Knowing the bass sound you want?

[Al Krow]

Just been chatting with another bassist and it prompted me to think how many of us actually know the bass sound we are looking for?

I guess those of us that do will find it much easier to get the right gear and that 'gear quest' can get narrowed down much more quickly.

But would we agree that knowing what sound you're after is easier if you're writing your own material / in an originals band, than if your focus is more covers / function band? (Which is what I'm doing and probably why I've not really given too much thought to 'my' bass sound, other than I'd like it to be good!)

So suggested topic for discussion, if you're up for it, is:

- how did you work out / stumble on what sound you were after? Was it a particular bass player or a bass line on a music track (if so, who / what?)

- if you know your sound, how would you describe it? (May be a tricky one to put in words, I guess!)

- what are the key ingredients in your signal chain that are essential to delivering 'that sound'. (Hopefully we'll get some great suggestions for combinations of strings, PUPs, EQs, amps, cabs and pedals, depending on which are the most important /really key bits of the chain for you).

[ianrendall]

I’ve always been chasing the bass sound equivalent of a big lazy idling American V8 burbling away inside a Plymouth ‘Cuda. Randy HT’s work with Incognito reminds me of this. 

[scrumpymike]

Good one this!  As far as I'm aware, the sound in my head is a sound remembered - although I don't know from when or of what.  Not to mention the fact that the memory can often play tricks.  I guess it came from the players who influenced me in the '60s and '70s.  However, they were pretty diverse (Jamerson, Macca, Jack Bruce, Andy Fraser, Ric Grech, John McVie, Pete Farndon) - so presumably an amalgam then.  It's smooth but punchy, weighty but clean... well, I know what I mean!!  But knowing that I'd recognise it when I heard it didn't help much, as there's so much stuff out there to try.  I've been satisfied with my sound before but, after lots of trial and error, what really hits the spot now is my Subway 800 through a couple of BF SC3s.  This seems to work with all my basses and the only pedals I use are compression and volume.

[Lozz196]

When we started our band I really had no idea of the type of sound I wanted - or more importantly that the band needed. My preferred sound is a traditional warm Precision/Ampeg type sound, maybe a touch of high end and compression to stop it being boomy. But that wasn`t what was needed, the guitarist has a very full on, and at the time quite bassy sound, so didn`t want a sludge fest, especially as we play fast. Additionally as we`re a 3-piece I didn`t want the backside of the songs to drop when there was a solo, so added a bit of gain, a fair bit of top end, and some high-mids. I ended up with somewhere between Duff McKagan, Mike Dirnt, JJ Burnell & Bruce Foxton. Which imo isn`t a bad place to be, sound-wise. I also developed a slight different style to suit the music I`m now playing, again to fill out more in lead solos.

To get this sound I`ve tried a fair few preamp/DI pedals, Tech 21 Sansamp BDDI, Tech 21 VTDI, Aguilar Tonehammer, and combinations of these, but eventually settled on the Tech 21 Para Driver - it has sweepable mids, so I can get the regular Sansamp type sound, just with boosted upper mids. It`s a great pedal and that piece of kit that I find invaluable, pairs so nicely with the weighty sound of my Ashdown ABM600.

[Reggaebass]

It’s not really my thing but I heard     we are detective by the Thompson twins the other day  the bass tone is great 

[T-Bay]

I want trousers flapping lows but well defined, I am not after plinky brightness but it must cut through. As to finding it, well I thought I had but as every room is different it’s an ever changing game. I think I am close with a change of valves to lower gain ones being (hopefully) the last piece in the puzzle.

[PaulWarning]

plenty off low mids bit of presence (around the 3k Hz ) but no boom, my job being in a band with one guitarist is to fill out the sound, not really interested in the really low stuff, I leave that to the bass drum  

[dannybuoy]

It's important to try and listen to your sound in the context of the rest of the band, which is hard to do effectively at high volume rehearsals. I like to play along to studio recordings with different combinations of basses and preamp pedals into headphones to figure out what works best.

The last couple of bands I've been in have had a very thick distorted guitar tone (e.g. Les Paul into a cranked Orange tube head). Here I've found it best to use a scooped tone to provide a pillow of low end to underpin the sound, but with a bit of crispy gain up top to add clarity and fill out that upper midrange where the guitarist and vocalist don't often tread. I used a BB1025X with both pickups on which is naturally scooped and growly anyway, into a Darkglass B3K, although the Tech21 DP-3X is my weapon of choice for this tone now.

If I'm playing at the jam night down my local, totally different ball game. Often more then one guitar, but usually thinner sounding, and often a higher pitched female vocalist. To slot in here I stay out of the upper mids, go easy on the deep low end and fill out the lower mids with a P-Bass or my Sandberg Basic (a bit like a Stingray), both of which are wearing TI flats. Either straight into the amp or via a low gain drive pedal of a totally different flavour to the other setup. Full range OD with no clean blend is the order of the day here, something that produces a guttural roar from below rather than grind from up top when you dig in, e.g. SFT, BB Preamp, Beta, Agro.

[Al Krow]

55 minutes ago, T-Bay said:

I want trousers flapping lows but well defined, I am not after plinky brightness but it must cut through. As to finding it, well I thought I had but as every room is different it’s an ever changing game. I think I am close with a change of valves to lower gain ones being (hopefully) the last piece in the puzzle.

Sounds like you're nearly there! So what are the key elements of your signal chain & settings?

[T-Bay]

7 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Sounds like you're nearly there! So what are the key elements of your signal chain & settings?

Gibson Thunderbird, bridge pickup full on, neck at 3-5 depending on venue, then Spectracomp on standard patch at 9 o’clock, into 1000w terrorbass amp, bass 9 o’clock, mids all way on, treble 12 o’clock (gets twiddled for different venues if needed), low on gain. Then soul food for added grit if needed and a TC chorus. The AX7s are being swapped for AT7s to tone down the TB a little. 

It gives the low punchy sound I want with being ‘twangy’. Usually works well but was muddy at the gig on Friday but that was in a quadrangle under a marquee roof with serious issues of sound bouncing back off the wall opposite (we played across the narrow sides of a rectangle if that makes sense). The worst bit was that the onstage sound was the best I have ever had, just not as great out front, Sod’s law. The bass player in the other band didn’t suffer as badly but they were a much gentler band than us, we are fairly heavy and full on.

[HazBeen]

Whilst gear and settings have great influence I find that I pretty much sound like me on any rig and dare I say bass....... Oh dear, think I just debunked the entire foundation of all the GAS I’ve ever had.... my point is your attack/how you hit the string/left hand technique etc. is a large part of your “sound”. So actually my biggest achievement I feel has been to embrace MY natural sound and then select gear that supports it. I am pretty much there.

[Al Krow]

54 minutes ago, HazBeen said:

Whilst gear and settings have great influence I find that I pretty much sound like me on any rig and dare I say bass....... Oh dear, think I just debunked the entire foundation of all the GAS I’ve ever had.... my point is your attack/how you hit the string/left hand technique etc. is a large part of your “sound”. So actually my biggest achievement I feel has been to embrace MY natural sound and then select gear that supports it. I am pretty much there.

Well that's a great point! Our sound is as much, if not more, about "us" / how we're playing as our gear, for sure.

I certainly have a long way to go in terms of becoming a better bass player! But I already know that I like certain sounds from my range of basses more than others. I guess probably the single biggest influence on "my" sound (to the extent I have one) would be the growl I get from the Nordstrand pups on my Ibanez. That bass seems to cut through whatever rig I am playing through and I'm guessing that those pups would deliver something similar whichever bass they were on? So for me the 'foundation' to my sound has to be a great set of pups. However as a covers band player I also know as much as I like that sound, that slightly aggressive growl is not going to be appropriate for a lot of the material we're doing, so immediately there's a 'stop' to how far as a covers band player I feel I can take it.

I'm glad, however, that this thread has cured you of GAS! 

Edited May 22, 2018 by Al Krow

[Linus27]

Wow, what a question 😊 The sound I have always wanted in the early days was that clunky P-bass tone. Not twangy like punk but also not thumpy like Motown, somewhere in the middle so a nice rounded bottom end but with some of those lovely P-bass tones cutting through. I pretty much got it when I bought my '78 P-bass but in most cases I have never managed it and for the majority of my playing I have used Jazz basses which have always suited my playing and have been easier to great a great tone from.

I'm currently playing an AVRI 75 Jazz through a LM3 and 2x NY112 cabs and the tone is lovely. Mellow, rounded with a nice mix of mids to give a bit of growl. Is it the sound I want, well not really, it sounds lovely but safe. I play in a 50's/60's rock n roll band and I am determined to get my Precision sounding great through my rig but I tend to always fall back on the safe but great sounding Jazz bass. Maybe one day 😊

[Frank Blank]

I have very little technical knowledge about how to get a particular tone from amps and I’ve just twiddled about with whatever amp and bass I’ve had and never really got a tone I was really happy with, until now.

i never plug in any instrument I’m going to buy, electric or acoustic, I always judge it by how the instrument sounds unaided by amplification, it’s half stupidity, half Luddite tendencies, but this approach has led me down a road of dissatisfaction until I reached an AER amp with a Rob Allen Mouse 30 plugged into it. This combination has everything I want from a bass sound. I have all the tone controls on the AER at 12 O’clock and the RA Mouse only has a volume pot (it has a ‘passive high trim’ control in the back plate but I haven’t adjusted it since I got it as it sounds just right) so all the tone control really comes from my fingers. I always rolled my eyes at the ‘tone is in the fingertips’ camp but I have to say, suddenly, having discovered my perfect bass and amp I now understand and completely agree with the statement. What I assumed was the search for the perfect bass sound for me turned out to actually be the search for the perfect bass, the sound i was lookin for is a blend of this instrument and my way of playing it.

[Steve Browning]

Hearing Queen II when it came out. To be precise, Faerie Fellers Master Stroke ( a track, for those that don't know). From that moment I knew exactly how I wanted to sound.

Probably took me 10 years to finally achieve it - when I got my first really good 2x15 (an old Ampeg V4 cab). Stayed with the same basic set up ever since.

[Bluewine]

Too many variables. I gave up. When it happens that's great. If not, I'm not going to sweat it.

Blue

Edited May 23, 2018 by Bluewine

[musicbassman]

Working in covers bands, I have one standard set up on stage but then use many different styles of playing - open pick, damped pick, fingers, staccato, legato etc etc to get the correct feel for the song - which I think is more important than trying to get an exact sound..

In any case, I think your sound is SO influenced by the type of stage and the room acoustics that micro attention to EQ is pretty pointless. You can have bass heaven on stage but you might be mortified if you heard what the punters are actually hearing.

 

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, musicbassman said:

Working in covers bands, I have one standard set up on stage but then use many different styles of playing - open pick, damped pick, fingers, staccato, legato etc etc to get the correct feel for the song - which I think is more important than trying to get an exact sound.

+1^^ I think you've pretty much nailed it for a broad range covers bassist!

3 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

Hearing Queen II when it came out. To be precise, Faerie Fellers Master Stroke ( a track, for those that don't know). From that moment I knew exactly how I wanted to sound.

Probably took me 10 years to finally achieve it - when I got my first really good 2x15 (an old Ampeg V4 cab). Stayed with the same basic set up ever since.

So for you the Ampeg 2x15 cab is the key ingredient in your sound and that's been the 'constant' for you?

I enjoyed having a listen to Queen II, been a long time(!) (and  most of my recent listening will have been 'Queen's Greatest Hits' Triple Album which doesn't feature much from Queen II)

[Steve Browning]

I think it was more that it was the first quality 2x15 I had. It was a bit underpowered and so I changed the speakers in it. Originally, I had a 1x18 cab and 2 4x12s (a smaller version of John Deacons rig) but it didn't sound right and was a mountain of stuff to cart around.

After the Ampeg 2x15 I bought a Boogie diesel 2x15 (well, two in fact) and have been a rampant Boogie user ever since then (about 1988).

[cetera]

13 hours ago, Al Krow said:

- how did you work out / stumble on what sound you were after? Was it a particular bass player or a bass line on a music track (if so, who / what?)

- if you know your sound, how would you describe it? (May be a tricky one to put in words, I guess!)

- what are the key ingredients in your signal chain that are essential to delivering 'that sound'. (Hopefully we'll get some great suggestions for combinations of strings, PUPs, EQs, amps, cabs and pedals, depending on which are the most important /really key bits of the chain for you).

I've always loved the tight,authoritative low end and grinding, biting top end 80's/90's rock tones of bassists like Eddie Jackson (Queensryche), Rachel Bolan (Skid Row), Kip Winger (Winger), Bruno Ravel (Danger Danger), Pat Badger (Extreme) etc etc. What did they have in common? The classic EMG P/J loaded Spector NS2 bass....

Having found one at the old Bass Centre in Wapping (the good ol' days) and LOVED the sound, feel, and look I then purchased various Spector basses! I was almost there, but there was still something not quite right (playing through Trace Elliot, Peavey, Ampeg, Ashdown etc) in my quest for the exact tone I was looking for....

The missing puzzle piece turned out to be the classic Gallien Krueger 400RB/800RB series heads from that period...... A friend invited me to try my Spector through his 800RB and the quest was complete!!

So, to summise..... Active EMG p/J loaded Spector (with roundwounds) through old GK400RB or 800RB head and a suitable full range cab (in my case - currently a GenzBenz 2x12 Neo). Add in a little extra grit when needed from my Tech21 Dug DP3X pedal and I have aural bliss!

Edited May 23, 2018 by cetera

[CameronJ]

An excellent thread! For me the sound I like comes almost entirely from the bass itself. Pedals to some degree too, but that’s only to provide sounds which would be impossible to achieve with the the bass alone.

I never really found “the tone in my head” until playing a Yamaha BB1025x a couple of years ago. It was grin inducing in a way that I’d never experienced from a bass before. Since then I’ve made sure I have at least one P-style bass in my arsenal.

A recent discovery is that I have a lot of love for MM humbuckers too - they seems to cut through certain mixes better than a P, yet retain a degree of fullness often lacking from soloed Jazz pups. I’ve found my MTD Super 5 (dual coil-switchable MM buckers) to be the perfect Neo-Soul/R&B machine. Smooth and deep yet defined and cuts through a mix surprisingly well. 

Once upon a time I might have been in the camp of having “my sound” and sticking with it regardless of the context but now I think of myself as a bit more of a tonal chameleon. I’ll play the bass with the tonal configuration that works best for the music at the time. As has been said, though, the goalposts do shift if you’re in a covers band vs an originals band. I’m not in a band at all, so I suppose I play covers by default!

In summary, I guess I don’t always know the bass sound I want immediately but I do know that I want the bass itself to be the primary factor and that I don’t want the amp to be colouring the sound at all. Those are the only two constants.

[Bluewine]

3 hours ago, musicbassman said:

You can have bass heaven on stage but you might be mortified if you heard what the punters are actually hearing.

 

Probably why I never go out of my way to listen to the house mix.

Blue

Edited May 23, 2018 by Bluewine

[tubbybloke68]

For me it’s a Wal into a puma 900 into a barefaced bb2 or super12t.thats all I’ve ever wanted really:-) 

[EliasMooseblaster]

15 hours ago, Al Krow said:

- how did you work out / stumble on what sound you were after? Was it a particular bass player or a bass line on a music track (if so, who / what?)

- if you know your sound, how would you describe it? (May be a tricky one to put in words, I guess!)

I was fortunate enough to have a few prompts throughout my time as a bass player.

Tone 1: John Entwistle's clanking Precision tone on The Who Live at Leeds, Live at the IoW 1970, etc - drove me towards Precision-type basses and valve amps.

Tone 2: John Entwistle's more rounded-but-still-wonderfully-articulate Thunderbird tone circa Quadrophenia / Who by Numbers - inspired initial purchase of EB-3, which I felt outperformed the Epi 'birds at the same price point, and later an actual Gibson Thunderbird.

Tone 3: John Entwistle's enormous 8-string bass tone on songs such as Success Story and Trick of the Light - OK, I'm never going to make my Hagstrom sound like a custom-built Alembic, but it's been a good starting point.

Unfortunately, along came Tone 4...and as far as I'm aware, The Ox never played fretless, so I've had to look to other sources with that. But it's been a very enjoyable exploration.

[Al Krow]

46 minutes ago, EliasMooseblaster said:

I was fortunate enough to have a few prompts throughout my time as a bass player.

Tone 1: John Entwistle's clanking Precision tone on The Who Live at Leeds, Live at the IoW 1970, etc - drove me towards Precision-type basses and valve amps.

Tone 2: John Entwistle's more rounded-but-still-wonderfully-articulate Thunderbird tone circa Quadrophenia / Who by Numbers - inspired initial purchase of EB-3, which I felt outperformed the Epi 'birds at the same price point, and later an actual Gibson Thunderbird.

Tone 3: John Entwistle's enormous 8-string bass tone on songs such as Success Story and Trick of the Light - OK, I'm never going to make my Hagstrom sound like a custom-built Alembic, but it's been a good starting point.

Unfortunately, along came Tone 4...and as far as I'm aware, The Ox never played fretless, so I've had to look to other sources with that. But it's been a very enjoyable exploration.

OMG! John Entwistle is definitely one of my bass heroes. "My Generation" is both iconic and just a great bass line. Apparently Tech21 have managed to bottle his tone with their dUg P pedal

More seriously (and to my shame) I wasn't aware that he was also a master 8 string player!! Which tracks was he playing 8 string on? - Homework for me is to listen to all of them...

But the bad news is that the Schecter Stiletto 8 I had previously toyed with getting, is going right back onto my GAS list. Why I thought this thread wasn't going to result in additional GAS (for folk other than @HazBeen) was a definitely naive on my part