Ballsy dark tone that cuts through, how to get?

[Kevsy71]

Tech21 VT bass or VT bass deluxe does an SVT emulation that may do the trick - not muddy at all with my P.

[Norris]

Your Fender Rumble and a set of rounds (d'Addario prosteels are my particular choice) and your P pickup should get you the sound you're after. Crank up the gain a bit - the amp has a lovely, natural valvey sound. Dial in a bit of overdrive maybe. The tone controls do a lot of work for a little tweaking. Control the overall volume with the master 

Have fun

[Maude]

17 hours ago, T-Bay said:

Forget about what it sounds like when you are on your own. I can get the fattest most gorgeous sounds from my Thunderbird but the same settings give a boomy mush when I play with the rest of the band. By comparison my Jazz that sounds quite trebley on its own cuts through well. I use a bottom heavy Orange Terror 1000w amp and have to turn the bottom end of the eq down completely to get a decent sound from the Thunderbird.

Cannot agree enough with this. 

I probably do effects wrong but if I get the sound I want then it's right for me. Since I bought a Line 6 X3 I've found the answer to avoid mud/mush is the ability to run two signal paths together, one with your disired effects and the other clean and punchy. No matter how dirty the effected channel gets the low mid punch is always there, unless of course you don't want it to be. 

The other I do, which relates to the quoted post above, is when creating an effect at home with the Line 6 is to copy that tone to a whole bank or two on the pedal with little tweaks to the amount of effect and EQ, then at rehearsal with the band at volume I can just tap through the patches to find the best one, it really helps to be able to a/b like this, then copy the best patch and make minimal tweaks to that copy to fine tune, you still then have the original 'best patch' to a/b with. Good sound doesn't have cost the earth. 

[markdavid]

And, after not using the Jaguar bass for a while took it to rehearsal, not sold on it tbh , strangely and almost unbelievably I have actually had more success dialling in the tone with my Hofner, maybe it's the Ti jazz flats but the Hofner actually cuts through better as well, very strange, the other thing is that after playing the Hofner exclusively for over a year the Jaguar felt really odd to play. Just goes to show what works for one person may not work for another, YMMV and all that. Will be off to get some rounds for the Hofner.

Edited June 8, 2019 by markdavid

[mcnach]

On 07/06/2019 at 12:31, markdavid said:

Fender rumble 500

 

Nice amp. I had the pleasure of using one at a recent gig and was very impressed by it.

[hooky_lowdown]

12 minutes ago, markdavid said:

And, after not using the Jaguar bass for a while took it to rehearsal, not sold on it tbh , strangely and almost unbelievably I have actually had more success dialling in the tone with my Hofner, maybe it's the Ti jazz flats but the Hofner actually cuts through better as well, very strange, the other thing is that after playing the Hofner exclusively for over a year the Jaguar felt really odd to play. Just goes to show what works for one person may not work for another, YMMV and all that. Will be off to get some rounds for the Hofner.

London calling uses a hollow bodied bass, so no coincidence your hofner gives you a sound you like.

[markdavid]

1 hour ago, hooky_lowdown said:

London calling uses a hollow bodied bass, so no coincidence your hofner gives you a sound you like.

Yeah, a lot of people say it is a p bass but tbh he uses an EB2 in the video and that is what it sounds like to me now that you mention it, it has that kind of pillowy quality to the tone 

[markdavid]

21 hours ago, No lust in Jazz said:

Before the Captain Birdseye Years..

 

Wow , sounds like his bass is compressed to hell in this vid

[Dan Dare]

There's a world of difference between achieving tone in a studio and doing so in a live setting. No offence to the OP, but you need a considerably more sophisticated rig than a Rumble 500 to do it at any sort of volume and even then it will be masked/affected by what else is happening when you play in a live band. You don't even hear the true onstage sound in live recordings such as those above - the multitrack will have been re-eq'd/tweaked before release/screening. T-Bay's comment above is very true - what sounds great soloed doesn't necessarily work in a band context. Trying for that holy grail tone is a hiding to nothing, I'm afraid. It always amuses me, for example, that people revere the Ampeg B15 "because Jamerson used one". He may have, but only as a monitor so the studio band could hear the bass. That lovely recorded tone of his was created via a custom built preamp running straight into the board (see various YouTube vid's on the topic).

[markdavid]

On 08/06/2019 at 12:34, markdavid said:

And, after not using the Jaguar bass for a while took it to rehearsal, not sold on it tbh , strangely and almost unbelievably I have actually had more success dialling in the tone with my Hofner, maybe it's the Ti jazz flats but the Hofner actually cuts through better as well, very strange, the other thing is that after playing the Hofner exclusively for over a year the Jaguar felt really odd to play. Just goes to show what works for one person may not work for another, YMMV and all that. Will be off to get some rounds for the Hofner.

Ok so tried rounds on the Hofner with mixed results, I used really cheap rounds (Hofner contemporary  roundwounds, about£12 a  pack) so I think other rounds may give more consistent results.

Anyway I used rounds for rehearsal and did a lot of fiddling to get a decent tone in the mix with my band, initially I found the tone lacking meat, boosted low mids and the tone went kind of nasal, boosted high mids which didn't work either, tried the bass on slider on my Hofner but the tone then got too muddy.  Then I soloed the neck pickup, backed off my amps bass control a little and engaged the Vintage button on my amp and bam, there it was, not exactly like the London calling tone but close enough, a nice thick tone, dark and thick but not muddy.

Now I just need to find a roundwound with a good beefy tone with some good growl for the Hofner

[EliasMooseblaster]

15 hours ago, markdavid said:

Now I just need to find a roundwound with a good beefy tone with some good growl for the Hofner

I've not tried Hofner's own rounds, but I can vouch for - in order of my own preference* - Rotosound Swing Bass RS66 (nickel, then steel); Warwick Reds; Dunlop stainless steel.

 

*translation: half the forum will tell me I'm talking cobblers

[hooky_lowdown]

15 hours ago, markdavid said:

Now I just need to find a roundwound with a good beefy tone with some good growl for the Hofner

Think the Hofner rounds may be steel. You need to use nickle rounds which will be more meaty than steels. Daddario nicklel rounds or DR lo riders are best imho.

[drTStingray]

I think factors to get a ballsy dark sound:-

A pick up at the neck (possibly a humbucker); a rosewood fretboard; preferably not an ash body; a bridge pick up to add the bite and definition. 

It's not coincidence that people are talking EB2 and Hofner. You could add EB3 and a lot of more modern basses to that list also (eg a Stingray HH). 

Intereting to read the Motown comment!! And yes that DI is available these days commercially - I wonder if any of the Jamerson/62 P bass devotees use one for authenticity (Mr Devine as an example)!! 

Edited June 10, 2019 by drTStingray

[markdavid]

16 minutes ago, hooky_lowdown said:

Think the Hofner rounds may be steel. You need to use nickle rounds which will be more meaty than steels. Daddario nicklel rounds or DR lo riders are best imho.

Thanks, info on the Hofner rounds seems to be very limited, they feel like nickel but the tone is bright like steels so maybe they are steels.  The brightness is nice but yeah it would be nice to have more meat to the tone as they seemed to be lacking something, am not very good with eq but I am guessing it is in the lower mids as the Vintage button which is basically a low pass filter seemed to flesh out the tone considerably

[miles'tone]

Drop a set of Dimarzio Model PJ pickups in the Jag. Call London all day long! 

The Model P is what Paul had/has in his Precision after all. 

[miles'tone]

On 07/06/2019 at 13:33, hooky_lowdown said:

This guy nails the Paul Simonon sound.

 

 

Close ^, but not quite as groovy. 

 

Also.. 

 

[PaulWarning]

if you're getting mud cut the bottom end, anything below 50Hz just muddy's the sound and is unnecessary, you need low mids to cut through, around 100Hz

 

 

[Nicko]

5 hours ago, drTStingray said:

A pick up at the neck (possibly a humbucker); a rosewood fretboard; preferably not an ash body; a bridge pick up to add the bite and definition. 

Does the fretboard material affect tone?  I can't see how it would as the vibrating part of the string is between either the nut nd bridge or the fretwire and bridge.

I can't help with sounding like the Clash, but for curttng through it's +1 for backing off the low end and boosting the mids - my 5 band graphic is set as a sad face and it really makes a big difference in my band's mix.

[drTStingray]

40 minutes ago, Nicko said:

Does the fretboard material affect tone?  I can't see how it would as the vibrating part of the string is between either the nut nd bridge or the fretwire and bridge.

I can't help with sounding like the Clash, but for curttng through it's +1 for backing off the low end and boosting the mids - my 5 band graphic is set as a sad face and it really makes a big difference in my band's mix.

I can see how the sad face would help with this - and although the impact of body and fretboard wood on tone is an oft discussed impact with much disagreement - although many luthiers think they do which is good enough for me - yes from personal experience I think a rosewood v maple fretboard does darken the sound (especially a Stingray with ash body - I would imagine it would be similar with other basses). 

Edited June 10, 2019 by drTStingray

[EliasMooseblaster]

20 hours ago, Nicko said:

Does the fretboard material affect tone?  I can't see how it would as the vibrating part of the string is between either the nut nd bridge or the fretwire and bridge.

It's a contentious one. I have been in the fortunate position to A/B two otherwise identical basses with different fretboard woods, and the difference was audible, but subtle. Basically, the one with the maple board had a bit more a trebly "snap" to it, the rosewood board, a bit more of a dark growl. But to be honest, it's the kind of subtle difference that would quickly disappear in a band mix - or possibly even with a twist of a passive tone control!

[markdavid]

Ok, my bass tone has taken an unexpected change,  in my defence despite playing for a while I have only recently got a proper decent combo amp so am still finding my sound. 

Anyhow with the rounds on my bass I was aiming to get a dark, ballsy, cutting tone, engaged the vintage switch which gives that tone but does not work for a lot of songs, then found myself gravitating to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and found myself cranking the treble on my amp and engaging the bright switch and switching on the amps tweeter, despite the  Hofner's reputation for bassy, thumpy sounds it can get surprisingly bright and aggressive with the right strings.

Funny how I started trying to get a sound like Paul Simonon and ended up sounding more like Bruce Foxton.

[Lozz196]

Well imo that’s certainly a step in the right direction 😀

[funkgod]

On 07/06/2019 at 11:16, Doctor J said:

It largely depends on what it is you're trying to cut through. There is no default "cuts-through" EQ setting. If the other components of your band push the same frequencies do you, then you're all fighting over the same sonic space and it sounds like mush. You've got to work with the other instruments, give each other room. Generally, definition will come from mids and high frequencies so, unless the other instruments are thin and trebly sounding, you won't hear yourself if your tone is all low end. You've got to have mids in there. Don't set your bass tone in isolation. What sounds good on its own frequently sounds crap in the context of other instruments.

bang on this is right, with one addition if i may, All Basses are not made equal, all have different frequency's that want to jump right out the bass, two basses the same wont sound the same, that peak frequency will be different in each one, and also how you play it, for example... i play in a 9 piece soul band, i can not use my active jazz for that, its not deep enough to create that tight bottom warmth thats needed for this as all of the higher frequencys are already taken up by keys guitar sax trombone trumpet the only place left for me to shine through is in the lower end and for that i use a 82 G&L L2000E which has a very tight low end sound, due to the powerful  humbuckers...Now for my funk band and the 80s band i use the G&L but any slappy songs gets done on the jazz with MEC gold active single coilsto cut through which is more middy treble sounding aka marcus miller, perfect for them songs, my G&L is far too bassy and low end power to slap you would need dam good speakers to stop them popping, even when you roll back the bass, its still too bass heavy for them types of songs, though does have very good slappy sound of its own,  so all in all if i want to cut heads of i use the jazz, if i want to wack them in the face with a cricket bat i use the G&L, ..thats as far as i know really, here are my to weapons of choice,