bass guitar tone

[icke2433]

Hey guys I have a few questions. I am currently playing a squier vintage modified jazz into a tech 21 vt deluxe into an eleven rack (minus the expansion pack) through a crown xls 402 power amp and into an ampeg 4x10

The sound is amazing and I love the all the grind it give me but for some reason every note on my low e string comes out .... like it's missing something. Is this because I don't have the expansion pack and the elven rack doesnt know how to process such low notes? Or is it the pickups? or is it a bad setup ? I'm not really sure where to go.

[SGD Lutherie]

Why are you using the tech 21 VT Deluxe and the Eleven rack? How do you have each one set?

I'm guessing you are using a lot of over drive/distortion?

How does the setup sound without the VT Deluxe? Maybe dial back everything and start adding a little over drive. Too much and you have lots of higher harmonics that will mask the low fundamentals. Less is more in this case.

[MDBass]

The VT Bass is designed to be used as a preamp (meaning straight into a power amp like the Crown), so I'd try removing the Eleven rack from the signal chain and going from there; if I recall, the expansion pack contains the only bass amp model for the Eleven rack, and adding an additional process to the signal in the form of an amp model designed for guitar may be robbing you of bottom end.

[SGD Lutherie]

I'd rather stick with the Eleven Rack as a preamp. I often use guitar amp models, like Fender Twins for bass. That works fine. Not a bad idea to get the expansion pack though.

But it makes no sense to use two amp modelers in series, unless you want to just use the VT Deluxe as an effect pedal. It's just going to much out the signal.

[astack]

Have you tried it through a few different setups? I've had string sets that were like that were the E was just off. Could be pickup height, too. It can be pretty hard to track that kind of thing down.

[MDBass]

My point exactly; I recommended the VT simply because that's the one I have more experience with, whereas you regularly use the Eleven rack so you prefer that.

Either way, use one or the other but not both; which one you prefer really depends on what kind of sound you're going for.

The VT has the ability to emulate a wide variety of classic Ampeg amps, and the Eleven rack has a wide variety of classic guitar amps that can work very well for bass when EQ'd properly; Lemmy from Motorhead gets some killer tone running his Ric through a Marshall guitar stack.

Originally Posted by SGD Lutherie

I'd rather stick with the Eleven Rack as a preamp. I often use guitar amp models, like Fender Twins for bass. That works fine. Not a bad idea to get the expansion pack though.

But it makes no sense to use two amp modelers in series, unless you want to just use the VT Deluxe as an effect pedal. It's just going to much out the signal.

[icke2433]

I do in fact use the vt as an effect pedal, as well as an easy way to just plug into a power amp and go. After trying both using each one as a single pre-amp the problem still exists. I may have been unclear in my posting, when playing anything on A D or G the sound is warm and clear, but upon playing the E string the sound not only loses it clarity but it sounds like I have my tone pot rolled all the way back.

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by icke2433

I do in fact use the vt as an effect pedal, as well as an easy way to just plug into a power amp and go. After trying both using each one as a single pre-amp the problem still exists. I may have been unclear in my posting, when playing anything on A D or G the sound is warm and clear, but upon playing the E string the sound not only loses it clarity but it sounds like I have my tone pot rolled all the way back.

How old are the strings? I have had bad strings that sounded like that. Also what brand are they?

[Mushroo]

Try plucking the E string a bit closer to the bridge than the other strings.

[Hobobob]

Sounds like a bad E string.

[MDBass]

Have you tried replacing the strings and are still having this issue?

Assuming you've already tried new strings, the nut might be slotted too thin for the E string, not allowing it to ring clearly; do you notice a significant difference in timbre between the E string and the other strings when playing acoustically?

[Davo-London]

This is quite common IMHO. My 76P does the same. Once the strings are more than 4 weeks old the E-string sounds different from the others. More muddy less zing. I don't know what the cure is but my 64P is different. The string sound is much more balanced!

Davo