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Do you LOVE your bass tone?

#65
I used to. :( Then I had it gone over by a "local-legend guitar setup" guy, had him replace the Fender 9050s with LaBella DTFs one notch lighter as well as going over everything, a detail job and some other stuff. And all my darned bottom went away. Fantastic feel and action, mind you, but the deep molasses creaminess I like is less present. I messed with the pickup heights he set and got some back, I think they were way too low, but I'm still not real happy. It cuts through the mix in our 3-piece/vocalists band just fine, but dang I miss that fundamental, fluttering pants leg stuff. Yes, the amp has an HPF, set at about 35Hz, and I didn't change it. Or anything else. I like the 9050 bailing wire better, anyway, so I'm going back and hopefully I can get the pickup height figured out.

It's a 30th anniversary L2000.
 
#67
A long time ago, I spent a lot of time and MONEY chasing "the tone". Then I bought a 30 foot cord so that I could walk out front and hear the band's mix. "Aha!" I said, and sold my big heavy rig and bought a Peavey TNT130. Good enough for bars.

It didn't work so well with upright, so I ended up with an Ampeg PF350 and a pair of SVT 15Es. Thump thump thump....Good enough
 
#69
I literally spent thousands of dollars to find an all tube solution that will sound exactly like my old Sansamp pedal. I flipped gear, cut losses and bought other gear to flip. At some point I realized how stupid that was and simply stopped. I'm waiting on a compressor pedal I lent out to a friend to return to me, which will complete my pedalboard for ampless playing. This will be a somewhat permanent solution. I was very happy with the 1.0 version of that board and now I expanded it by two more pedals and a DI box.

I have several basses, but I mostly choose them for other reasons than tone. Unless I'm hunting for a niche sound or a certaing string count is mandatory, I pick whatever bass I feel like playing and make it sound to fit the occasion. When you fret your notes precisely and play with dynamics and groove, the rest of the band does not really care whether that's coming from a Fodera or a SX. Only a few people ever actually listen to the bass - and only a select few of them will get the difference between a P bass and a J bass with the neck pickup soloed.

My tone comes from my fingers and from the notes I don't play. My equipment is top notch - for what I want to do with it, it's basically overkill. When I don't sound right, It's because I don't play right.
 
#70
I usually love my tone, thru my rig I always do (I sometimes use a house svt cab/350 portaflex rig, I do like but took me a bit to dial in for me).
The x factor for me is usually strings, how new they are. I love new strings on my P basses, a Jazz seems to keep some inherent brightness long after the P sounds too muffled for me in a rock/pop setting.
BTW "my rig" is Mesa W-800, 2 markbass 2x10
MJ
 
#78
superheavydeathmetal said:
Do you LOVE your bass tone? Do you feel joy, elation, or bliss due to the voice of the notes as you lay down a sweet groove?

Or do you not really care? Maybe it's the notes, not the tone that matters.

Or maybe you aren't happy with your tone, and you can't find that tone in your head that you are yearning for.
Click to expand...

I love the tone I make for the bands I play with. Still working on my personal tone.
 
#80
The trouble with obsessing about your tone is that there's a difference between how your bass sounds by itself versus how it sounds in a mix with the band. The latter is more important because that's what the audience actually hears and experiences.

Of course right now during the $#*!& pandemic we don't have any $#*!& audiences to hear us play, so it hardly makes any difference at all.
 
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