Hearing overtones (?)

[bassthedude]

Hi guys I recently started practicing bass again after a ten year long hiatus. Anyways I struggle a bit with getting a good sound - it seems like I hear these high pitched overtones, especially on the bottom tones. I also hear a lot of string noise, although that could be connected to my sloppy playing. However the overtones are there regardless of what I play.

Here’s an example of me recording while I practice. Do you have any tips on what I could do (except to slow down? Using a fender squire p bass with flats.

 

[JonathanPDX]

Your tone sounds fine! You are way overthinking it. If you zoom out far enough, the bass is capable to two things:

A solo tone that is round and clear with no other instruments (save perhaps some light percussion) but vanishes into thin garbage within an ensemble.

A full, deep tone that fits the right frequency range within an arrangement of several instruments all covering different parts of the sonic spectrum. This tone sounds like crap when heard in a vacuum without context.

A P-bass with flats is going to fall into that second category 99% of the time, so trying to judge it under the same conditions as, say, a Fodera with light strings and a bunch of upper-mids mixed in is only going to result in disappointment.

 

[bassthedude]

Your tone sounds fine! You are way overthinking it. If you zoom out far enough, the bass is capable to two things:

A solo tone that is round and clear with no other instruments (save perhaps some light percussion) but vanishes into thin garbage within an ensemble.

A full, deep tone that fits the right frequency range within an arrangement of several instruments all covering different parts of the sonic spectrum. This tone sounds like crap when heard in a vacuum without context.

A P-bass with flats is going to fall into that second category 99% of the time, so trying to judge it under the same conditions as, say, a Fodera with light strings and a bunch of upper-mids mixed in is only going to result in disappointment.

Thanks a lot for your response - that’s a valuable perspective. You may be right that I didn’t consider this to be a problem when recording with a backing track (although this is the least expensive bass available to buy in Norway ). I posted another clip here with a mix. https://www.talkbass.com/threads/talkbass-comeback.1670141/

So perhaps I should acquire a different bass for a cleaner sound when I wanna record more solo type stuff…hmm, GAS was a thing the last time I was active on Talkbass, I guess it still exists!

 

[Aloe]

well, overtones is something you want. if you don't and want a boomy not defined dub-dub, just EQ out the highs.

the higher pitched overtones is something that allows you to hear yourself in a mix and allows you to sound definite. an old-school bass amp from the past, for example, often doesn't even reproduce the base tone of your low E, you're hearing mostly 2-nd and 3-rd order harmonics.

second vote for 'you sound totally fine'. avoid accidentally ringing notes and harmonics that you don't play, and accept some frets noise and clank is normal.

and don't worry, after some months your flats will sound duller, if that's your thing. by that time you might actually regret this.

 

[bassthedude]

Thanks for your feedback, that’s reassuring! Guess I’ll keep the flats on to hear how they change with time.

By the way on the opposite end of the sonic spectrum, do you guys like to use a high pass filter to eq out the lowest frequencies?

 

[Aloe]

By the way on the opposite end of the sonic spectrum, do you guys like to use a high pass filter to eq out the lowest frequencies?

when recording and mixing sure I do, usually in DAW (with a 5-string around 30Hz, with a 4-string might be higher).
live -- depends on amp, room and stuff, a variable HPF for using live is a good idea to deal with boomy rooms.

 

[Ritter667]

Good thing you are not hearing sinus waves.