On-board Bass tone. Curious

[dmccombe7]

Had a quick search but couldn't find anything on this. 

Curious where we all set our on-board bass tone controls. (passive or active basses) 

 

With my passive basses (P and J types) i generally have tone control set mid-point and vary it from there depending on whether the song needs smooth deep (0%) or rasping edge (100%)

 

Active basses i generally have set up and leave with bass slightly boosted and treble or mid at mid-point. If i do move anything its generally a small movement of treble. (Sandberg VM4, Fender P/J, Warwick Thumb)

 

Dave

[Munurmunuh]

P: tone on 10

PJ: tone on 10, except when the edge needs taking off new strings

 

(what the Ampero's amp + cab sims are doing to the sound is another matter )

 

[Thunderbird]

I only play at home but I only ever put the tone on my pj on 10 unless just on the j pup I dial it back a touch volume always on full

[joeystrange]

I remove them and throw them in the bin.

[Boodang]

All my basses are passive and other than a pickup selector switch and series/parallel switch where appropriate, they are wired straight to the output jack, no volume, no tone controls (P bass and MM go straight to jack, nothing in between).

Outside of pickup selection and series/parallel, all tone shaping is done with outboard as it's more flexible.

[mr4stringz]

Only own passive basses.

 

Volume dimed, tone dimed.

 

Regardless of what the pickup/s is/are. Unless there’s a J pickup, in which case that’s turned right off.

 

Its the way I’ve always been with basses. Everything open, with any changes needed thereafter being tweaked at amp stage.

Edited November 21, 2021 by mr4stringz

[Reggaebass]

With what I play it’s always the tone rolled back on the bass and the mid tweaked at the amp 

[Marvin]

P bass tone up all the way.

J bass, which can be active but I switch to passive,  tone up all the way and balance pot in the middle.

[CameronJ]

For me it’s pretty much a combination of what suits the music and what frequencies I require to be able to hear myself clearly in the mix. If I’m playing at home I more heavily favour the former. If playing live I tend to more heavily favour the latter.
 

Having said that, on my passive basses I usually have the tone wide open as a starting point - my Dingwall Super PJ is a good example of this - but I rarely change strings and don’t typically favour a ton of high end in my sound as a rule. Unless of course the style demands it.

 

On my active basses, such as my Xotic XJs, I find myself tweaking the onboard preamp controls and the passive tone control on almost a constant basis from song to song. The tonal options on these basses are incredibly broad which I’m sure puts people off (“how many knobs?!”) - but the passive tone knob and the 3 band preamp controls interact in a really intuitive way. It’s pretty much impossible to produce a “bad” sound out of them, crazy though that may sound to some. 

[Jonesy]

I'm generally max volume and tone, although since installing one of Ki0gon's gnarley looms, I go tone bypass for extra aggyness.

 

Although in my blues band I roll the tone to about 80% to just take the edge off.

[Crawford13]

My main bass is a passive PJ, volume is around 90%, balance pot is dead centre, and tone is almost always fully up.

[Paul S]

Passive Precisions, vol 100%.  Tone around 80% but a little either way to find the 'sweet spot'.  Thereafter if the song particularly requires it a bit more or a bit less but rarely 0% or 100%.

[Lozz196]

Passive Precisions, volume & tone on full. If I’m tinkering around at home playing to something requiring a softer tone I’ll back off to about 80%.

[SteveXFR]

My basses have active 3 band eq's. After a bit of experimentation I've ended up setting èverything in the middle and use the eq on the amp to get the tone right and then just uses the controls on the bass to tweak if needed. 

[RhysP]

I use a passive tone control more than a lot of people seem to, I find them very useful.

Active EQs I tend to leave set at their centre detents.

Ideally I like a bass where you can switch the EQ in & out, and that also has a passive tone control that you can use alongside the active EQ, which is exactly what the Bacchus bass I recently bought on here has.

[neepheid]

Passive tone? 100%, almost always, save for when I remember the knob exists, turn it to 0%, remind myself how much I dislike the (imo) shapeless mush that comes out then go back to 100%

Edited November 21, 2021 by neepheid

[Reggaebass]

I certainly don’t get shapeless mush with the tone rolled back on my precision, using an all valve amp through a Barefaced BB2 🙂

[Cosmo Valdemar]

Passive basses, tone almost always on full. Rolling back just muddies up the signal I find - I'd rather give the amp the full bass tone and adjust it from there if necessary.

 

With active basses there's no set rule - I've had some really hot ones that needed a bit of cut on the treble, some sound best flat, some needed a bit of boost to come alive.

 

 

[dmccombe7]

Quite an interesting variety so far.

I'm new to my P bass and i'm trying to cover punk songs with it which surprisingly has quite a wide variety of tones from P basses and a few Rics thrown into the mix.

I found it easier to dial in a better tone with my Jazz than the P but using my Markbass Nano cause the Mesa Mpulse is in for repairs at moment and the Jazz didn't quite have same depth as the P bass. 

The Mesa provides a better overall tone and i've yet to try the P bass properly thru it.

Dave 

[dmccombe7]

2 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

Passive basses, tone almost always on full. Rolling back just muddies up the signal I find - I'd rather give the amp the full bass tone and adjust it from there if necessary.

 

With active basses there's no set rule - I've had some really hot ones that needed a bit of cut on the treble, some sound best flat, some needed a bit of boost to come alive.

 

 

I find same with my active basses they need a little on board boost to lift them out of the OK tone.

[MacDaddy]

I do not have tone controls on my custom basses. 

The sweet spot on my Snapdragon folding bass seems to be rolling it back a tad. The tad being decided by what amp it's going through.

My Rob Allen Mouse is a different animal. The 'tone' control seems to vary between sounding like a bass, or a double bass.

[neepheid]

34 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

I certainly don’t get shapeless mush with the tone rolled back on my precision, using an all valve amp through a Barefaced BB2 🙂

 

I prefixed it with (imo)... tone control turned down sounds crap to me on any amp I've played through regardless of its class and I am in no way trying to tell you how to enjoy your bass.

[police squad]

passive here too (except my Ibby MC940). Everything fully open, always

I haven't used the ibanez for so long, I cant remember. Probably active with all eqs in the middle and volume full up

[Woodwind]

Fretless stingray 4, 3 band eq.

currently set at:

Treble down a third.

Mids boosted a tiny amount and bass adjusted + or - a tiny bit based on the resonance of the room.

 

[Woodwind]

I'm quite intrigued by how many players of passive instruments have the tone on full.

 

When I played a passive jazz the tone was mostly under half and it was similar on my aluminium neck kramer with passive humbucker.

 

 In both thos cases I would use new strings regularly, but found opening up the tone beyond half seemed to bring up an unpleasant midrange. YMMV of course