrayPete1977]

4 hours ago, casapete said:

You see, having that amount of controls would instantly put me off the amp! I struggle with the 4 bands

on my GK stuff but know pretty much to mostly leave them alone. 

Still can't understand too why some people buy an expensive amp with lots of tonal options and then choose to run it 

with a preamp with even more going on. 

I use a second preamp just for double bass, that's a thread in itself, lol.

Other people might actually be using a preamp with less controls or a tone they prefer but using the power amp just for the power section so the myriad of knobs might not actually be doing anything.

[Creeper]

The problem is that what sounds good at home playing by yourself sounds pretty crappy in the mix, so for me I will do the scoop thing at home, but in a band situation it’s pretty flat, and any minor tweaks will be on the bass itself

[Yank]

I like the options on a passive bass.  A tone knob.  You can turn it up or down.  I turn it down.

[Lozz196]

25 minutes ago, Yank said:

I like the options on a passive bass.  A tone knob.  You can turn it up or down.  I turn it down.

I`m the same, but opposite, one tone knob, on full all the time.

My ideal tone was on an Ampeg PF500 a few years ago, all eq set at midday, both Low & High presets selected, a tad of on-board compression. Was P-Bass heaven, imo.