balancing the EQ on your bass and your amp

[moonfire]

hello,

I'm about to buy my first bass with active electronics and onboard EQ. (I've always played passive.)

dumb question perhaps, but for those bassists with active basses, how do you go about balancing the EQ on the bass with the EQ on your amp? the OCD part of me thinks this will drive me crazy until I get a handle on it

do you guys use your amp's EQ for primary tone control and the EQ on the bass for a "finishing touch" and/or quick onstage adjustments? or....???

thanks!

[mech]

Originally Posted by moonfire

do you guys use your amp's EQ for primary tone control and the EQ on the bass for a "finishing touch" and/or quick onstage adjustments?

Yes. I set the EQ on the bass "flat" and set the controls on the amp for the room and use the controls on the bass for EQ changes when needed for different songs.

mech

[jmattbassplaya]

For me, amp EQ is more for the room and the bass's preamp is more for fine tuning my sound and for changing tones between songs. My bass EQ always starts flat (except on my Ray which is always full on).

[Bread Knife]

You keep your Ray up full? Ouch! I leave my 3-band set flat for the most part, and try to do similar on the 2-band. Full treble is painful!

[Killcram187]

Originally Posted by mech

Yes. I set the EQ on the bass "flat" and set the controls on the amp for the room and use the controls on the bass for EQ changes when needed for different songs.

mech

+ 1

[prd004]

I set my bass EQ flat, and dial in the desired tone on my amp.
Then I have the on-board bass EQ to adjust on the fly for song to song changes

[SGD Lutherie]

I also set the bass EQ flat, get a good tone at the amp, and then use the bass' EQ to dial in tones for certain songs. I also use a TubeWorks Blue tube which is on most of the time. That has its own 3 bands of EQ. I usually boost the lows on that.

[Rockmusician]

I set the controls on the bass flat and eq the amp. Then I use the controls on the bass for making subtle adjustments if needed.

[floatingaxe]

How do you go to FOH?
I DI from the bass, so my onboard EQ affects the FOH, but my amp EQ is just for my sound out of my cab. I try to limit how much deep lows come out of my cab to tame stage volume issues.
You wan to be carefull messing too much with the EQ that go to FOH unless you've got great communication with your sound guy because you want to avoid big adjustments at the sound board.

[grendle]

I like to set the amp flat, then use the eq on the bass (might have issues with the sound man / pa) . I've done it the opposite way also. What ever works for you really.

[WalterBush]

I use the EQ controls on my basses and ignore the amp as much as possible. If I can, I'll just go through monitors and avoid bringing an amp at all. My current amp rig is a tube pre->power amp->810 cab. No amp EQ to futz with, just the knobs on my bass, and I like it that way.

I really, really don't like bass amps much.

[kevteop]

I don't usually adjust anything. If the stage I'm on is doing something weird I'll compensate at the amp, otherwise I just leave it alone.

Then I do any adjustments for sounds for particular songs on the bass itself or using pedals.