If a Bass Guitar sounds good "unplugged", then should it sound good amplified?

[M.R. Ogle]

Originally Posted by LeonD

One way it was explained to me early on was to think of the neck, body and strings like a vocalist and think of the electronics like a microphone.
If you have a crappy vocalist and you give them a crappy mic, they'll sound crappy. If you give them a better microphone, they will sound better than with the crappy mic but they still won't sound good.

That's how I think of it.

[Bongolation]

Originally Posted by M.R. Ogle

It really isn't even the "sound" it produces (as a solidbody, it isn't much acoustically) it's the "feel" of the attack, sustain, even-ness and resonance. It's gotta be good to start with, I'm willing to fix or swap out electronics all day long if the basic wood/construction is sound.

If you're trying to find and minimize deadspots and related problems, unplugged is the way to go, and you don't even have to hear anything. Just going up the fretboard with the bass lying on your belly is all you need. You'll feel them better than you can hear them. It's quite remarkable.

[Changing strings to those with different gauge and tension can help or worsen some of this (as can technique) -- so it's not completely a construction question.]

This is much more significant on bass than guitar, and more with flats than rounds.

[RobJ]

My first judgement on whether a bass is good is how well it plays and sounds unplugged. There are so many things to be discovered about a given bass when unplugged it's pretty amazing I think; fretwork, evenness note to note, intonation, dead spots, etc. For me it's like putting the bass under a microscope of sorts.

If I like the bass unplugged then I'll go through an amp, if I don't like it unplugged it goes back on the shelf.

[mongo2]

I no longer bother with listening to electric instruments unplugged. The instrument is a system and all the components have to work together to get the sound from the strings to the amp and ultimately to the ear of the listener. So, when I evaluate an electric instrument, I just plug in and play.

[Session1969]

Yes.

[topo morto]

Originally Posted by Bongolation

This is much more significant on bass than guitar

Make sense - those B and E strings really shake the bass body around!

Originally Posted by Bongolation

and more with flats than rounds.

Interesting, why do you reckon?

[Lorenzop]

Originally Posted by topo morto

It's not quite that simple though - the vibrations in the strings get transmitted into the neck and body, which shake around and in turn vibrate the strings, which ends up affecting the sound at the pickup....

In case you think this would be a negligible effect, play your bass unplugged. Quite a lot of vibration comes through the body, right? now plug it in and instead of plucking a string, give the body a tap with the knuckles in various places. A surprising amount of energy gets back into the strings...

Of course it's a huge leap from that to saying that you could predict the plugged-in sound of a bass from its acoustic tone. After all, the acoustic sound you hear is the energy that's being lost from the system...

THIS I think is the key to what we are talking about. Saying that PU is everything must be correct - after all that's what turns the "sound" into Voltage.

But: WHAT exactly is a PU picking up? A string vibration. So the question is : HOW does the string vibrate, and produce the "sound" tone?

I am quite sure construction and woods make a huge difference otherwise why is it that even unplugged (thus eliminating PU variables) so many basses sound different?

Maybe all that makes a difference is construction only ? Which explaines why copies of famous basses often sound v similar to original, even with diff woods and PUs ?!!

[TRyan5289]

I say no, because my Yamaha RBX360 sounds better unplugged than plugged in.

[ejaggers]

Originally Posted by RobJ

My first judgement on whether a bass is good is how well it plays and sounds unplugged. There are so many things to be discovered about a given bass when unplugged it's pretty amazing I think; fretwork, evenness note to note, intonation, dead spots, etc. For me it's like putting the bass under a microscope of sorts.

If I like the bass unplugged then I'll go through an amp, if I don't like it unplugged it goes back on the shelf.

+1

I am too anal to buy a bass that doesn’t sound good unplugged. I keep a bass by the bed at all times, so I can grab it at will. I have a SS Jag that I bought online, that I’ve thrown lots of money at trying to get it to sound good unplugged, two professional setups, neck work, nut work, etc. I would not have bought this bass if I could have played it first. I agree that playing a bass unplugged gives you a lot of valuable information.

Now all that being said, the Jag does sound good plugged in, so my answer is no, but I wouldn’t buy a bass that I couldn't enjoy unplugged, unless it was REAL CHEAP!!!
because I probably wouldn't play it very much.

057912

[frankie5string]

Are you standing on stage playing your bass unplugged? No? Then it's unplugged sound doesn't really matter when trying to predict its electrified sound.

The only difference is "perceived punch". If the body is fairly resonant, you get more feedback through your hands and your belly. Psychologically that makes many electric instruments feel more interactive. You can get the same effect by playing staccato on a relatively dead stage with large sub bass bins. The acoustic punch can affect your playing. Some FOH engineers will notice bass players that "lock" better and give them more low frequency content if they're fairly even players. You can definitely hear it, feel it, and it can be very inspiring. Now that is fun to play with!

[Brad Johnson]

This is just one more of those subjects where you wonder how something that seems so obvious isn't. And the lengths that some go to to explain it away is no less of a mystery.

[frankie5string]

Originally Posted by Lorenzop

I am quite sure construction and woods make a huge difference otherwise why is it that even unplugged (thus eliminating PU variables) so many basses sound different?

I think if you really wanted to, you could disassemble the pickup and find that there are nicks and cuts in the insulation causing shorts or insulation flat spots in the coils. Those tiny issues create resistance and capacitance changes which affects the tone much more than the wood type in the bass. Also lack of shielding can make a big difference.

[Brad Johnson]

How does that address what you quoted?

[frankie5string]

Originally Posted by Brad Johnson

How does that address what you quoted?

Not all pickups are wound exactly the same. On a production line with Fender basses you will find some that sound unique. Take that unique sounding bass, remove it's pickups and electronics and transplant them into an adjacently produced Fender and set them up identically, and guess what? You just moved that unique tone over to another slab of wood.

Look at some of the things builders have said... Chambering, wood selection are mainly there to set the design of the instrument or weight and not the tone. Sadowsky and Alembic have said that. Look at some of the EQ options like the Mike Pope pre... Why do that if you can't just "soup the wood" to get where you want to go? ;-)

[JimiLL]

If it sounds good unplugged, the right pickupsd and placement will bring that out wonderfully. If the bass is dead, the right pick ups and electronics will make up for the lack of acoustical valu.

Put the pickups from the second bass in the first bass and stand back

[JimiLL]

Originally Posted by frankie5string

Not all pickups are wound exactly the same. On a production line with Fender basses you will find some that sound unique. Take that unique sounding bass, remove it's pickups and electronics and transplant them into an adjacently produced Fender and set them up identically, and guess what? You just moved that unique tone over to another slab of wood.

Look at some of the things builders have said... Chambering, wood selection are mainly there to set the design of the instrument or weight and not the tone. Sadowsky and Alembic have said that. Look at some of the EQ options like the Mike Pope pre... Why do that if you can't just "soup the wood" to get where you want to go? ;-)

Thats because fenders are in essence all the same instruments just with different shapes. Ash, Alder, Basswood.... all bolt on maple necks and mostly Rosewood FB. Why would it sound different?

[frankie5string]

Originally Posted by JimiLL

If it sounds good unplugged, the right pickupsd and placement will bring that out wonderfully. If the bass is dead, the right pick ups and electronics will make up for the lack of acoustical valu.

Put the pickups from the second bass in the first bass and stand back

Yeah, but I've done that and I haven't found that to be the case.

Much like, although i love Yamaha basses, I'm not convinced their AIR system or that special channelized bridge (that goes through the wood sandwich of hard-soft-hard wood) actually does anything tone-wise. It always comes back to the pickups.

How about this: Pickup placement. There's another variable nobody has really touched on. How much movement the pickup sees can also affect how the bass sounds.

[frankie5string]

Originally Posted by JimiLL

Thats because fenders are in essence all the same instruments just with different shapes. Ash, Alder, Basswood.... all bolt on maple necks and mostly Rosewood FB. Why would it sound different?

They do. There can be quite a difference from one P-Bass to another plugged in. I'm not a fender fan by any means but it always struck me as kind of odd that their basses could actually have a wide range of sounds from slab to slab even though they're supposed to be formulaic. Chalk it up to the electronics and the pickups!

You even see a lot of "pull each one off the rack and try it and then take the one you like best" on these forums. That doesn't lend much truth regarding the supposed consistency of Precision Basses. You shouldn't have to try 5 P-Basses to get one that sounds good. Apparently that's just par for the course.

[Nashrakh]

You don't try five to get one that sounds good - you try five to get the best

For me playing unplugged is totally out of the question if I play how I would play plugged in. I simply wouldn't hear anything because I play too softly. I'm also not quite convinced about the causal chain of unplugged and plugged tones.

Getting a feel for an instrument does work that way though. The stores I usually visit have small headphone amps set up for customers so they can try anything they want, and do so quietly. Unsurprisingly it also solves the slap madness because now you'll only hear acoustic clank.

[Duckwater]

Not necessarily, many instruments have pickups that will color your sound, same with amps. My bass sounds nearly the same unplugged and amplified, just at a different volume. I love that sound so I would say it's a good thing to look for after my experience, I like to have a good natural sound that is translated accurately through my pickups and amp.