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How do I get my higher strings to sound like THIS

#9
ookla the mok said:
I'll bet it's that damn P bass!

I am using a Fender Jaguar bass, set to passive with flatwounds.
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This is very similar to the stuff on that French guy whose name I can't remember's album, or Beck's Sea Change album. A Jag with flats should easily get that sound. Pulling treble and mids sounds like it would defeat that sound to me. There's more treble and upper mids than you think.

EDIT: Esquivel.
 
#10
Sorry to buck the trend of everyone saying it's a P, but it sounds like a J to me - definitely two single coil pickups.

That bass has a lot of what I call 'wood' in the tone. If it's not there acoustically, no tweaking of pickups or electronics or strings will make it come out, but there are ways to help it along.

- flatwound strings
- foam mutes

If you're looking to buy a bass with more of that tone, there are some other thing will help it along.

- shorter scale
- fully hollow body (archtop, not semi hollow)
- lighter wood (more resonant)

Check out the Classic 4. Check out Invalid Link Removed. I don't know what he's playing but, again it approaches the tone you're looking for. Looks short scale, not sure if it's hollow or not. This Hofner gets a similar tone, but not as well as some others I've heard, obviously you'd need more bass than is on this recording.

A good P bass (not all P basses are created equal) will get a similar tone. Check out Jamerson's solo'd bass track from What's Going On. Warmer & woolier, but if you turned up the treble you'd get that papery warm wood tone you're after. Invalid Link Removed gets a killer P tone too, I can almost feel it thump my chest through the earphones! The emphasis is in a different place than the track you showed me - the P pickup location puts the punch in a different place than a Jazz. But the woody tone of the bass coming through is the same.

The Roadworn Fender Jazz I played recently approaches that sort of tone, though you'd need some EQ... the Sansamp VT bass wouldn't hurt either. I'd wager a Road Worn through a VT bass pedal could get you there.

The bottom line is - unplug the bass. How close does it get to the tone you want without the electronics? I'd almost be willing to buy a bass based on its unplugged tone alone, provided the eletronics configuration allowed me to swap out whatever it had for something better if I had to.

Never buy a bass you haven't played (unless it's a music man, one music man is the same as any other with the same configuration - the modern ones anyway), especially if that's the tone you're going after. That tone is ALL ABOUT the wood.
 
#11
I think I understand what you mean.

I have a jag, and I was finding the top end twanged and poped to much (i play with a pick if that helps) and cut into the lows, when the lows weren't rumbling over the top of the mids.

What I did was, change the strings to ernieball super slinkys (i just prefer to play on them) and I lowered the bridge pickup to just a bit lower than the middle pickup, and I raised the saddle for the low E aswell, and I must say with just a flat EQ the it sounds altogether tighter and the lows don't rumble as much over the mids and the tops don't cut everything to shreds.

I have both pickups on, tone on 10, the series/parallel switch up(facing up towards you when your wearing the bass, i think thats parallel) and in passive mode.

This is only my first set up change on my jag so it's not prefect but I prefer it over the factory set up.

The only pickup difference with the road worn jazz and the jag is that the jazz has alnico magnets, my only experience of difference between alnico magnet pickups and standard is the humbuckers between my epiphone dot studio and my friend's dad's 335, the dot studio has alnico magnets humbuckers as standard and if anything it just had a higher output, making it have more bit, not nearly as smooth as the 30+ year old humbuckers on the 335.

I don't play jazz that often anymore. and this setup for my jag suits my bands style more, if it needs a little less bass i usually switch the series/parallel switch(I'm surprised how much difference this makes) but from what I played at home, this is sort of close, plus you wont need to spend loads of money on A. a new Bass or B. new pickups, I havent played it with flat wounds though so it may sound better, I don't know...

You wont have to take off your strings either to change the pickup height either.

hit me up if this helps???
 
#12
Maybe it's just the wood of the bass then. I just changed my amp over to a Kustom 250-1 and I like the sounds I can get out of each channel/input... I'm having trouble picking one! I even add in the Sansamp VT after the fact. I really need to sit down for a good while and fiddle with all this stuff.

I can ALMOST get the sounds on the high strings I'm looking for... but it still just doesn't make it. I haven't used any muting since I started the using Kustom and the VT though... this might help. The sponge mute gets annoying cuz you have to keep moistening it. I'm about to splurge on one of those muting systems from overseas.

@ MarkTAW. I checked out the Classic 4 video... that might help a lot with what I'm going for. I haven't ever picked up and played a semi hollow or hollow electric bass. My ears perked up as soon as the guy in the video mentioned shortscale AND deeper sounds on the G string. I might end up buying one of these.

@ Prime BASS. I just had my bass set up and the action on the Low E is a lot lower.. but it's hard to play otherwise. I haven't ever messed with pickup height though. The pickups seems pretty low to me. Also, I play with flatwound strings and only use my fingers, so I'm not sure if changing the parallel switch helps. Honestly I don't even understand that switch stuff... I need to bone up on equipment understanding!

Thanks again, all of this input is great!
 
#14
ookla the mok said:
Maybe it's just the wood of the bass then. I just changed my amp over to a Kustom 250-1 and I like the sounds I can get out of each channel/input... I'm having trouble picking one! I even add in the Sansamp VT after the fact. I really need to sit down for a good while and fiddle with all this stuff.

I can ALMOST get the sounds on the high strings I'm looking for... but it still just doesn't make it. I haven't used any muting since I started the using Kustom and the VT though... this might help. The sponge mute gets annoying cuz you have to keep moistening it. I'm about to splurge on one of those muting systems from overseas.

@ MarkTAW. I checked out the Classic 4 video... that might help a lot with what I'm going for. I haven't ever picked up and played a semi hollow or hollow electric bass. My ears perked up as soon as the guy in the video mentioned shortscale AND deeper sounds on the G string. I might end up buying one of these.

@ Prime BASS. I just had my bass set up and the action on the Low E is a lot lower.. but it's hard to play otherwise. I haven't ever messed with pickup height though. The pickups seems pretty low to me. Also, I play with flatwound strings and only use my fingers, so I'm not sure if changing the parallel switch helps. Honestly I don't even understand that switch stuff... I need to bone up on equipment understanding!

Thanks again, all of this input is great!
Click to expand...

I use some of that foam you put in windows when you have an air conditioner on my bass. "Invalid Link Removed" It's designed to be cut, so just cut it to the right size & shove it under your string by the bridge. I have it on my P-bass so it's between the strings & the [This invalid link has been removed], but under the body will work ok too, as long as you can get it close enough to the bridge so that it doesn't kill your sustain altogether.

The Classic 4 sounds like a nice bass - there's a couple other videos of it on Youtube you should check out & then see if anyone around you stocks it. It's a killer bass, and real cheap too (I think MSRP is $650).

FWIW I have round wounds on my precision bass & it still sounds killer. The strings are really old & dead so it has more of a flatwound quality, but strings aren't the main element of any bass's sound.

I don't think a semi-hollow will really get you there, but it's worth trying if you can find one. In general, I think the lighter the wood, the more resonant the body, the more it affects the tone in a good way. A hollow body would be lighter & more resonant than a solid body, though some people think semi-hollow body basses are tubby rather than warm.

Anyway, I hope I've given you some food for thought & some ideas for what to look out for.

Oh and one last thing - if you down tune your bass a half step, it's the same as having a short scale bass. Think about it - if you put a short scale bass next to a long scale bass, where would the nut be? Around the 1st or 2nd fret. So if you tune down the bass so that the 1st or 2nd fret is E A D G, then it's the same as having a short scale bass. You could even capo the 1st fret so the 'open' note stay the same.

Should be worth experimenting with & then you can decide for yourself the validity of statements like that.
 

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