Complex bass and too many tones!

[luciens]

To me, lots of tones from one bass is a little like a fancy electric seat adjust in your car. You can do all the crazy stuff with it, go up and down, in and out with lumbar support, tilt back and forth etc. But once you get it set to where you're comfortable you kind of never use it again. It sits and there and may even quit working without you realizing it until you sell the car, or someone else finally gets in to drive it, etc.

That's not always the case, for sure, but for example when I had my L2K, that's basically what happened. I ended up setting it to rear pickup in parallel mode with all knobs on 11 and that's literally where it stayed set for years. For a while I didn't know if the pickup or series/parallel switches even worked anymore until one day I realized I hadn't hit them in recent memory (they did work when I finally tried them).

Of course, if I was gigging, I might have another preferred setting or maybe two for different stuff, but most likely it would be on that back PU in parallel mode 98% of the time .

Now, that's not anything against a bass with lots of configurable tones, but I think that happens in a lot of cases and that's why often players will later on end up going back to simpler passive basses like your standard Jazz bass or P/J or whatever.

My Tony Franklin is actually the only bass I've actually used the neck pickup on on a regular basis in probably 20 years. I'm a woodshedder anymore these days since I'm not gigging, but that bass is the first one I've actually done that with. If I were to ever play out again, I'd probably do the same if I dragged the TF to the gig.

L

 

[BAG]

To add to my previous post, I always want some brightness in my tone for those fills on the D and G strings and my P does that really nicely. I thought that I had a somewhat bright general setting on my amp to suit the bass.

With this SR1200 to get in the same tonal ballpark I have the bass boosted a tiny bit, the mids at about 15% and the treble at about 10%....... and this is after swapping the rounds for flats. The flats are only one there at the moment due to breaking a string on the ground wound strings I had on there and have no spares but i'm starting to think that they may end up suiting me and the bass more than the ground wound strings.

The previous owner did say that the top end could be pretty harsh and he was definitely correct on that.

The most surprising part is when I swapped back to the Pbass and how thumpy it sounds to me now.

 

[DJ Bebop]

 

[jmattbassplaya]

It doesn't matter. Use what you like.

 

[dkelley]

OK, I see this pretty often here that people don't want a bass with too many controls and/or pickups because its too complicated to use live. Most recently with the Bongo vs Big Al thread but it comes up a lot in many other comparisons.

My perspective is that with a bass with lots of controls and pickups (such as my Bongo HH) is that I can simply find a great unique sound, adjust my eq to my liking and have it set and forget it. Same with my SR HH. There's no rule that you have to constantly adjust the EQ and pickup settings to try to cover all of the different standard bass sounds. I just don't see how someone can say having too many tonal options is a negative. It's only a negative if you can't settle on it and are constantly changing. I have multiple stingrays so I can have 1 setup just on the bridge pickup, and then use my HH with both pickups and eqed just how I like it and it is a completely different flavour.

Anyone else feel this way? Why the hate for having options?

I 100% agree. With my Alembic I hardly ever adjusted it once I dialed it in how I liked. Double low pass filter with Q control switches, pickup selectors, power options that changed the tone, stereo/mono output, variable levels per pickup with drastically different tone possibilities. Once you get it how you like it though... it's YOUR tone.

Same with my peavey grind, now, with custom double preamps and double volumes. Super complex, but super simple too, and it just sounds GREAT! I mostly change tones now with teh 2 volume controls, like a jazz bass, with mostly more subtle changes of the active controls, while I do have them set a certain way that's sort of extreme, actually.

 

[TOOL460002]

Pedals and hands. I never touch my onboard pre or rack settings. Doesn’t mean I dislike options, but that would literally just be more stuff I won't use. But if it turns out my dream bass has a thousand switches and knobs I'd rock that no problem. Just haven't found a sound I want to achieve that pedals and hands don't solve.

 

[mellowgerman]

View attachment 3960390View attachment 3960391

Not quite as cool but....

 

[Govner22]

A recent Bass Player column by luthier Rob Elrick recommends EQ’ing first with the AMP and just lightly seasoning with the onboard preamp since the amp is more powerful than the battery powered preamp. He didn’t seem to like lots of preamp controls. I found that to be an interesting perspective.

 

[JES]

I’ve come around to passive just because I have drained one too many batteries by leaving it plugged in.

but options are nice. On any given bass I wind up with a max 2 sounds I like but if there is tone shaping to do, it might help me get there.

 

[Sean Brookes]

We are all different, but we all think we’re right. Annoyingly, we have to let everyone else know how we feel

 

[Durham52]

Why are people arguing about matters of taste?

Your comment could probably apply to a majority of the posts here, but I suppose it keeps people occupied and amused.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

What I do not like is when a bass has a ton of tones, but it is hard to remember the settings I used to go from one tone to another. It is kind of like programming a Moog with two dozen dials and switches.

 

[TakeABreak]

So many bassists are passive aggressive approval junkies who already have a chip on their shoulder just from playing bass, and the way they deal with it is to try to get everyone in the world to like the exact same things they like. If they don't, then they get insulting.

Jimmy, you've just described me better than I can myself.

On my soapbar pickup upgrade, I initially added a series/parallel switch per pickup. Problem was, I would constantly A/B those settings. So I picked a sound I liked, and permanently wired it that way. Works for me.

 

[Jon McBass]

G&L SB-2 Warmth<>Aggressive<>Bite tone with just 2 volume knob tweak.

I have a 1984 SB-2 I’ll never part with, even though I’m almost exclusively 5-string now. Just the perfect tone for my ears.

 

[BoogieZK]

Wut.

it’s funny, your whole post is a weird generalizing strawman for no obvious reason, and yet you’re presenting yourself as such a bizarre Caricature that I’m not certain that you aren’t kidding

(Yes, that was the goal)

 

[eddododo]

(Yes, that was the goal)

Yikes

 

[BoogieZK]

Yikes

Hey, set 1m away from the computer and take a deep breath here.

I'm just telling that from the OP, i feel what he saying.
As well i have the feeling that bass player who take a look at a bass and say "This bass as too many knobs, it's ugly and pointless" are the same bass player who prefer a simple setup and sometimes be a little conservative (i don't know if it is the right word, at least in french it is).
Like people believing Vinyl records sounds better.

 

[Dr Zee]

I almost can't believe this has gone to nine pages.
So I'll play.
Here's the controls for my Carvin late 80's 5string Fretless.

When I got it like 26 years ago I found a tone I liked and pretty much stuck to it. Then in the last couple of years, kind of by accident, I discovered there where other interesting things it could do.
I don't think it the Bass, I think it's 'cause I'm a better, more experienced player.
The variable that matters isn't the knobs and switches, it's time it self.

 

[Hypercaffium]

Complex basses? Definitely nothing to hate, imho. Play what you want, YMMV, yadda yadda.
The most "complex" bass I use is a 4H StingRay Special and it's fine for me. I tend to prefer passive basses, which are usually more simple in the controls.
The same is for pedals. I prefer the WYSIWYG approach while I can use and manage very complex digital pedals.
Generally speaking, I prefer to rely on simple things.

 

[murph7489]

I like the active preamp thing, but what is the best for me in changing tones is for my bass which has a j pup in the neck and an hb in the bridge is the coil split on the hb..I set the eq and leave it and then some songs I use the split to thin out the tone a bit or use the hb without the split for a more full bass sound..it makes a big difference I think..older classic rock I go full on, but for some other stuff I use the split and it works good for that..what do i know tho..I'm just another musician that didn't make it to the big leagues and now happy playing covers in a classic rock dance band in bars..ha ha