I do this, and it has been known to suck.
Fortunately if I am ok with the sound while playing, and playing well, that carries over and makes up for a lack in the sonics.
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Bass tone not sounding right
- Thread starter Musicislife816
- Start date
I do this, and it has been known to suck.
Fortunately if I am ok with the sound while playing, and playing well, that carries over and makes up for a lack in the sonics.
I just wanna say one thing. I really dont think it is my hearing. Literally nothing else in my life sounds different. When I played with my band last weekend everything sounded great. When I played through the amp I just bought at the store it sounded fine. I went and tested an overdrive pedal yesterday and it sounded the way it was supposed to. Maybe I'm not doing a good job explaining the sound I hear but it is kinda of hard to explain, especially when I can't really convey it through a recording from my phone and I dont record anywhere else.
I think when I said "a blanket over the sound" that wasn't really accurate. Its more like when I play it sounds like the fidelity of the sound isn't as rich. The sounds seems boxey and not complete if that makes any sense. Its like some frequencies come through but others are missing or having a hard time coming through, low end and high end. My first suspicion when this first started was that one of my speakers was blown or damaged in some way but thats not the case if im hearing it in more than one amplifier, especially if one is brand new and not being pushed.
Ok, if it's not hearing trouble, there's one other thing I can think to check. It's hard for me to keep track now of what changed, what didn't, etc, but if you have any array speakers, even just a 2x10 (and I think you said you have two of those), did you have any cause to open up and disconnect then reconnect any speaker(s)? Even if just to have a look...
A 'boxy' sound with incomplete parts of a spectrum can result from reconnecting one driver or cab with polarity inverted. I can't consider this in context because you mentioned so many contextual changes, but it's worth looking into this if any single array of anything was used in all those contexts.
It's odd and difficult to diagnose if it's with multiple amps and multiple basses. If it were one bass I would suggest replacing the 9 volt battery, or adjusting the pickup height. With two basses and some of them being passive I don't know. Could be something with an amp but if we are talking different amps and different cabs then I don't know.
I don't know if you brought something else into the room that is now causing dissonance? If you haven't already done so take your basses and amps outside or to a different location and see if it changes. Turn up and move the eq around and see what affects what.
I don't know if you brought something else into the room that is now causing dissonance? If you haven't already done so take your basses and amps outside or to a different location and see if it changes. Turn up and move the eq around and see what affects what.
The fact that it's multiple amps and instruments suggests the room may be the issue.
The SVT is not at home, and sounds fine.
I'll assume the same basses are used at home and away.
take your combos to not at home and see if the issue persists.
If you have a way to record the bass direct (bass > cable > input ) that will eliminate room sound
I'm going with the phase of one of the cabs being wrong. Also, if you have a horn in both of your cabs, and the ability to turn horns off, turn the horn off on ONE of the cabs, which ever results in a better tone. But yea the cab phase could be backwards in one and that causes all kinds of weird and terrible tone side effects. Could be from a changed speaker cable (maybe a cable is wired wrong), or a switch on one of the cabs for phase that has gotten knocked into the other setting (most cabs don't have a phase switch, but some do).
Definitely the first thing to do in teh situation is try to resolve the tone issue with just one head and cab.... you need to remove variables from the equation and solve those little pieces first. Then, do the amp only with the other cab. and only when you are satisfied with each should you, MAYBE, combine them... if the result sounds better to you.
Definitely the first thing to do in teh situation is try to resolve the tone issue with just one head and cab.... you need to remove variables from the equation and solve those little pieces first. Then, do the amp only with the other cab. and only when you are satisfied with each should you, MAYBE, combine them... if the result sounds better to you.
after reading page 4 of this thread, I am leaning towards agreeing with the strings theory.
Not the strings themselves necessarily, but how they are installed. They sound twisted, which can make that exact flanging/phasing tone happen.
Not the strings themselves necessarily, but how they are installed. They sound twisted, which can make that exact flanging/phasing tone happen.
yea, if it turns out not to be strings, or not JUST strings, then yea that is what I was leaning towards in my previous suggestions also.
either multiple cabs/amps causing issues (again normally multiple amps is not often a good, or at least not an easy, setup for bass unless identical), and the strings being twisted can also do weird tone things.
Try using DeOxit on your bass and the inputs of your amp. Could be in your house circuit.
Post a picture of your headstock so we can see the windings of the strings. I’ve had weird issues come and go, but sometimes pickup height and sometimes the way the string is strung on the bass itself makes a big difference.
D
Not very likely to be caused by the strings when it's happening with three different basses though is it?
If all of the strings were replaced incorrectly it could be
I went through a phase of installing my strings wrong.... not like "wrong" but where I just for a few months was consistently getting twists into the strings in the way I was installing them. They invariably had the phasey sound. I rocked it for 3 months and then said, ok, time to figure out what I've changed in my string installs...and sure enough I figured out what I had started doing differently, and voila, no more twists and no more built-in flanger.
so just pointing out that if it IS the strings, it is something that many of us have done, and it would be a consistent thing if the same bassist put new strings on the same basses using the same techniques and the same brands.
probably little comfort to know that some random idiot from the forum (I'm talking about me) made that mistake and therefore it's ok for others to have made that mistake with strings LoL. But it's all the comfort I can offer, just in case it is part of what is going on.
so just pointing out that if it IS the strings, it is something that many of us have done, and it would be a consistent thing if the same bassist put new strings on the same basses using the same techniques and the same brands.
probably little comfort to know that some random idiot from the forum (I'm talking about me) made that mistake and therefore it's ok for others to have made that mistake with strings LoL. But it's all the comfort I can offer, just in case it is part of what is going on.
What did you do differently when installing the strings that got rid of the "flanger" sound?
When I listen to OP's recording I definitely hear something that sounds like that on the high notes.
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,030
- 5
- 220,909
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
Don’t go spraying DeOxit anywhere, this is not the time to create new issues.
So I shouldn't use it to clean my fingerboard?
