Bright, punchy picked P Bass tone

[TrustRod]

I find 2 things often done to chase this sound that are counter productive to my ears. Hot pickups and playing too hard.

 

[DogsNbeer]

There are more upper mids than usual in that guy’s tone. I might try a Steve Harris Duncan pick up. It’s not hotter per se. The pole pieces unlike a quarter pounder are standard sized. It’s just voiced w a high mids emphasis much more than a standard p bass pickup

 

[Wasnex]

There is definitely some compression going on...

IMHO this is somewhat of an understatement .

 

[NoiseNinja]

I wouldn't call that tone bright by any means, fairly punchy though and slight bit of upper mids bite too, but not particularly pronounced and pretty far from bright as far as I am concerned, a fair share of low end and low low mids in that tone too (like in the 40Hz to 250Hz spectrum), while the rest of the mid frequency spectrum is fairly moderately present, without though being particularly scooped.

So boost some specific center frequencies in the area 40Hz to 250Hz a fair deal, perhaps additionally boost the 800Hz to 1.2kHz spectrum some too, but stick to only a slight boost in that area, and then add a high shelf filter to cut some treble, unless you play through a single 15" speaker cab, then that ought to take care of cutting the high end needed for you, finally add a slight touch of breakup grid, ideally from a tube overdrive pedal or preamp, that is if you don't have an amp that can take care of that, use roundwound strings and obviously a P Bass, and play with a pick, and my best bet is that that ought to be able to get you in the ballpark with a bit of experimentation with which specific center frequencies in the mentioned areas to boost, how much and with which specific Q value (bandwidth).

Otherwise it's pretty much just a P Bass with roundwound strings played with a pick.

 

[bobyoung53]

Nothing too crazy here, just losing my mind trying to recreate this tone on my precision bass.

It calls to mind the sound that's on a lot of 90s and 2000s rock/alt rock and I've never really been able to recreate it at home. Is it just a cranked valve amp? Normally, I've seen people recommend turning the bass knob to about 9 o'clock for this type of sound, but the video I've linked still sounds like it has a substantial amount of low end dialled in. I might just be stupid, since I doubt it's anything complicated, but I'd really appreciate some help!

Use stainless steel round wounds. Pick between the bridge and the pickup. Crank the treble on the amp and dial in what you want on the bass. That guy has a lot of bottom on the amp, sounds scooped to me with brand new round wounds. It's partially the way you play it. He's also palm muting that bass at a certain point. That player is good.

 

[bobyoung53]

Thicker picks move the string more before they release it, so you get more low end, which starts to hide the snap. Thinner picks, the low end starts to sound wimpy. Greens are (to me) the "Goldilocks" picks - just right.

The green teardrop shaped ones have more snap than the triangl-ish ones - as the tip is thinner, it's "snappier". If you want more meat and less snap with the teardrop shaped ones, you can rotate it so you use a "shoulder" instead of the tip.

I always used the shoulder of the pick, got that from Bobby Vega's last BP column a few years ago, I used medium Fenders but I'm more of a fingerstyle player anyway but love the sound of a picked P bass with La Bella flats on it.

 

[EmaTheMirror]

The take sounds like it's been captured in the room at quite a distance from the actual speakers, so my guess is that the tone from the amp is livelier in the "intelligibility/presence midrange" portion of the spectrum than we might think. The capturing of the sound and the loudness (it doesn't sound like bedroom volume) do play their part.

If I were you, I'd ask directly the channel or leave a comment asking, that's the only way to know about what they used and start from there as reference. Worst case, they might not reply or say they can't remember.

 

[JRA]

I'd really appreciate some help!

the technique of the player

Plectrum technique is the way to get that kind of note attack

Get that guy to give you some lessons

Lots of technique in that tone

He has great pick, finger style, slap and thumb technique

i don't hear anything unusual about the tone. IME: if you can cop someone else's technique = you can make almost any ax sound like what it is you're hearing. we all have the same/similar axes and rigs and efx/processors. where we differ is brains, hands, fingers, technique, experience, motivation, attitude.....