Knowing the bass sound you want?

[T-Bay]

Had an interesting day yesterday at the Greenman festival in Cornwall. Great band called Rootzmill on (ska and reggae), the bass players tone was amazing, best I have heard in years - including some BIG bands. I had a chat after the set, he uses a Yamaha amp (never seen that model before) and a very well used Marshall amp. He was also DIed out to the PA which was noth8ng special bit the sound was amazing. He was a great player which I am sure is a large part of it but I would kill for the tone.

[Al Krow]

2 hours ago, T-Bay said:

Had an interesting day yesterday at the Greenman festival in Cornwall. Great band called Rootzmill on (ska and reggae), the bass players tone was amazing, best I have heard in years - including some BIG bands. I had a chat after the set, he uses a Yamaha amp (never seen that model before) and a very well used Marshall amp. He was also DIed out to the PA which was noth8ng special bit the sound was amazing. He was a great player which I am sure is a large part of it but I would kill for the tone.

Sounds good! Any recordings / clips of the band been uploaded onto fBook or Youtube from the festival? Did you make a note of what bass he's playing or manage to find out what strings he's using? (And I presume that there was not a TC Mojomojo anywhere in sight? )

[matski]

On 24 May 2018 at 19:11, jazzyvee said:

Hmm, I thought all basses sound the same, it's the fingers that make them sound different........ 

When I were a young 'un and just getting into bass, I kept hearing a particular bass sound that I really liked so would wait until Top of the Pops was on and keep my fingers crossed that I would see one of the bands I liked playing and be able to ID the bass guitar to find out what it was...

And the winner was..... *drum roll, badum-tish!* ....the MusicMan Stingray!

[discreet]

On 24/05/2018 at 18:11, jazzyvee said:

Hmm, I thought all basses sound the same, it's the fingers that make them sound different........ 

I''ll get my coat....

Get your coat? Why? It's true.

[T-Bay]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Sounds good! Any recordings / clips of the band been uploaded onto fBook or Youtube from the festival? Did you make a note of what bass he's playing or manage to find out what strings he's using? (And I presume that there was not a TC Mojomojo anywhere in sight? )

No idea what the bass was - no markings, looked like an old Yam, no pedals at all. They are on Facebook, not checked out the clips though but not from the festival.

[Frank Blank]

10 hours ago, MartinB said:

I couldn't tell you exactly what "my sound" is, but the day I first tried flatwounds I knew I'd taken a big step in the right direction.

This.

[jazzyvee]

On 28/05/2018 at 10:19, Al Krow said:

@jazzyvee

I think you're being overly modest about your expertise and experience, fella! But I am surprised you've not found a difference in sound from basses, generally?

Here are three in my herd and some typical set-up / settings:

• Yamaha BB1025, rounds, Alnico P pup (or P/J), purely passive, dial the tone / treble right off - lovely rich subby tone
• Ibanez SR1800, rounds, big single Nord pups, with both neck and bridge pups engaged, active mode with mids slightly boosted at 700Hz on the bass - aggressive punchy growl (not quite Warwick MEC but not far off), will cut through any mix
• Ibanez Portamento fretless, flats - delicious smooth fretless tone

I'm sure you would have no difficulty in working out which was which listening 'blind'. In fact, I suspect even my band who are generally oblivious to all nuances of bass tone would hear the difference in the mix at volume.

It's not that I don't find a difference in sound from basses generally, and I have no axe to grind with any make of bass or player at all, it's just that I think most of the bass players "I hear on gigs" play with a fender type of sound so even if the bass isn't a fender it's eq'd so that the tonality is in that ball park and the differences become subtle. Now that may be the player's decision, the design of the bass itself or the FOH engineer making that call. Who knows what is the strongest element. But it does start with the bass and the player. I don't dislike the fender sound at all but for my personal sound, I wanted something that started off not aiming for that sound hence me getting an alembic.

 

[CameronJ]

@Al Krow since when do you have an Ibanez Portamento?? I’ve clearly not been paying attention 😂

[Al Krow]

11 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

@Al Krow since when do you have an Ibanez Portamento?? I’ve clearly not been paying attention 😂

Since Feb this year (part ex for my Warwick German $$ 5)

[CameronJ]

3 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Since Feb this year (part ex for my Warwick German $$ 5)

Oh wow, I really haven’t been keeping up. Do you ever reminisce fondly on those dual humbuckers though? Having a similar config on my Super 5, I know I’d sorely miss that tone if I ever sold that bass.

Edited May 29, 2018 by CameronJ

[EliasMooseblaster]

23 hours ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

As for the post-Moon albums, I think they are very good in places. Just not great Who albums, if that makes sense. Both are covered in Entwistle's monster Alembic, both 4 and 8 string, and are worth hearing for the tone and playing if nothing else - both feature some of his finest studio work.

Yes, to be fair, after posting that sweeping statement I did decide it was high time I revisited the two Kenney Jones-era albums. I'm coming to the conclusion that I should give It's Hard more credit than I have done previously - it does have a lot of the elements that made me think Endless Wire was a surprisingly good album, except that the latter didn't have Mr Entwistle on bass.

[Al Krow]

32 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

Oh wow, I really haven’t been keeping up. Do you ever reminisce fondly on those dual humbuckers though? Having a similar config on my Super 5, I know I’d sorely miss that tone if I ever sold that bass.

I loved the Warwick growl. But that was more down to the MEC pups rather than specifically the dual humbuckers mehhinks. I still get all of the growl I want from the big single Nord pups on my Ibby and I've had a 'one in one out' policy this year to keep my herd from ever expanding, so the Warwick went and the Portamento came in. No regrets so far... 

I may need to trade my Ibby SR1800 for SR1805 (or similar) soon, though

Edited May 29, 2018 by Al Krow

[CameronJ]

I’ve had flatulence for an Ibby Portamento 5er on & off for the past couple of years! It’ll have to wait til post-tour though methinks. And post-Wingbass too...

[Al Krow]

5 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

I’ve had flatulence for an Ibby Portamento 5er on & off for the past couple of years! It’ll have to wait til post-tour though methinks. And post-Wingbass too...

Yup me too and I almost bought an Ibby Portamento 4 (which would have been great) but for once managed to do the 'right thing' (for me) and hold off until a 5er came along. 

You should get that flatulence seen to. Not sure how well it will be received when you are mic'd up on stage? 😄 

[CameronJ]

41 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Yup me too and I almost bought an Ibby Portamento 4 (which would have been great) but for once managed to do the 'right thing' (for me) and hold off until a 5er came along. 

You should get that flatulence seen to. Not sure how well it will be received when you are mic'd up on stage? 😄 

Thankfully said flatus is confined to the southerly, unmic’d region. You definitely did the right thing holding out for the 5!

[oldbass]

Put simply my P bass tone varies hugely depending on the room, stage, back wall, crowd size. No-one ever complains so it must be ok I guess.

[gjones]

I own 3 Jazzes (2 of them active), a P bass (with flats), an active P/J and a Stingray.

So I don't have a specific bass tone that I always go for. Which bass I take to which gig, depends on the genre of the music I'll be playing that night. If it's country I'd take the P bass. If it's rockier stuff the Stingray, if it's a bluesy gig, maybe the P/J.

But as someone has already mentioned, a lot of the time you are at the mercy of the room acoustics. As  long as the sound is deep and punchy, I'm happy.

 

[jcater]

The sound I would like to get to is the one achieved by Burke Shelley of Budgie on the album Bandolier. I have other Budgie albums but the bass sound does not compare to Bandolier.