Diagnosing Crap Tone - Fender/SWR Woes

I have experience with most SWR amps except that one, and usually, people have the opposite problem. Weird. But if the bass sounds good in your Ampeg/Hartke rig, then it's not the bass. I'd bet money that it's the cab eating you. Try the 750x with your cab and see what you think. Maybe they'll let you take it home for a day or two.

Or maybe you should bring your own rig. House gear is great to keep from working too hard, but if you really want to be happy onstage, your own stuff is the way to go.

EDIT: Just remembered I did use a 750x on a gig once with a Goliath 410. Nope, didn't have that problem.

 

Stumbled upon this thread. I used to play a jazz into a SWR750 and GIII. I could never find my tone either. A lot of boom and clank. I switched to Ampeg 6 years ago and haven't looked back.

In retrospect, although the rig was part of my problem, so was my playing style. Experiment with soloing and blending your jazz p'ups in new combinations using that rig. You could be phasing out some key mid-frequencies from your bass if you have both p'ups full on. Have you tried playing closer to the bridge?

Just food for thought, nothing more.

 

Glad you said this. May I add choice of bass? I'm not slamming Fenders at all. It seems that SWRs like basses that have huge tone of their own and don't need any help from the head's eq. I've had plenty of Steve Rabe era SWR up to the Bass 750 I'd use with one or two GIIIs. My Fenders would sound anemic. Plug in a Smith or even more evident a Roscoe and they would roar.

Try this. Dial back the tweeter to barely on and reduce the treble a little. Other than that leave the tone controls alone! If you must use recording engineer technique. More treble back off the bass, more bass back off the treble. Aural Enhancer barely on or no more than 11:00. Crank that pre til the light flashes and back off a hair. Then Master to how loud you want. Check speaker cable. If it's budget get a medium priced speakon to speakon.

Take your head to church.

 

I am a huge SWR fan....I did not like the 750X. I much preferred the 550X. More bang for your buck and just sounded a lot better to me. I tried with all my might to make that amp sound good, but I could not.

 

Surprising, I've always had the opposite problem with SWR amps - not enough low end for my liking, or I really had to fight to get it... but it taught me how to use the low mids to good effect

Most important - keep the Aural enhancer below 12 o'clock!

put your tone controls on your bass flat - do not boost the bass on your guitar.

 

Quote "I landed a gig playing bass for a very large church a few months ago, and their SWR rig has given me all kinds of hell every day since I first showed up. It's a 750x into a Workingpro 410, and despite my hours of fine-tuning and tweaking, I cannot dial in a tone that sounds passable."

--I have played a lot of church back line rigs. At first, I used to get stressed too. Then I just started running a Zoom B2 to a DI, then used their amp as a monitor. I suddenly started getting a LOT of compliments on my tone from other musicians that were out in the congregation. Since I was more concerned about FOH sound, I usually still used the back line rigs and tweaking that until I found a tolerable tone. But, with a couple of them, I just had to bring my own.

My suggestion to you...if you don't want to lug your own rig, get a pre-amp pedal such as a VT bass and run that as your primary tone. I bet you'll be happier.