What really impacts on your bass tone?

[chris_b]

2 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

 

This. The sound that works in context is the right one. If you're a soloist, knock yourself out with YOUR tone. If you play in a band, you need to find what best suits the instrumentation, songs, style, etc. Sometimes, a sound that isn't particularly pleasant to listen to in isolation can be the best one in context. "Us, us, us". rather than "Me, me, me".

 

If this were the case people wouldn't be trying to sound like Cliff Burton and Steve Harris etc.

 

Heavy bands are no different to any other band.

 

Your tone is the most important thing you can get right for you and for the band. All band members making their sound fit into the band mix is the next objective. Sounding good on stage and bad in the room, and vice versa, is a fact of life. . . .  occasionally. . . .  but if you get that on every gig, there is something wrong with your signal chain.

[ahpook]

My bass tone gets affected, effected, but never impacted.

 

Edited February 16 by ahpook

[Lozz196]

27 minutes ago, chris_b said:

 

If this were the case people wouldn't be trying to sound like Cliff Burton and Steve Harris etc.

 

Heavy bands are no different to any other band.

 

Your tone is the most important thing you can get right for you and for the band. All band members making their sound fit into the band mix is the next objective. Sounding good on stage and bad in the room, and vice versa, is a fact of life. . . .  occasionally. . . .  but if you get that on every gig, there is something wrong with your signal chain.

Agree Chris, my bass tone in my last band was far from what I like but it was the right sound for both the music and the line up. Very important aspect that, the line up/instruments, if we’d had a second guitar that would have changed things a lot imo.

[SteveXFR]

32 minutes ago, chris_b said:

 

If this were the case people wouldn't be trying to sound like Cliff Burton and Steve Harris etc.

 

Heavy bands are no different to any other band.

 

Your tone is the most important thing you can get right for you and for the band. All band members making their sound fit into the band mix is the next objective. Sounding good on stage and bad in the room, and vice versa, is a fact of life. . . .  occasionally. . . .  but if you get that on every gig, there is something wrong with your signal chain.

 

Have you heard Steve Harris and Cliffs bass tone in isolation? They're not pleasant. They both created a tone which cut through fantastically well to sound good with the band. 

[BigRedX]

42 minutes ago, chris_b said:

If this were the case people wouldn't be trying to sound like Cliff Burton and Steve Harris etc.

 

But that only works if the rest of your band sound like Metallica or Iron Maiden. The sound of a band is the sound of all the instruments fitting together like a sonic jigsaw.

[Dan Dare]

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

Have def experienced that, at one soundcheck had a great on stage sound, went out front on the wireless kit and was boomy mush, adjusted to a horrible nasally sound on stage, beautifully defined full bass sound out front. 

 

Yep. Someone I know once asked me to help with sound for his band. The bass player had a custom coffee table instrument, BF cabs and a pricey amp (can't remember which). The guitar player had a Boogie head and two matching 2x12 cabs. The bass, whilst smooth, deep and expensive sounding up close, was all boom and wool out front. The guitar was similarly boomy and undefined and LOUD.

 

I suggested to them that they cut the low end severely and asked the guitar player to disconnect one of his cabs. Both shook their heads. I tried explaining that up close and out front are not the same thing, that room acoustics and the way sounds blend can do odd things, etc, etc. No dice. So I left. They later called me, bleating about the fact that I hadn't stuck around (it was a favour - I wasn't getting paid).

 

You can lead a horse to water.

[diskwave]

Yep the ole expensive boom and wool out front, hear it time and time again. Easier for the desk to add bass than to remove the boom that many peeps think is ok. Our instrument should really be called the 'Low Mid Range Guitar'.

[itu]

7 minutes ago, diskwave said:

Our instrument should really be called the 'Low Mid Range Guitar'.

NOOOO!

 

It is very important to understand how much the music and surroundings affect the result. I once went to see Billy Sheehan with Steve Vai, and them combined with overwhelming volume in a concrete hall made me leave the house. Tickets were expensive, but the noise was horrible. I suppose those guys are professionals, but their sound crew wasn't.

[SimonK]

I was playing drums this morning (sorry people) with a 17 year old bass player using a Vigier PJ bass into my Trace Elliot GP7 & 4x10 (so I know the amp itself sounds great). He wasn't playing the wrong notes but it just didn't really sound great. Looked over and he was plucking the strings right at the end of his fretboard - said "why don't you move your right hand closer to the bridge" and boom - straight away everything was loads better. He said he would go away and practice the new hand position, but I was stunned quite how much of a difference right hand position makes - I sort of knew it but as I alway play right over the pickup on my Stingrays I had kind of forgotten!

[Jerry_B]

Mids. But I play with a plectrum.

[SH73]

The mood I'm in can impacts the tone if my bass. I can play the same song all over again and again, but it may sounds different each time with the same bass, amp settings. I have been once told to play with feelings, and it does make a massive difference. 

[SteveXFR]

15 hours ago, SimonK said:

I was playing drums this morning (sorry people) with a 17 year old bass player using a Vigier PJ bass into my Trace Elliot GP7 & 4x10 (so I know the amp itself sounds great). He wasn't playing the wrong notes but it just didn't really sound great. Looked over and he was plucking the strings right at the end of his fretboard - said "why don't you move your right hand closer to the bridge" and boom - straight away everything was loads better. He said he would go away and practice the new hand position, but I was stunned quite how much of a difference right hand position makes - I sort of knew it but as I alway play right over the pickup on my Stingrays I had kind of forgotten!

 

It's good to know what sounds you get from picking in different positions.

I used to have a really clanky, nasty, distorted metal tone but found that for solo parts if I picked at the base of the fretboard, it was much more acceptable and then move back to picking over the bridge pickup when the guitars came back in.

[BigRedX]

Bear in mind that a "good" tone is partially subjective and partially to do with how the other instruments sound and the arrangement of the music you are playing.

[Burns-bass]

Honestly, people worry about so much nowadays.

 

I really don't remember all this junk 20 odd years ago. You just bought the best amp you could afford and configured it when you arrived at the venue. 

 

We're a world of worries.

[SteveXFR]

Let's be honest, if you bass isn't made from the heart wood of the rarest tree in the western central region of the upper amazon, crafted by 800 year old artisans from a lost village on a remote island and painted using a 400 year old secret recipe for a colour known as slugs nipple and then strung with flat wound, hand forged uranium strings then your tone will always sound like s**t

[Stub Mandrel]

I've read the comments but not watched the video... yet.

 

I can make huge changes to my tone with playing style and hand position. I stopped using effects 18 months ago and am now gradually reintroducing them - as effects, not as part of my fundamental tone.

 

The two effects that improve tone are compression and a hpf. But compression limits you being able to dig in for overdiven sounds.

 

I sometimes play with pickup blend/selection. I notice, I'm not sure the audience do.

 

 

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

Let's be honest, if you bass isn't made from the heart wood of the rarest tree in the western central region of the upper amazon, crafted by 800 year old artisans from a lost village on a remote island and painted using a 400 year old secret recipe for a colour known as slugs nipple and then strung with flat wound, hand forged uranium strings then your tone will always sound like s**t

And don’t forget tort…..

[nilorius]

17 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

And don’t forget tort…..

And unicorn tatoo on your left shoulder...

[tauzero]

4 minutes ago, nilorius said:

And unicorn tatoo on your left shoulder...

 

And a dragon on your bass

 

[SimonK]

3 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

 

It's good to know what sounds you get from picking in different positions.

I used to have a really clanky, nasty, distorted metal tone but found that for solo parts if I picked at the base of the fretboard, it was much more acceptable and then move back to picking over the bridge pickup when the guitars came back in.

 

Yes clearly experimenting is important with different things working at different times - but I think knowing what to experiment with is key. I'm certainly guilty of wanting to buy something new when in fact changing my playing technique might make far more of a difference!

Edited Monday at 11:06 by SimonK

[Terry M.]

1 minute ago, SimonK said:

 

Yes clearly experimenting is important with different things working at different times - but I think knowing what to experiment with is key. I'm certainly guilty of wanting to buy something new when infact changing my playing etchnique might make far more of a difference!

I've been prepared to get rid of basses in the past until...I changed the strings!

[lemmywinks]

Having control over the keys player's eq in the mix. Best bit is he doesn't even know or care.

[nilorius]

9 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

And a dragon on your bass

 

unconditionally

[SteveXFR]

46 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

And don’t forget tort…..

 

Madagascan, hand caught, wild, organic tort obviously. 

[Jackroadkill]

38 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

Madagascan, hand caught, wild, organic tort obviously. 

 

Alright, there's no need to get all hipster about it!