What Tone Do You Strive For In A Bass?

[Barron]

What tone do you strive for?

[Brandon Tuomiko]

What I like is when playing arco, you need to feel the bass against your stomach. This is something my friends carved bass could do and my kay could not. And it needs a good bass, but not muddy, and good for the very high notes of the bass.

[mokkat]

muddy or not, as long as the tone isnt thin and lacking in the bottom

[Brandon Tuomiko]

yes, mokkat. but my kay does have a big bottom sound, it just gets blurry and not very clear.

[Barron]

Well, my first mistake was putting a mini-bio/introduction in my first thread (this one, now truncated for clarity), the second was not specifying "what tone in an upright bass"?


Oh, well. I hope the conversation picks up anyway. Personally, I used to look for that BOOM in a bass with no real concerns for overtones, but now that I am bowing 75% of the time, I care more about complexity of tone over the subsonic BOOM of the pizz.


I still want that teeth rattling low end, but mated with the sound that seems only possible with a nice hybrid or carved.

My hybrid is quiet overall, but sounds lovely when I'm on top of my game. At first I missed that boom. Now, not so much. I think I'm actually looking for more of what I already have. Next big step might be an old carved in a few years, not for the looks, but for more of that complex tone.

[drurb]

Help us!!!-- another open-ended question that's almost impossible to answer!

Perhaps a good approach would be for folks to point to recordings or other well-known players' sounds that are preferred.

[Jason Sypher]

Your question is a good one, one you should ask yourself every day. But, it's a subjective one as well. Some look for all that boom and bloom, others look for a smooth chocolate arco sound. It just depends. I think you should strive for something that best expresses your character and how you feel about music and life in general.

[Uncletoad]

An even better question is what tone do you strive to reach with your hands.

In the end the bass is a tool that your hands and mind use to shape the sound you create. Some tools help you get there faster or easier or more completely than others.

Chet Atkins was doing a session one time when a fellow said "man that guitar sounds great!". Chet put the guitar on a stand and looked at it and said to the fellow "how's it sound now?".

[THE SAW]

I'll admit I'm a terrible player, but my old Italian bass has a nice dark sound but at the same time a eerie upper partial going on that makes it almost sound like a flute or something is playing along with it an octave higher. Friends tell me that's good and the fact that I own it is truly a pearl before a swine. I know, you guys want to see pictures, where I got it etc...

"Eat your heart out" I reply!

[drurb]

I walked away and thought about this question a bit more and figured that if I were to answer it, I'd say the tone I prefer is what I often hear/heard from Ray Brown. Uh-- but that's about Ray's hands! Sure, he played fine basses, but that's where the tone was.

In other words, UT has nailed it again!

[uprightben]

Your sound is definatley in your fingers, but different basses have different sounds, too. Over thanksgiving I went to a party and brought my carved Gliga, and another fella brought his old kay. We set them up in different rooms, mine in a room with a small drum set, his in a room with a celtic harp, and we just went back and forth on each other's basses through out the night. Besides my bass being a newer, east european carved and his being an old american ply, they were also set up completley differently, his action being about twice the height of mine, and believe me, they sound different. Still, when I played the kay, I sounded like me. That thing had such earth-shattering low end, it seemed shake the whole house and pitch seemed muddy when I was listening to it, but when I played it I got a nice focused pitch. Any ways, too different basses with two different sounds in two different rooms with two different vibes, but yet you could tell who was playing without seeing them. Great times, by the way.

[Eric Rene Roy]

This all reminds me of a story I tell in the shop.

A customer had bought a bass from us and about a year later...numerous string changes and tweaks being done, he brought the bass in to us to have us "fix" the tone. He had very pointed opinions about what he liked and didn't like about the bass and I listened intently making notes about what I could change or tweak. Then Gary came in the room...and started playing his bass. After a few minutes the customer turned to me and said, "that's exactly how I want the bass to sound!". I turned to him and reminded him (in the most gentle way I could) that that WAS his bass! He just kept saying " i want it to sound like that when I play it".

[EggyToast]

Originally Posted by Barron

What tone do you strive for?

41.20 Hz

At least, when I'm feeling like a low E.

[MingusAmongUs]

I use all 12.

[drurb]

Originally Posted by uprightben

Your sound is definatley in your fingers, but different basses have different sounds, too.

If that weren't true then I'd have wasted a bunch of money!

[hdiddy]

Dark and punchy. Lots to moderate amount of growl. Low tension.

[Ike Harris]

Originally Posted by eroy

This all reminds me of a story I tell in the shop.

A customer had bought a bass from us and about a year later...numerous string changes and tweaks being done, he brought the bass in to us to have us "fix" the tone. He had very pointed opinions about what he liked and didn't like about the bass and I listened intently making notes about what I could change or tweak. Then Gary came in the room...and started playing his bass. After a few minutes the customer turned to me and said, "that's exactly how I want the bass to sound!". I turned to him and reminded him (in the most gentle way I could) that that WAS his bass! He just kept saying " i want it to sound like that when I play it".

That's the tricky thing, too, when playing a large vertical bass instrument that projects it's sound. What you hear when YOU'RE playing is not what is being heard 10 or 20 ft in front. You might be projecting the perfect sound but not hearing it on top of the bass. A recorder MIGHT give you a better idea. Another set of sound altering problems there as well. That being said, I like a multi-dimensional type of sound, with a big bottom, nice mid, with an edge, both pizz and arco. The edge can help carry the bottom to the foreground and not be there just for the sake of having an edge. It can help you hear yourself in a section, too. I likes it.

Ike

[drurb]

Originally Posted by Ike Harris

big bottom, nice mid, with an edge...

Hmm. Works for more than basses.

[Eric Swanson]

Originally Posted by drurb

Hmm. Works for more than basses.

[Don Higdon]

I can't make a bass sound like something it isn't.
All I can do is try to bring out the best that's in it.