| Need some help with my bass's sound, A string sounds aweful (Warwick Corvette)
Sign in to disble this ad
About a year ago, I bought an active bubinga Warwick Corvette. After playing it for about a month, I realized it had a "scooped" quality, so I began tinkering with the A string and bridge in general -- a very stupid idea, but at the time I was inexperienced with actually setting up a bass, and I still am. The point is I had no idea what I was doing, and didn't realize that scooped quality came from my crappy practice amp more than anything.
So over the past year or so, I've come to this conclusion: I haven't really gotten a tone that I can actually stand out of my Corvette. In fact, when I'm playing my Vette I often spend more time playing with the tone knobs than actually playing bass. Only when I bring out my old Ibanez bass or just ignore my tone do I ever get anything done... I think most players would sell a bass that they can't get a good tone out of, but I've played Corvettes at Guitar Center and elsewhere, and they always sound better than mine, so I'm assuming my bad tones are a result of user error and a crappy amp.
The main problem is that my A string is all twangy and wimpy sounding while my E string is manly and awesome sounding. A while back, I was jamming with a drummer and two guitarists -- and looking back on it, my E string came through, nothing else. But it did sound awesome, even for such a crappy amp.
Anyway, I play over the bridge pickup and often set the pickup control to 100% bridge or 90% bridge, 10% neck. I don't like the way my bass sounds on the neck pick up when it's soloed. And I play with my fingers of course.
But for the A string -- my E string sounds growly, and (again, crappy amp) even sounds slightly over driven. The bridge pickup is pretty close to the string, and I really like the timbre (is that the right word?) that I get from my E string. However, the A string sounds very twangy -- and an A on my E string doesn't sound like an open A on the A string. I realize that string gauges and tension will affect this, but it's kind of extreme. It's almost like my bass is getting two different tones. I normally leave everything on my amp flat, and cut the bass completely on Vette's EQ. It's too much for my amp and doesn't fix my problem. I also leave the bass's treble flat, and sometimes boost the mids quite a bit on my amp and cut the highs some.
What I'm trying to get at, is how should I set my E/A string up for a better balance? I've tried different strings (DR, Rotos, and more) and that doesn't help. My E string sounds aggressive, which I like, but the A string just sounds way too trebly. I'd like any note I play on the A string to sound more similar to that same note on the E string. Again, I know it can't be exact, but my bass is pretty ridiculous right now.
I know I'm probably explaining this poorly, so let me say this: today I tuned my A string a whole step down, and when playing some stuff in normal tuning, it sounds much better even though it's harder to play, so I think that my journey of getting a better sounding A string would require me to lower the tension on it... but the string itself is already pretty close to the pickups. However, even a whole step down, the string still had an annoying twang.
So any advice? I can screw with the EQ and get the strings to match up better, but my A string always sounds brighter, in a really off way. I can get a balance similar to what I want, but I'd prefer it if I didn't have to work against my bass's set up and my amp's EQs just to get a tone I can stand.
But I'd assume that's explained poorly so I can always try and clear stuff up...
Thanks for any help.
__________________
Warwick member #170
| 
