G.A.S. is ok, but it really is ALL in the hands....

PDavyduck · #1 08-09-2009, 09:17 PM

a great drummer buddy of mine ,that I get to gig with every so often, and I had an interesting discussion last night during a set break.

The topic was tone and a local bass legend and his amazing tone, consistently amazing tone, even on his current favourite $300 no-name bass that he's digging on as of late.

As has been discussed ad nauseum, as I'm sure, we both fully agreed on the fact that yes, great tools ie. expensive tools are great and do give inspiration to the player as well as provide reliable repeated performance BUT... there's always a butt,

the consensus was that at the end of the day it don't matter what latest greatest or oldest most vintaged mojo'd gear you've got... it's all in the hands.

discuss.....

JimmyM · #2 08-09-2009, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PDavyduck

a great drummer buddy of mine ,that I get to gig with every so often, and I had an interesting discussion last night during a set break.

The topic was tone and a local bass legend and his amazing tone, consistently amazing tone, even on his current favourite $300 no-name bass that he's digging on as of late.

As has been discussed ad nauseum, as I'm sure, we both fully agreed on the fact that yes, great tools ie. expensive tools are great and do give inspiration to the player as well as provide reliable repeated performance BUT... there's always a butt,

the consensus was that at the end of the day it don't matter what latest greatest or oldest most vintaged mojo'd gear you've got... it's all in the hands.

discuss.....

Nothing to discuss. It's all in the hands.

MikeBass · #3 08-09-2009, 09:57 PM

Could someone close this thread.
There's nothing else to be said here.
It's in the hands........not your <insert bass name here>

**Marcus Willett** · #4 08-09-2009, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PDavyduck

it's all in the hands

Sorry, but that's BS; gear matters

Yes, a great deal of the tone comes from your hands but the gear has a big influence.

Case in point, not 24 hours ago I had a triple-header weekend...3 gigs in 3 different venues. Same hands, same bass...totally different tone through 3 different amps. 2 sounded great, 1 like crap and no amount of EQ'ing helped the bad one. Sure, the room's a factor too which just lends credence to what I'm saying...there's only so much your hands can do when given a bad room or amp. I've heard many top-level bassists sound like crap when put in a bad situation. That's why again and again you see pro players being very loyal to a particular instrument and/or insisting upon a certain rig for a certain gig.

IME, it's about 50/50; the gear/hands ratio

A good player can make just about any situation sound at least OK (that's often a situation I'm put in and it's my job to make the best of it), but to suggest it shouldn't matter at all and that it's "all in the hands" when talking about an electric instrument (and it is folks...despite the fact that many like to treat it as though it's an acoustic instrument it is not) is simply not the case.

rarisgod · #5 08-09-2009, 10:04 PM

Very true. Good gear can only improve the sound of a great player. But a GREAT DEAL comes from the hands. Good gear just helps along.

steamthief · #6 08-09-2009, 10:12 PM

Yep. I can make the very best gear sound wrong.

**Marcus Willett** · #7 08-09-2009, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rarisgod

Very true. Good gear can only improve the sound of a great player. But a GREAT DEAL comes from the hands. Good gear just helps along.

Right...I would say perhaps a better way to look at it is

Good gear can bring out what you may have as a player, but if it ain't there to bring out the gear won't help you.

That I think is why this idea gets out there. Guy sees a pro player playing through a crap (insert whatever you want) rig and he still sounds pretty good. Guy thinks "See? He still sounds good man....it's all in the hands like I said!"

What he (probably) doesn't realize is that the player is making all kinds of adjustments and compromises to get it to that point and when he plays through a rig that really works for him, he's suddenly freed up tremendously to express himself and the music is so much more, even though to the casual listener (or even an informed one) it may not sound that different.

That's exactly what happened to me yesterday. Gig #2 was a horrible rig...I was struggling and hating it the whole time. Every note was like a knife in my head. I am NOT expressing myself at all...it's takes all I have as a human being just to get through it. People still come up and say, "Hey sounded great man" to which I can only smile and say thanks.

2 hours later I'm playing through another rig and it's heaven. Notes just speak...it's all there and I can just play and not work to make it happen...it just does happen.

That I think is the underlying reality of the gear/hands thing

newbold · #8 08-09-2009, 10:16 PM

There's certainly a lot to discuss...but nothing NEW can be said on this subject.

Have fun!

MikeBass · #9 08-09-2009, 10:20 PM

I've owned the best basses that money could buy and I've owned some "inexpensive" basses as well.

Sure some days I couldn't get ANYTHING to sound good. Other days, EVERYTHING sounded good.
But, the most basic underlying thing was, I sounded like me.
I refuse to believe that a piece of gear has more weight over what's in you.

Think Etta James singing through the rig at Carnegie Hall, and then through a pair of powered Mackie's is going to sound like two different people?
She will always sound like Etta James.

There was a running joke with some buddies of mine a long time back, I believe the player we used was Alphonso Johnson.

It went like this:
You know what Alphonso Johnson sounds like playing a Jazz Bass??? Alphonso Johnson.
You know what Alphonso Johnson sounds like playing a P- Bass??? Alphonso Johnson.
You know what Alphonso Johnson sounds like playing a Music Man??? Alphonso Johnson playing a Music Man!!!

This gets a little deeper, but I believe everyone has a tone ingrained in them.
Something that no matter what we pick up, we will try and fiddle with knobs, strings, maybe even basses until we sound like what we want.
Even if we don't know we're doing it, we're doing it.

Unless you grab something that has such a signature sound to it, like a Music Man or Smith for example, you are going to come through with your sound.

Sure, we can split hairs and say we didn't like this about our sound or really liked that about it, but we basically always sound like we want.

chuck3 · #10 08-09-2009, 10:26 PM

played kinda a multi-headed gig on Friday July 31 whereby it was both in a bar and also on a big outside patio, and I was playing both Fender bass and upright bass. I got compliments on the upright stuff but more on the Fender stuff, and what's funny is that it was almost all flat EQ with the rest in the technique and a good Genz Benz rig. No effects. A nice Fender Jazz and a good Genz Benz rig, and a LOT of variation as to what I did with my hand. Fat tone, pick tone, let it ring or mute it with the base of my hand.

JimmyM · #11 08-09-2009, 10:36 PM

Marcus, you're right to an extent, because despite owning several sub-$300 basses, I'm pretty choosy about what I buy. But what I do on the equipment greatly trumps the equipment itself. To paraphrase Mike, it all sounds like me playing a whatever. I score it at about 95% me, 5% equipment, and I do that grudgingly.

Munjibunga · #12 08-09-2009, 10:37 PM

If I do the same thing with my hands on two different basses, there will be a difference in the sound. For example, there would be a significant difference between my koa/mahogany Sadowsky 5-24 and my ash/buckeye burl MTD 535-24. No amount of EQing or hand positioning or technique is going to make these two basses sound similar. It is, of course, possible to get wide range of tonal variation using different playing positions and techniques on a given bass, but some basses just sound different from others, no matter what. Hence, it's not all in the hands.

PDavyduck · #13 08-09-2009, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Munjibunga

If I do the same thing with my hands on two different basses, there will be a difference in the sound. For example, there would be a significant difference between my koa/mahogany Sadowsky 5-24 and my ash/buckeye burl MTD 535-24. No amount of EQing or hand positioning or technique is going to make these two basses sound similar. It is, of course, possible to get wide range of tonal variation using different playing positions and techniques on a given bass, but some basses just sound different from others, no matter what. Hence, it's not all in the hands.

I absolutely hear what you're saying Munji, but the fact remains, and yes, I said fact, that aside from a Ferrari, Porsche, and Lambo handling and responding differently for Schumacher, they're still going to be driven insanely well and do what HE wants them to do.

yes, my ash/maple bass sounds way different to my chambered out cherry/purpleheart, and a J sounds differently to a P BUT, given experienced hands, they'll all sound great, the differences and nuances will be noticed but they'll still sound great.

I'm not saying that different gear doesn't sound different, it does.

what I'm getting at is that any gear, put in the right hands, will always sound great. period.

...that's why I still sound waaaay bad on some gear

**Marcus Willett** · #14 08-09-2009, 11:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimmyM

Marcus, you're right to an extent

I would say a large extent

Simple tests:

Play your bass through you favorite rig.

Turn the tone control totally off (or treble control if you have active EQ, though this tests works better passive). Get the same amount of brightness using your hands.

Put a high pass filter around 500Hz and cut everything below that by 20db. Make up the difference in low end with your hands.

Extreme examples? Sure, but it gets across the point...every link in the tone chain has limits, including your hands.

I am not suggesting (nor do I think any experienced player is) that you cannot get a tremendous range of tone with your hands...this is certainly true.

What I am calling BS on is the notion that with an electric instrument that all (or anything approaching 95%)of the tone of that comes from your hands. If that were true, you should be able to hook up your bass, play and basically any adjustments I make to EQ can be compensated for with your hands as I'm changing things...or I guess 95% as much right?

To be clear: This is not the same thing as saying you will sound like you pretty much no matter what. That is a different subject based on how you make subconscious adjustments to make things sound the way you think they should when put into different contexts.

This is saying that if the suggested model is that 95% of the tone is in your hands, then no change after the fact could result in more than a 5% variance; the rest being compensated for by your hands. Very simple tests will show this is not the case.

onlyclave · #15 08-09-2009, 11:22 PM

If you need to validate your purchases using the tone argument then more power to you. Aside from the cheap Ibanez 6 string I bought a couple of years ago for fun I haven't upgraded my gear in over 15 years. Not because I think it's be all and end all of sound but because buying another amp/cabinet/instrument won't change the sound of me. It's 99.8% in my hands.

N.F.A. · #16 08-09-2009, 11:25 PM

I would add to this that having well set up gear is of tantamount importance too. It may not all be in the hands, but most of it sure is.. This is sure to be heavily debated, but not by me...

king_biscuit · #17 08-09-2009, 11:32 PM

Obviously it's hands AND equipment. Clearly if you put a great player -- say Jaco -- on any Jazz bass with rounds he is going to get his tone. But put him on something else, and while still sounding great, it won't be the tone we are used to. For example, search out a clip of Jaco playing Jerry Jemmott's scroll bass on the DCI video -- it sounds nothing like his Jazz bass tone. Can you imagine Chris Squire getting his signature tone on a 70s fretless Precision with heavy Fender flats? How about Jamerson on a Ric with light stainless rounds? Victor Wooten on a Hofner Beetle bass with flats? Marcus Miler on a EBO with heavy flats... So let's not get carried away.

kesslari · #18 08-09-2009, 11:33 PM

Quote:

What I am calling BS on is the notion that with an electric instrument that all (or anything approaching 95%)of the tone of that comes from your hands. If that were true, you should be able to hook up your bass, play and basically any adjustments I make to EQ can be compensated for with your hands as I'm changing things...or I guess 95% as much right?

Conversely, if more than 5% is in the gear, then a non-player should sound more than 5% better playing for the first (or second) time on boutique gear than on a squier.

I'm not convinced.
With that said, I think that the "hard numbers" (x percent, y percent) are what's screwing this up.

I find it hard to argue that gear is more important than the player. I've heard too many lousy players sounding lousy on great gear, and too many great players sounding great on low-end or even awful gear.

I certainly agree that better gear (gear that you enjoy) makes it easier to play your best. I have some nice gear, and I prefer to play it. And gear has intrinsic tonal properties - a Wal gets certain sounds easily, a P gets other sounds easily. But my abilities and limitations are much more defining factors in how and what I can play, and how I sound, than the gear that I play on.

naturalkinds · #19 08-09-2009, 11:35 PM

Sorry. You're all wrong. It's 100% equipment. 0% hands.

PDavyduck · #20 08-09-2009, 11:38 PM

well, didn't mean this to be a flame war.

the "%" stuff was NOT introduced by me and is BS in and of itself.

and those extreme settings Marcus, c'mon man, that's just silly and childish. It's like saying, if I poked holes in all of the speakers and threw a blanket over the fingerboard would it stillllll be all about "the hands"??... c'mon now.

I do totally, I mean TOTALLY get where you're coming from but the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter what gear is in your hands, a more experienced/seasoned player is going to sound miles ahead of a green-horn which does equate to the fact that if a seasoned player can sound good regardless of price tag and pedigree of instrument then that must give some insight to up and comers that no amount of pedigree of instrument will give them the tone they are seeking today.... in a little while and many notes and miles on that pedigreed bass will probably get them exactly the tone they are seeking.

expensive gear IS GOOD!! and SHOULD BE BOUGHT!! but it ain't gonna give you good tone, your hands are gonna give you that. period.