I'll keep it brief (EDIT: I tried but failed)...I grew up in an era where bass players were exploring more and more what treble can do, and while I enjoyed a lot of bassists who had dark sounds, I wanted treble, dang nab it! Never tweeter frequencies, but good brightness that made it obvious I was using a pick. And I've gone through all the ups and downs of tone that different bass players used over the years and a lot of knob twisting and setting them at noon ll kinds of crap and nonsense.
But my first pro band was with an Elvis impersonator, and he absolutely insisted that I turn my bass up all the way and turn treble and mids all the way down unless we were in a large theater, at which point he gave into soundman complaints. So naturally I hated him for it
and resisted it for a long long time. But over the years, I started to see the appeal in those darker tones and started gradually cutting back on the treble, especially if it wasn't a straight up 80's rock gig, and now I'm full-on in love with them for a whole lot of things I'm doing. Not so easy to make those kinds of sounds pop in a room full of low end resonances and blasting it through big PA's.
But if you're playing rooms that are really resonant with low mids and bass response and you want dark tones, it's really not a bad idea for you to send a relatively flat signal to the PA and discuss your objectives with the sound tech. They do need you to give them mids and treble because of possible mud buildup that causes you to have no tone at all. IMHO they don't need tweeter or big fat hip hop low end frequencies, so with me they never get them but you do have to use your ears and know when something's a mistake. I love thud, but the most important thing when getting awesome thud tones in a bigger and more resonant room without mud involves not turning treble and mids so low the sound tech can't use them. Some think I micromanage my PA sound but I'm very conscious of that.
Over the past few years I've had the privilege of working with and getting to know the great Steve Boone, from the 60's folk rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. The Spoonful pretty much wrote the book on that style of music, had a butt-ton of major hits, many of which Steve wrote or co-wrote, and to this day Steve brings the thud in any room I've ever heard him play and on any supplied backline he's ever used, including a pretty wide variety of my amps. He started out playing a Guild Starfire and a Precision with flats into a B-15 in their earliest days, but since I've known him and before, he's been using an Ibanez BTB active neck-thru 4 with rounds that usually somewhat used but sounded pretty lively to me while he's playing unplugged. But you can drop him into any room across the world no matter how big or small, and his sound always has a massive low end with just enough clarity so you can make out his notes. And he's done it on a handful of my basses that don't sound like his. Flats, rounds, passive or active, it comes across. And that's his entire tonal goal and always has been with the Spoonful...put out a big warm low end that doesn't sound clanky but always clear enough to tell what notes he's playing.
And here's his secret...Steve Boone. That's just how he plays. He doesn't micromanage his sound much at all. I suppose he has some pet settings that he likes, but he gives the house a direct full range sound and will literally plug into anything you give him, and just plays like he does and has since day one. And I've heard a goodly amount of treble and mids coming out of some of the systems he plugs into, and yet, no matter what bass, amp, or PA he uses, it's this big beautiful low end with tonal clarity like I've never heard from anyone else, and it's 100% consistent and easily duplicated. He just plays in a way that lends his sound to it and lets the amp and sound techs (they don't usually bring their own, at least not on the gigs I've done with them) do what they will.
And now I'm playing in a couple bands where my goal is to get the same basic thing happening, and I believe I get a terrific sound when I want a similar vibe happening. But it's never quite like Steve's. Nobody's is. I do my best, but I play like me and I'll never fully cop his sound because of that. And that's OK. Before anything else, tone is always from the musician. But if there's one thing I've learned from working with him (and there's plenty more besides that), the way you cop a great big fat wall of thud and still achieve clarity without clank in any really resonant room for bass is to play like you want it really bad, give the sound tech enough tools to deal with translating it in the house, and the rest falls into place. But playing like you want it really bad is key and it'll never happen otherwise.
But my first pro band was with an Elvis impersonator, and he absolutely insisted that I turn my bass up all the way and turn treble and mids all the way down unless we were in a large theater, at which point he gave into soundman complaints. So naturally I hated him for it
and resisted it for a long long time. But over the years, I started to see the appeal in those darker tones and started gradually cutting back on the treble, especially if it wasn't a straight up 80's rock gig, and now I'm full-on in love with them for a whole lot of things I'm doing. Not so easy to make those kinds of sounds pop in a room full of low end resonances and blasting it through big PA's.But if you're playing rooms that are really resonant with low mids and bass response and you want dark tones, it's really not a bad idea for you to send a relatively flat signal to the PA and discuss your objectives with the sound tech. They do need you to give them mids and treble because of possible mud buildup that causes you to have no tone at all. IMHO they don't need tweeter or big fat hip hop low end frequencies, so with me they never get them
but you do have to use your ears and know when something's a mistake. I love thud, but the most important thing when getting awesome thud tones in a bigger and more resonant room without mud involves not turning treble and mids so low the sound tech can't use them. Some think I micromanage my PA sound but I'm very conscious of that.Over the past few years I've had the privilege of working with and getting to know the great Steve Boone, from the 60's folk rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. The Spoonful pretty much wrote the book on that style of music, had a butt-ton of major hits, many of which Steve wrote or co-wrote, and to this day Steve brings the thud in any room I've ever heard him play and on any supplied backline he's ever used, including a pretty wide variety of my amps. He started out playing a Guild Starfire and a Precision with flats into a B-15 in their earliest days, but since I've known him and before, he's been using an Ibanez BTB active neck-thru 4 with rounds that usually somewhat used but sounded pretty lively to me while he's playing unplugged. But you can drop him into any room across the world no matter how big or small, and his sound always has a massive low end with just enough clarity so you can make out his notes. And he's done it on a handful of my basses that don't sound like his. Flats, rounds, passive or active, it comes across. And that's his entire tonal goal and always has been with the Spoonful...put out a big warm low end that doesn't sound clanky but always clear enough to tell what notes he's playing.
And here's his secret...Steve Boone. That's just how he plays. He doesn't micromanage his sound much at all. I suppose he has some pet settings that he likes, but he gives the house a direct full range sound and will literally plug into anything you give him, and just plays like he does and has since day one. And I've heard a goodly amount of treble and mids coming out of some of the systems he plugs into, and yet, no matter what bass, amp, or PA he uses, it's this big beautiful low end with tonal clarity like I've never heard from anyone else, and it's 100% consistent and easily duplicated. He just plays in a way that lends his sound to it and lets the amp and sound techs (they don't usually bring their own, at least not on the gigs I've done with them) do what they will.
And now I'm playing in a couple bands where my goal is to get the same basic thing happening, and I believe I get a terrific sound when I want a similar vibe happening. But it's never quite like Steve's. Nobody's is. I do my best, but I play like me and I'll never fully cop his sound because of that. And that's OK. Before anything else, tone is always from the musician. But if there's one thing I've learned from working with him (and there's plenty more besides that), the way you cop a great big fat wall of thud and still achieve clarity without clank in any really resonant room for bass is to play like you want it really bad, give the sound tech enough tools to deal with translating it in the house, and the rest falls into place. But playing like you want it really bad is key and it'll never happen otherwise.
