As a method of teaching, I would recommend you teach students a simple 2 bar octave groove pattern that can be played over and over, then (with tone knob open and all eq flat) ask them to try to get different sounds just by changing their hands and then discuss how each different sound might fit into different types of music.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
How best develop ear for great bass tone?
- Thread starter Manhattan2025
- Start date
-
- Tags
- tone
Note how different a satisfying bass tone sounds in a mix compared to on its own. Bass optimized to sound great by itself rarely sounds that great in a live mix, IMHO.
contrary to instinct, turn the bass knob down on your preamp section.
That is a difficult thing to teach, I have found through my many years of playing we all have a tone in our head
that being said, my great tone may not be yours or what you think is a great tone your students may not. To me a great bass tone when I hear it is one that makes me want to keep playing. Amp setting, pedals and the rest can maybe get you there if you are not happy with what is coming from your fingers. I have also found the best bass tone in a band mix sounds really bad soloed. So tweak till you find what puts a smile on your face and that will be your great tone and hopefully when you play it in a band situation it's your holy grail good luck
that being said, my great tone may not be yours or what you think is a great tone your students may not. To me a great bass tone when I hear it is one that makes me want to keep playing. Amp setting, pedals and the rest can maybe get you there if you are not happy with what is coming from your fingers. I have also found the best bass tone in a band mix sounds really bad soloed. So tweak till you find what puts a smile on your face and that will be your great tone and hopefully when you play it in a band situation it's your holy grail good luck
- Apr 22, 2016
- 780
- 1,221
- 49
- Disclosures
- Breaking even is the new making money.
This right here is the thing, as far as I'm concerned. Isolated bass tone is mostly meaningless. "Great tone" being a subjective thing (as noted above), the ideal is filling in the frequencies that need to be filled in, in context of an entire group - without stepping on the other instruments key frequencies... doing this can get pretty technical (spectral analysis helps a ton).
A big rookie mistake that I've seen again and again is players leaning too much on highs/high mids, while pulling the lower freqs too far down or diming treb/bass and scooping the mids out completely (thanks nu-metal), which leads to a really thin sounding mix, on stage or recording.
Given that each amp, bass, fx, eq, etc. have different characteristics, a good start is to just have them get their rigs as close to flat as they can, then incrementally adjust until there's a nice base tone going. Then, let them know that this is just a foundation and they will make adjustments once they're playing with other instruments to fill in the appropriate tonal niche.
The other big thing that I think really helps (I did this too when I was carving out my specific tone) is emulating the tone of bassists you really like. Of course, that takes some research, watching live videos, etc., and potentially some investment in gear over time, but I think it's really worth it.
You've gotten me thinking now. One thing that's easy to find nowadays, that wasn't when I started playing is isolated bass tracks. The difference between the isolated bass track and the full mix is often startling - there's often a lot more clank, grit, mids and noise than you initially realise, and sometimes quite ugly. This could be a great thing to demonstrate to a student.
...unless the sound engineer is yours. Our band's guy (he's a guy, yes...) has been with us 7 years. He goes where we go, gets paid the same as we do. I trust him more than I trust myself.
I think this is fact. Just find some youtube clips of famous songs with the bass tracks isolated versus in the mix. The bass often sounds like garbage solo but you throw it into the song and it works brilliantly.
Two different situations: solo an mix.
Solo: Any tone you like.
Mix: Mix in your bass track, trying to get the spectrum filled, while producing a well balanced mix. I think this procedure will show weaknesses rather easily. It'll also reveal that a farty bass tone may fit the mix pretty well.
Solo: Any tone you like.
Mix: Mix in your bass track, trying to get the spectrum filled, while producing a well balanced mix. I think this procedure will show weaknesses rather easily. It'll also reveal that a farty bass tone may fit the mix pretty well.
drumvsbass
Commercial User
- Aug 20, 2011
- 1,985
- 4,324
- Disclosures
- I work for Long and McQuade Musical Instruments Canada in Sales.
The way to get a good bass tone that works for me every time with an amp with a 3 band eq and a good amount of power, cabinets that aren't blown and can represent some idea of bottom end...
Starting blocks:
EQ
Bass 0
Mids 10
Treble 0
Master * 10, or with desired gain structure interacting with the....
Volume * setting it to where you can comfortably hear yourself, tone will likely be ugly (and Mid forward) with this EQ, and that's ok.
Add treble to taste. I do this by dead snapping the G string, to just get that Twack against the frets (something that generates the most amount of treble that will come from the instrument). Adjusting the treble should swing from Muffled, to Warm, to Open, to Piercing. I do this with the tone on the bass wide open (or on an active bass set flat) This way even without the support of any bottom end on the amp I'll never have something piercing or harsh in the top end. This is totally supjective.
Add Bass to taste. Here I palm mute the lowest string and dead thump it with my thumb to generate the most low end from the instrument. Dialing in here goes from a lean, to Full, to Fat, to Reggae, to Bill Laswell. Here it's important to keep in mind how that low end is interacting with the room, what's right in one room will not be right in another. And listening from it going from anemic to fuller will give you an idea of that interaction and how much your amp will give you in that regard.
Dial back Mids to taste. The tone you are left with after going through the initial setup will be very mid forward, and seemingly loud because of it to adjusting the mids down here may also affect your overall volume try not to compensate because of this logic.
At this point you have added ALL the treble you would ever add with out the support of the bottom end in relation to ALL the mids your amp can put out. Then in relation to all that, you have added all the bass that either the Room, the cabinet, or your amp can represent. If there is anything 'wrong' with your tone the only control that needs to be changed is the mids. The less you change the mids the better.
On a passive bass, I'll generally roll the tone back a bit, but as the night rolls on open or close it up as need be. On an active bass I'll roll the treble back from flat, and boost the bass a bit just to hit the amp with a bit of bottom.
Starting blocks:
EQ
Bass 0
Mids 10
Treble 0
Master * 10, or with desired gain structure interacting with the....
Volume * setting it to where you can comfortably hear yourself, tone will likely be ugly (and Mid forward) with this EQ, and that's ok.
Add treble to taste. I do this by dead snapping the G string, to just get that Twack against the frets (something that generates the most amount of treble that will come from the instrument). Adjusting the treble should swing from Muffled, to Warm, to Open, to Piercing. I do this with the tone on the bass wide open (or on an active bass set flat) This way even without the support of any bottom end on the amp I'll never have something piercing or harsh in the top end. This is totally supjective.
Add Bass to taste. Here I palm mute the lowest string and dead thump it with my thumb to generate the most low end from the instrument. Dialing in here goes from a lean, to Full, to Fat, to Reggae, to Bill Laswell. Here it's important to keep in mind how that low end is interacting with the room, what's right in one room will not be right in another. And listening from it going from anemic to fuller will give you an idea of that interaction and how much your amp will give you in that regard.
Dial back Mids to taste. The tone you are left with after going through the initial setup will be very mid forward, and seemingly loud because of it to adjusting the mids down here may also affect your overall volume try not to compensate because of this logic.
At this point you have added ALL the treble you would ever add with out the support of the bottom end in relation to ALL the mids your amp can put out. Then in relation to all that, you have added all the bass that either the Room, the cabinet, or your amp can represent. If there is anything 'wrong' with your tone the only control that needs to be changed is the mids. The less you change the mids the better.
On a passive bass, I'll generally roll the tone back a bit, but as the night rolls on open or close it up as need be. On an active bass I'll roll the treble back from flat, and boost the bass a bit just to hit the amp with a bit of bottom.
I did this, and I think it works very well, because the amount learned will make it vastly easier to adapt to something else, and the motivation to go to that kind of trouble is never better than trying to get the tone heard in existing work, and never better rewarded than when it's right. This effort can take a while, maybe years, unless spending more time studying than playing, and if the recorded bassist gets most of the tone from playing, then even at best, technical details of tone processing will always take second place, so it WILL take a while. It's worth grabbing any motivation available.
Regarding the gear, it's worth trying to narrow the search right at the start, it's a lot less expensive that way. I had no trouble knowing what cabs, so I got those, but any good cheap guitar-based multi-effect that can simulate amps various and has compressor, overdrive, EQ, can probably be coerced to getting there with no further spend. It worked for me anyway, any further spend I did was on backups. I got there with the first device I tried (Oberheim GM-400), but I still modify a bit if I need to in specific context. This approach can need change if a different bass or cab is used, it works best taking the whole system as the 'instrument', not just the bass. Single rack devices are good because they can save entire groups of settings in more than one patch, which is useful.
These 2 points, over time, have pushed "my tone" into what it is today.
I gave up nailing that sound form that record, and slowly put my pedals away.
I now aim for a reliable, useable tone, that is easy on the sound guy and the mix, and hard to F--- up in sub optimal conditions.
I do my best to have bass/strings/preamp so that variation in technique has the most impact on tone
for me this means
- favoring low mids
- TI Jazz flats
- Passive J or P
- keeping my gain set right on the line between clean and distorted, such that I can get dirt by digging in
If I'm recording I might get more picky. But live, or rehearsing, I want my tone to just work.
So rather than teach students about what makes a "great" tone
maybe teach them what makes a "working" tone
Just want to say thanks so much to everyone for all the great responses to my post -- really blown away by all the super helpful feedback. Much appreciate the benefit of everyone's experience and the broad range of outstanding insights and ideas. Cheers!
