Effect, amp or technique? Slapping sound problem.

[anastasio24]

I am running a Modulus Q5 with barts and an aguilar OBP-3. The bass sounds fantastic. My problem is that when I slap, the bottom drops out. I have seen this problem with a lot of other bassists as well but I notice that some bassists have no issues (Mike Gordon, Flea, etc.). Is this an EQ (effect) issue or an amp problem or is my technique just crap?

Do I need to change my EQ right before I start slapping? I have an Eden Navigator and I can easily kick the EQ on and off with my foot. I also tried it right into the board yesterday thru a Countryman and had the same issue but since I was going direct the genius running the board decided to mess with my compression. Maybe that caused issues?

Any ideas or thoughts are much appreciated. If this is the wrong forum for this, by all means let me know and I will post there!

Thanks!

Brian

 

[Matt Till]

A compressor might help?

I think this is more the nature of slap though. But yeah, I'm pretty sure compression will fix that up.

 

[Tritone]

How hard do you hit the strings when you slap? If you slap hard, that could cause the bottom to drop out too.

 

[anastasio24]

I don't think I hit the strings that hard. I play pretty lighly most of the time. I will try adjusting the force I am using and see if that helps.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Samurai]

It could be an gain problem. Try turning up the gain on your amp until you are at the limit where it doesn't distort, but is as high as it can go.

 

[The Lurker]

try using an EQ pedal-- set it with bass boosted, scooped mids, whatever and click it in when you start slapping. Compression helps too, esp if you got a 2-band one like the Trace or Digitech ones.