Help me get "that clean tone" right... Advise sought from audio pro's

Midscoop piled on midscoop looks dire.

 

(1) Fresh strings, (2) Full range tone with a slight mid scoop, (3) Both pickups full on, (4) Clean as possible amp. Neither of the pedals is going to make much of a difference... I would just experiment with the amp's EQ and the preamp pedal's EQ to compensate for any baked-in EQ issues with the bass and/or amp (i.e. not enough highs, etc.).

 

^ beat me to it.

Bass -> amp, use your bass' tone knobs a bit. Add some bass, and a little treble.

The comp on 4 ratio, lower input and higher output, I usually go for unity between on and off. Start here.

For your amp EQ, a good way to dial in each band is to isolate each one. You are probably pretty close with your settings now, but tweak the frequency settings in small amounts. If you're not comfortable with this, make large adjustments and then go back so your ear adjusts.

Turn it all off when you are happy, walk away for a few hours and come back to the same setting. Note what you don't like and tweak a bit further. I always start with the bass tone knobs, just because it's an immediate control source that you can use to switch things up in a band mix to help better fit.

 

maybe try different strings.. I personally never liked EB slinkys... I always thought rotosounds had that piano like sound going on

 

Usually a pretty simple formula. Fresh round wound strings. Smile EQ, just enough to remove some of the high mid clank of the technique and brighten up the highs and bump the lows. Low gain on the preamp. Hi-fi cabs. Tweak as your ears dictate. Done. Using a compressor is a great idea. I use mine just about how you have yours. 8:1, most notes lighting up about half the LEDs, moderate attack/release settings.

I think it's actually one of the simpler sounds to get. Much harder is a finger tone that cuts through a mix but still sounds good.

 

The best advice I can think of for the OP is a search both on TB and outside online sources on how to get the "Marcus Miller sound". That's who played on the Klugh/Benson album "Collaborations" that the tune "Mimosa" is on.

Once you get past the obvious "you can't have that sound because you aren't Marcus" idea, there are several gear-related methods of getting a tone like this. Marcus doesn't use a Sadowsky preamp himself, but that unit is designed by those that modified his bass many years ago to get that tone and is a quick and easy way to get it.

 

I play the one in the my profile pic all eq's in the middle - GK amps (if find are the best at producing the cleanest, most natural sound as i leave everything flat and use a little of the boost, depending on the room a little bass may be rolled off) and D'Addario 45-100"S which I’ve preferred sound and feel wise over EB strings for the 16 years I’ve been playing and have always had the clean clear killer stingray tone. Some of the darker sounding amps require boosted mid highs & highs to bring the clean out but dont get crazy with boosting bass/cutting mids/making faces without trying to just boost those with the rest flat or slightly cut IMO. I’ve always gotten compliments on my tone and people are stunned when i show them my EQ set up and how little i manipulate it.

 

I've never even seen a Walkabout in the wild, but nobody else thinks mids "off" is unlikely to be helpful?

 

That's not a P-Bass. Back in 1987 when that Benson/Klugh album came out, Marcus was almost always associated with a modified Jazz bass, which his Fender signature instrument is based on. "Mimosa" is a shining example of the natural finish '77 modded Jazz that has the sound he's famous for.

 

One of the most overlooked advantages of an EQ is that you can cut with it too! In many cases (maybe with your combo) cutting the mids an leaving the other two frequencies flat could help your lower tone. Further to this, you could use the three bands closer together to make a wider "smile" on the EQ curve. All depends how much time you want to spend.

Also might help to ride the gain low and master higher to use more power amp and less pre amp to push the speaker.

 

The sound you're looking for is helped along by turning both pickups full up, which usually causes a small dip in the mids.

 

If you mean keeping the master volume on your bass all the way up, yes. That's what Marcus always did with his separate volumes on his Jazz.

 

I don't play slap, but have had a Walkabout Scout for a couple years now. Great sounding amp, but it never really gave me the clean I was looking for. More of a tube amp sort of character that starts saturating as you get louder, and we play fairly loud. Tried all kinds of pedals but still couldn't quite get what I wanted. I finally realized that I need more clean headroom than the WA can provide. I imagine this is probably an issue for slap playing as well but can't really say for sure since as I mentioned I don't play that style.

My solution was expensive-I added a Mesa M3 Combo to the mix and play through both of them using an ABY pedal. The M3 is at the other end of the spectrum from the WA-super clean. Now I have the best of both worlds, and my band and I both LOVE IT! Roughly 60%M3-40%WA mix. First time I have ever really been this completely satisfied with my tone! The band thinks its the best sound we've ever had and I agree. Makes a pretty cool looking mini stack as well with the Walkabout atop the M3. I know this isn't the answer you were looking for but I just felt I had to share!

 

My advice would be to set your amp to a relatively neutral position (all eq controls at noon) and start with your bass. You haven't mentioned anything about the settings on the bass aside from keeping the eq off (assuming that means tone controls in the center). How do you have the pickup switch set? The preamp in a Stingray is an integral part of the sound unlike passive basses like J's with an added preamp so usually sound better with some added EQ. Usually a little bass boast and a treble rolloff is good starting point. They are already pretty midscooped to begin with and as such produce a great slap tone. I'd spend some time messing with the EQ and pickup combinations on the Stingray first. With 2 pickups, you can probably get close to a jazz bass sound using the outer coils of the SR - not sure which setting this is - but it won't sound exactly the same. You may want to do some additional tone shaping with the MXR but it better to start with the bass.