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Originally Posted by birminghambass  Hey TB. I've owned over 100 basses in the last 20 years, in that time I've learned a lot about what makes a bass great (for me) and crappy (again, IMO). One thing that intrigues me is the tone of lighter basses, sub 8.5 lbs to be specific. Every light bass I've owned or played was very resonant, lively, and had a significant reduction of the typical bolt-on dead spots. The few anchors (11lbs+) I've had were dead and soulless.
Anyone else have these findings? |
Not so much the weight, but for me it's the sound when unplugged like you talk about. In my case, the more dead and soulless it sounds acoustically the better it sounds to me when plugged in.
The best examples are my Carvins, especially the 6 string. They're neck-through with maple/walnut 5-piece necks; they're utterly dead dead dead, placky placky placky sounding unplugged. But of course, when you plug them in they sound absolutely fantastic. The 6 string in particular has a really hot attack and piano-like jazzy tone that's just gold to my ears.
Being a 6 string, it also happens to weigh about 2.5 tons also.
I've always found basses with a more lively sound acoustically to be harder to deal with when plugged in - eg. my L2K and especially my Rick 4003. They both have a definite acoustic sound to them, but plugged in I have to work with them a fair bit to get an even sound out of them.
No idea why that is.
One exception was a Rob Allen semi-acoustic that I played in NYC a couple years ago. It sounded really really nice through an amp....
Go figure
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LS
