moving pickups on a midrange tone bias bass

[rbx374]

hey guys, i have a question that i dont know is totally stupid to ask or has a valid point.

My 6 string ibanez has a very loud midrange tone but the higher string and lower string are alot quieter.

someone from my band suggested a fatfinger to help balance the tone a little better but i was wondering if moving the pickups would make any difference? i was wondering if i moved one pickup up say 10mm and the other down about the same or a tad less - maybe 5-8mm (the thicker string has alot less volume than the others) would that balance out my range a little more? or is it just literally that the pickups cant support the lower frequency? as i said i dunno if this is a stupid question or not as i'm not sure if its a case of the middle of the pickups is picking up a stronger field or if its just that the pickups can only pickup certain ranges and makes no difference in volume where i move them?

Rock
Finger
ibanez gsr206
circle k strings
behringer bxl4500h
behringer bb410

[SGD Lutherie]

The Fat Finger is more for getting rid of dead notes. Moving the pickup would probably not change the mids.

Does the bass sound the same with different strings? One of my Ricks used to sound too midrangy with certain strings, and better with others.

How is your amp's EQ set?

The other two ideas would be to install a lighter aluminum bridge, and/or change to different pickups.

[rbx374]

originally i had the stock strings on it, but i'm tuned up a step and a half step on my high c (C# F# B E A C#) so i switched to circle k's as i've now selected the appropriate sizes to not overstress the guitar with the torsion 130 94 70 53 39 29 which definately improved the string sound in clarity and volume but made no difference to the midrange difference...if anything it just made it more pronounced as when i play my low C# you can barely make out i'm playing then i step up to say the F# or the B and suddenly boom! too loud...

as for eq on the amp i tend to leave it all at 12:00, i tried turning up the low and the low/mid before which made it less clear...should i maybe try turning down the mid rather than turning up the low and hi? (incase you think i'm a ****** and could just try this right now rather than asking my half stack gets left at the practice room as its easier than lifting it back and forth every single week lol i have a peavey valve here that i use outside of practice but obviously the tone is very different so cant compare the 2)

[rbx374]

they do advertise it as a midrange bass and usually i'm a midrange bass guy cos thats the area i tend to hang around in alot...but this bass as sweet as it sounds just needs some help running through those low tones

[SGD Lutherie]

Yeah, turn down the mids on the amp.

Just curious, why do you tune up?

[rbx374]

because almost all our songs are based on or around harmonies of C# as our singer/guitarist is tuned to drop C# i didn't like the tuning to begin with, but some of our songs the bass lines simply werent possible (to me atleast) without being able to access the low c# string as an open note (for example one song is on the C# string 12 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 10 11 at a really fast tempo - 184bpm on the recording or so - live the drummer and singer get carried away so probably raises to about 210 or something despite my pleas to tempo down a little lol)

So yeah thats why i'm C#, but i refused to do drop tune style...i dont really understand why people do that on bass, makes life harder for me, if you understand finger patterns for scales its so easy to play balanced 4ths as you can move that pattern anywhere ...

anyway, i didn't like it to begin with as i'm most familiar with standard B, E and A tunings, and i play cello which is to C in balanced 5ths but i'm getting used to it

anyway thats my rant about drop step tuning :P

[SGD Lutherie]

Oh OK. Yeah, I play some songs with the guitarist doing drop D. I have a 5 string, so I don't retune my E, but it does make playing some things tricker because the guitarist is using an open string. But it's not all that hard once you get used to it.

[rbx374]

ah theres no way i could do it for some of our songs, not saying its impossible as i know there are many people out there FAR more talented than myself (i'm sure yourself included SGD) but i am certainly no novice to playing bass instrument and am familiar with transposing tracks (as i said i play cello and bass so obviously one tuned in fourths from E and one tuned in fifths from C can be very different to play and i usually become familiar with playing it on each) but some of our songs are pretty quick and usually the open note is where i'm setting myself up for the next note for example

C#--------------------------------------------------------
A=--------------------------------------------------------
E=--------------------------------------------------------
B=-----------------------------------------------------1-2
F# ---------3-2-----------4-2-----------5-2---------------
C# 0-0-3-0-----3-0-0-3-0-----3-0-0-3-0-----3-0-0-3-0----

its pretty comfortable to play like this, if i was having to move up 2 frets...at the speed the song is i think i would need medical care for my hand the next day haha plus the rythym is very comfortable in terms of string alternations in this tuning, basically this band really arent bassist friendly, all songs have been written by the guitarist for guitar in his drop C# tuning, its just easier to have my lowest string in the same key as it tends to match in...i know if i held a standard tuning i would eventually get used to it, but just cant see the benefit when i can just change the strings to a lighter gauge and tune up a step and half my work load giving me more time to rock out

[rbx374]

oh and the whole drop d guitarist while you stay balanced and standard on your 5 string...i have done that in the past...alot of the time it is easier to just stay standard, you know where you are and after years of playing you got pretty much every note on the fretboard memorized, but yeah with this band i really tried, went to 2 practices and obviously the week in between trying to play their songs in standard b but it just wasn't working, the rythym and flow wasn't right, the whole energy of the song just seemed to be different and obviously sustaining and muting of notes became a much more technical job lol