Does it REALLY make a difference?

[40Hz]

Now, if you have sound guys that are just giving you mush, or if you only play through cruddy FOH systems… than yeah, you’re going to sound like no matter what

That is the unfortunate reality for probably a lot of the bands out there.

My earlier point wasn’t you should just give up or not care. I’m just saying that you can’t take the bass in isolation when playing in ensemble.

Your band’s sound is only as good as the weakest link. If you’ve got an incompetent FOH soundman, or your drummer can’t control his or her dynamics, or the keys are stepping all over your end of the low frequency spectrum, or your guitarist is constantly caught on a rising volume spiral, you can be a world class player with top shelf gear, and your band is still going to sound like ass.

You need to take a systems approach to sound. Unless the bigger matter of your band’s overall sound is addressed, the minutiae and artistic details of your gear aren’t going to be enough to fix everything else by themselves.

 

[Holdsg]

It matters to me, and I’m the dude playing.

If I do not like the tone I’m getting in sound check, it’s up to me to make changes to my rig, on the fly. I can’t always control what comes out of FOH, but I can, and do, care about what I can hear on stage, and I owe it to my band mates to sound as good as I possibly can. That’s what being a good band mate is all about.

Now if I can do that with something relatively inexpensive, I do. But I’ll take my chances with quality gear, thanks.

 

[baileyboy]

I must be in the minority. When I’m playing in a band setting, I for one, can’t hear the difference between amp brands for the most part. Nor do I hear much of a difference between scale length of basses. I can hear the difference between Rotosounds and Chromes at lower volumes. But when you’re pushing it ,the difference diminishes. Rosewood and Maple boards? You’re joking, right?. Stock picks vs after market? Nope. These all might make a difference if you’re sitting in your bedroom , playing along at low volume to your favorite tunes but not in the real world. Not to me anyways.

Couldn't agree with you more. This is the reason why when I gig out I play all the songs with the same amp and bass settings. No one on the dance floor has ever come up to me to comment on strings, tone, fretboard, blah, blah, blah...

 

[SactoBass]

No, because I used non-tort tone screws. They cost more than a box of Orange Drop caps.

...and people thought I was just joking about tone screws in my post #40.

Tone screws............it's a thing!

 

[libanass]

Well, I can definitely hear a difference in a concert between a Jazz Bass, a Precision or a Stingray. I can even hear a clear difference between a Jazz Bass 60 and a Jazz Bass 70s, especially when slapped! Or if a dual coils bass is working in dual coils like a humbuckers, or in split "single" coils.

Position and type of the pickups is definitely heard, the rest, a bit less, I can for say hear quite some other differences like maple or rosewood or ebony fingerboards, but I can guarantee that I can be wrong multiple times in that scenario! But I do can hear the differences lots of the times.. It really depends on how the player is exploiting the bass and the combination of the rest of the woods and the way the bass is built / set / played.
Low action, hard playing, clean sound and slap makes it a lot easier to hear the heart of a bass..

It does make a difference.. Not everyone can hear it, that I can agree with. But I do hear it and many bassists friends do to..

 

[SactoBass]

It matters to me, and I’m the dude playing.

"I'm a dude playin a dude disguised as another dude!"

 

[whatever4]

When I'm walking up to an outdoor gig from about a block away, sometimes I can tell whether it's an active or passive bass and sometimes I can tell whether it's a precision or a jazz, but amps are running through PAs and getting EQ'd by strangers, so maybe the bass player is the only one hearing what amp he's using. And some of the folks in the crowd are probably just hearing "boom, boom, boom" and wondering why that one guitar only has four big strings.

 

[4001]

So, essentially all amps and basses sound the same?

They do to most of the people you play for.

 

[fdeck]

Among other things, I've found that my technique and musicianship are improved by having a bass that fits my body, and can be set up the way I want. It's a bass that I don't have to even think about while I'm playing, because I know it will do what I ask of it, and it will take care of me. In the past, it has taken some experimentation with things like pickups and other components to get there. It's not necessarily an expensive bass, but if all of the cheap basses are copies of one another, then none of them will work for me.

I don't play all that many gigs any more, so I have a much greater incentive to treat every gig like it's a big deal.

 

[rafitoprtx]

I can ID a Hartke Hydrive speaker vs An Ampeg speaker at loud volume. But other than that is super hard. Thats why a lot of live set ups are going ampless.

 

[bassrique]

I agree with the OP, however small "coffee house gigs" with a small band is when more thongs can be heard. I prefer trios for that reason. I like dynamics, finer tonality (whatever that means) and music that "breathes".

 

[Rib 13]

I must be in the minority. When I’m playing in a band setting, I for one, can’t hear the difference between amp brands for the most part. Nor do I hear much of a difference between scale length of basses. I can hear the difference between Rotosounds and Chromes at lower volumes. But when you’re pushing it ,the difference diminishes. Rosewood and Maple boards? You’re joking, right?. Stock picks vs after market? Nope. These all might make a difference if you’re sitting in your bedroom , playing along at low volume to your favorite tunes but not in the real world. Not to me anyways.

for live, more or less (Id say in most instances, I can tell an obvious difference between a solid-state Hartke system and an all tube classic SVT system as one example)...but discussing the minutia of some of those hair splitting differences is what these messageboards are all about.....

however, in the studio, things that may be ambiguous comparables in a live setting don't apply here because the track(s) are usually under a microscope.....

 

[hennessybass]

The thing is,,, it's really about the playing. A lot of that stuff (IMO and IME) is about the player... if the player is having a good experience, then they play good, and then the band plays good, if the band is good, then the audience has a good time. Sometimes a bass, an amp, or what ever can inspire a player to play their best, and that's why that stuff is important.

My other comment is - if you can't hear the difference between one thing or the other, then work on your listening. Not saying that you should be able to hear maple vs rosewood in a busy mix, but come on...

 

[Chris 'Wighat' Jordan]

Assuming I'm listening to a stage amp or a mic'd cab through the PA, here's what I notice about bass guitar in order of greatest impact:

Technique
EQ/tone/string type
Amp
Cab
and a distant last: anything else about the instrument itself

 

[bigboy_78]

At gigs (listening, not playing) I can only hear the difference between good and bad. I wish I could pin-point the exact part of the puzzle, so I could recreate it with my sound.

Is it the player, the pickups, the strings, the instrument, the amp, the cab, the PA, the room or how many beers I’ve had before the show?

 

[OptimalOptimus]

It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things ...

As long as you provide the bass the rest is just flavor ... and you can't spice it up like you want and your band want ! it doesn't matter that much in the end. Playing flat on that one, play round on this one, choose this bass for this song only or whatever ... It just doesn't matter.

Juste find something that you like to play and be done with it.

Geddy Lee always sound close to the same because of his EQ ... he deffinitively have distortion in his sound ... on top of hid EQ ...

Then you have bass player like John Myung that have a vastly different tone on each album because whatever. You can EQ and process everything during the mastering to make a different mix.

So again who cares beside bass player. Just pick something and be happy with it.

 

[fdeck]

I keep reading that the audience doesn't care, but the audience happens to be dwindling. What if mediocre music turns out to be the reason?

 

[OptimalOptimus]

I keep reading that the audience doesn't care, but the audience happens to be dwindling. What if mediocre music turns out to be the reason?

it will happen because the band can't play or didn't pick good songs ( in the case of a cover band ) ... not because you should have used a Fender Pbass with flat into a SVT while you used a Warwick Thumb into a Markbass ...

 

[Kro]

I'd wager that there are likely two primary arguments here:

1. Tone does/doesn't matter
2. You do/don't need fancy equipment to sound good

I feel like sometimes these arguments get confused for one another, but if you get right down to it, most bassists can probably agree that you don't need fancy gear to get good tone, but that tone does matter (they'd rather have good tone than bad tone)!

Then there's the argument that the audience doesn't care. Why go through all the effort to play your best only to not care about the way that what you're doing is actually being presented? The audience may not always appreciate all of the effort it takes to sound one's best, but I firmly believe they do care, and can sense laziness. It just comes down to taking pride in one's performance, simple as that IMO.

 

[Chad Michael]

Kro, right on...

Also - if we all sounded exactly the same, bass would be a bit too 'vanilla' of an instrument... I would have pursued something else.