Your Sound

[matt_citizenbass]

i want to sound like a bass, guitar, keyboard, xylaphone, glockenspiel and a 90 piece orchestra.


i'm nearly there!

[Linus27]

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='419871' date='Feb 26 2009, 09:40 AM']The trouble is, what you've described sounds different to everyone. Describing sound is so subjective.

When I try a new amp, I usually look for amps with 3 knobs. The one on the left (Bass) I put most of the way up. The one in the middle (the one that does nothing apart from increase the clattering noise when you play) either gets turned turned most of the way down or off completely. The one furthest right, I can't really remeber where that goes (I think somewhere between in the middle and all the way up).

In terms of basses, I won't go near anything with batteries of 5 strings. I don't like new strings either. I like what could be described as a dull thud. I would probably like flats but can't be bothered trying them.

I like to sound like by playing has been recorded on really old and dusty cheapo studio gear.[/quote]

I thought I was hardcore but you take it to a new level. Instead of turning things on full or off, I try and keep it all flat. Two knobs is better for me. Bass and treble. Then on the bass, if its a precision then volume on full and tone on either full treble or in the middle. If a Jazz then both volumes on full and tone of full treble or in the middle. As a rule, I hate 5 strings, actives, lots of knobs and dials. However, I can accept a Musicman Stingray. Generally, passive is best though. No pedals either. Plug in and play.

I like my sound to be full but not fat. If I am playing 8's then I like them to be full but every single note heard, not just a constant low deep noise. I like the 70's Precision clank. Musicman is normally too thin and trebly but some days it sounds great. Its just never fat enough for me. I like a bass sound to sound angry.

[xilddx]

[quote name='Kirky' post='420041' date='Feb 26 2009, 01:04 PM']+1. The main thing I noticed when trying all the lovely basses at the Yorkshire Bash was how low the actions were on all the modern instruments. Seemed to me to be much harder to influence the tone with my fingers, and I felt like it was all dependant on the electronics of the instrument and amp. WoT's basses were the notable and glorious exceptions.[/quote]

+2

I also like a medium action. I can't see how it's possible to play so delicately with stage rush. Fingers, and nail length for that matter, are SO important in your sound, the variables in your equipment all become, well, more variable, more toneful.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Kirky' post='420041' date='Feb 26 2009, 01:04 PM']+1. The main thing I noticed when trying all the lovely basses at the Yorkshire Bash was how low the actions were on all the modern instruments. Seemed to me to be much harder to influence the tone with my fingers, and I felt like it was all dependant on the electronics of the instrument and amp. WoT's basses were the notable and glorious exceptions.[/quote]

Wow.. I must be totally out-of-touch.. the action on my basses is lower than it's ever been!

Wierd how we all perceive things differently, innit?

[Toadonroll]

I like to disturb the local wildlife when I play and make people's teeth itch.
I want my bass to sound like tinfoil.
Any advice?

[Josh]

MTD tone, through and through.

[ped]

Velvery rich, smooth and clear graphite shazam with a clanky defined bottom with a bit of how's your father top end coated with some retrospective assiduity. basically. If you really wanna know, check out moi website in me sig!

ped

[redstriper]

I like it extra deep, I don't need treble or middle or bridge pups or tweeters or new strings.
Bass means bass

Sizzle my arse................

[51m0n]

[quote name='thepurpleblob' post='420082' date='Feb 26 2009, 02:05 PM']Set everything flat, plug it in, switch it on, does it make a noise. Good.... my sound.

Everybody thinks I'm joking when I say this. I'm not..... [/quote]

Thats my ethos too. I do tend to favor the bridge pickup, but in any event I usually pluck at the bridge rather than neck (exception being very slow mellow stuff) so even the neck pickup is nice and tight sounding compared to most.

I have eq - I use it to help when the room sucks.

Sometimes I break away from my own modus operandi though....

[Lemuel Beam]

It all depends on what type of music I'm playing. I know what my basses are capable of.. I'll tinker on the fly if necessary - but I'm not too precious about it TBH. I trust the guy out front to make sure the bass sits in the mix. As long as I can hear myself and the drummer onstage I'm happy.

There's the old adage that a decent player can get a good sound out of any old lump of plywood, too..

[steve-soar]

[quote name='cetera' post='420139' date='Feb 26 2009, 03:16 PM']Nice tone Steve! Just enough growl/grind & mids... [/quote]Cheers Gary, I still have that kind of sound, despite what gear I use.

[MacDaddy]

Big fat warm (without sounding muffled) slight boost in the low mids to cut through 2 guitars.

[Pentode]

Ok.....

80's Fretless Jazz.

SVTCL with 2 SVT15E's

Gain 67% / Ultra Lo engaged / Bass 72% / Mid 88% / Freq' 3 / Treble 43% / Master - Venue dependant.

Run thru' a couple scales to check for that warm, fluid, seductive sound.










Realize I still can't play for sh*t - throw a paddy and whack all controls up to the stops!

Works every time for me!

[lee4]

Status Groove-bass(100hz)+5,treble(1khz)flat.Markbass LMII-flat.Zoot 2x12 cab-tweeter flat.No FX,ever.Result;growl,warmth,definition,punch.

[4000]

It totally depends on the context, but 99% of the time I have the luxury of playing music "wot I wrote". Unfortunately that doesn't help me get the right tone.

The tone I used to get using my 72 Rick through a Trace AH150 (early model) and Series 1 (?) Trace 4x10 (sealed, black painted) was my favourite tone that I've ever heard. My '72 sounded like a cross between a Rick and a big double bass; not metallic at all, very growly, maybe not the punchiest sound but sat beautifully, thick, natural and wonderful. The bass is very mellow sounding as Ricks go. Obviously it doesn't suit every context though. Unfortunately I can't us a rig like that any more and so have been struggling with my sound; the Rick doesn't seem to like more modern, smaller, lighter gear. Whenever I plug in Trace and hit the pre-shape it's there, but with anything else, not so much.

The other tone I'm trying to achieve (using different instruments) is more like a cross between Leigh Gorman & Matt Garrison. I want it to be tight, punchy, growly, somewhat aggressive, thick (but not "fat" if that makes any sense) but still bright. As yet I haven't found it, but I'm working on it (I'd like to try a Bongo). ....basically I like to hear the string and some sizzle but not in a hyped-up tweeter-y way, and I like to hear what I perceive as growly low mids, but not really what many would describe as fatness or roundness.

Here's Leigh; this is close but I'd maybe go slightly thicker/bigger sounding...

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQzVO2egDY&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQzVO2egDY...feature=related[/url]

Here's Matt...

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe7vyvyzOKg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe7vyvyzOKg[/url]

[silverfoxnik]

Definitely true about having higher action to get more control over your tone, but that does all come down to your playing and your technique..

To be honest, I like lots of different playing styles and bass tones by various players but that's their sound, not mine so I just concentrate these days on trying to do my own thing ( however well or however badly) for the songs that we play in the set.

Sean - that's the first time I've heard Matt Garrison and he has an amazing style but it sounds and looks more like classical guitar playing than bass playing IMO.. As for Leigh, well we've discussed that a few times already! Suffice to say I still love what he does. The YouTube clip reminded me of just how cool Matthew was back in those days - sadly missed!

[4000]

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='420504' date='Feb 26 2009, 11:34 PM']Definitely true about having higher action to get more control over your tone, but that does all come down to your playing and your technique..

To be honest, I like lots of different playing styles and bass tones by various players but that's their sound, not mine so I just concentrate these days on trying to do my own thing ( however well or however badly) for the songs that we play in the set.

Sean - that's the first time I've heard Matt Garrison and he has an amazing style but it sounds and looks more like classical guitar playing than bass playing IMO.. As for Leigh, well we've discussed that a few times already! Suffice to say I still love what he does. The YouTube clip reminded me of just how cool Matthew was back in those days - sadly missed![/quote]

Hi Nik

My action is waaaay low; I cant play with high action at all. I absolutely agree about the tone thing though; in my post Leigh and Matt were just used to illustrate a ballpark tone.

You may be right about Matt, but I love classical guitar playing (and flamenco even more) so I'm rather into it. It's not so much band bass, but I love it anyway as a thing on its own. Of course he's not actually playing any tunes on that but he's not a million miles away regardless. At home I play a bit like a very, very bad version of that. In a band I'm nothing like that at all; more of an Entwistle/Foxton/Hawkwind era Lemmy.

Yeah, it's a shame Matthew's not still around. I miss the band a great deal (Leigh & Annabella may have done/be doing stuff but I don't have much chance of seeing them). I'm so glad I did get to see them the once; they were fantastic.

Edited February 27, 2009 by 4000

[thisnameistaken]

To be honest I don't really try to go for "a sound", I just try to put my bass where it can be heard. Luckily I've got a guitarist who knows what he's doing and he doesn't try to fill the entire frequency spectrum.

I suppose one benefit of not chasing a mythical tone is that I don't buy and sell a lot of basses and amps.

[Rich]

At the moment my sound is based a 50/50 balance of both pickups, with the neck 'tapped'. Slight bass boost on the gtr itself but all other controls flat. Lows and low-mids boosted slightly on the amp, mids cut slightly around the 600Hz mark, slight hi-mid & treble boost. More pronounced boost at 1200Hz. Compression from the Focusrite, but not loads. You only know it's there if you switch it off, if you see what I mean.
Result is a fingerstyle tone vaguely similar to Jonas Hellborg's only smoother and less Status-y , it cuts through the mix well and manages to force its way past all them horns the harmonics sing nicely, plus there are good clear slap & bitey snap sounds when I want them, which isn't often. I like it

[niceguyhomer]

I went to see a blues band last night - the bassist was using a USA Jazz (looked new) straight into an Ashdown Mag 300 head and an Ashdown 4x10 cab. He had the sound I want and at about a quarter of the price of my gear. Really pissed me off.

[Rich]

god yes, don't you just [i]hate[/i] it when that happens?

[Andyalfa]

The tone I want depends on what I'm playing, but it's usually between that growly sound of Flea on One Hot Minute and Doug Wimbish on Little Axe's House that Wolf Built. Then again, if I could get to sound like Jah Wobble or Norman Watt-Roy I'd be happy.

At the end of the day, like everyone else on here, I just wanna be heard. With our drummer, that is always a challenge.

[mcgraham]

[quote]I went to see a blues band last night - the bassist was using a USA Jazz (looked new) straight into an Ashdown Mag 300 head and an Ashdown 4x10 cab. He had the sound I want and at about a quarter of the price of my gear. Really pissed me off.[/quote]

Did you manage to get a look at his settings? What are you presently using?

I often love those instances, as it gives you a clear example of what you 'hear in your head' together with a quantifiable way of achieving it.

Mark

[OldGit]

Hummmmm a lifelong challenge.
I absolutely love the sound of my P basses played gently through my WEM 12 watt practice amp, on its own with no band.
Give me that but 1000 watts ov headroom and I'd be happy ...
So the compromise is always what sounds right in the context but with the overarching requirement to hear myself, partly to make sure I'm playing the right notes but also because I want to enjoy the sound.
So my whole setup is about full bodied clarity as the starting point with various right hand and FX differences to change things.
Oddly the Shuker P5 with its single overwound P pickup is capable (I am told) of all sorts of bass impressions from P bass to Jazz bass to Ric, just by playing it differently.
Add FX and all sorts of stuff comes out.

Oh and loads of fret noise

BBC I am that nerd who asks for more 2k in the monitors (for vox and sax, we don't monitor the bass) however that's only because know that that bit of my hearing still works for acoustic instruments where I just have to be able to hear it to sing and play in tune. SOund men tend to like the specific request rathr thna just "I can't hear myself"

Edited March 3, 2009 by OldGit

[crez5150]

The sound of my Eden rig but in something that weighs the same as a Markbass