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How do you EQ your P bass

#24
It really depends on the genre of the music, but for an agreeable all around tone, on my Ampeg PF800, gain up so the clip light occasionally flashes, bass boost on, bass straight up at 12 o'clock, mid at about 10 o'clock, mid selector on 800hz (middle), treble at 12 o'clock. On my Hartke TX300, gain up until the clip light occasionally flashes, shape switch off, Bass at 11 o'clock, mid at 9 o'clock, treble straight up at 12. I always use a TC Electronic Spectracomp bass compressor which allows me to boost certain frequencies while compressing other frequencies to shape the tone. It's usually set between 12 and 2 o'clock depending on the genre and how much bass or midrange is out front and audible. To me it is the most useful bass tone shaping tool made.
 
#25
This. This is exactly how I EQ my Precision strung with Chromes for the mixes I most frequently find myself in these days:

EQ.png


Remember, all amps' default tone profiles and EQs are different, so trying to approximate any setting from another user may prove difficult/impossible unless you know exactly how your preamp(s) function.
 
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#30
Well, I'll play along. 2016 Classic 50's black lacquer P bass into Traynor SB112. I use the tone control on my bass about 50% +/- for subtle changes on the fly. On the amp I roll off the all the treble to create a tighter EQ bracket for the mix. I use an auralex pad under my amp almost all the time. If the room is boomy, I'll pull out some bass on the amp and then boost the master volume.
 
#33
BXR300C: slight bass boost 1:00
slight treble cut 11:00 and slight mid boost 1:00 mid freq. 1k'ish.
Slap P vol 100% tone 100%
Everything else to taste with tone usually 40% or less..:bassist:

Edit: just looked at my other bass amps and the above settings are almost identical, must be where my ears "want it" as my room currently sits. Interesting.
 
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#34
Having owned many Ps and PJs, playing finger style with flats, on most amps, I usually would boost mids one or two points and roll off the highs by the same amount. Lows would be flat or rolled off a little as needed to control any boom or mud.

EDIT: Oh, you meant the knobs on the bass. Volume all the way up for a strong signal, tone knob usually somewhere in the middle to upper middle depending on what sounds good to me that day.
 
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#36
No eq'ing for me, but my P is actually a P/J - similar to our pal in post #19 above.

I've actually played a couple of outdoor gigs this summer - last one was under a tent last weekend, but that's all for now. Using a GK MB 500 with a pair of vertically stacked 2x10's and no PA support, but no trouble throwing pretty big sound around with this rig.

My P/J bass is a custom build with passive pickups and when I have the P pickup solo'ed, the tone is plenty aggressive for me. I can chug along or slap it with the tone full open or I can reel in a little of the brightness if I turn down the tone control a bit. If I want less anger in my sound, I'll blend in a bit of the J pickup. Much smoother like that, especially when the tone control is turned down a bit, but I don't much care for the sound I get with the blend right in the middle.

While my P/J has all the mids I can use these days, it's a different deal when I play my passive Jazz bass. The one I play has significant mid-scoop with both pickups full open. Bumping the high mids and/or low mids can help there, but generally I'll solo the neck pickup when I need the sound from that bass to stand out a little better in a mix with the band.
 
#37
If you look at the Physics of how a P bass works - the eq that the pickup's position on the string gives you, there's a hump who's frequency is different for each string - you can't perfectly eq it out, since the pickups mixes the different strings' responses. However, a wide dip in the neighborhood of 250 to 300 Hz seems to tame the worst of it. In all my different iterations of pedalboards (I play ampless, so I actually know when I have "flat response"), I have some version of that dip, whether implemented as a dip, or in one case, a treble and bass boost on an Xotic Bass RC booster, which, "leaves behind" 300 Hz (making a dip) when both are turned up a bit
 
#40
NortyFiner said:
Having owned many Ps and PJs, playing finger style with flats, on most amps, I usually would boost mids one or two points and roll off the highs by the same amount. Lows would be flat or rolled off a little as needed to control any boom or mud.

EDIT: Oh, you meant the knobs on the bass. Volume all the way up for a strong signal, tone knob usually somewhere in the middle to upper middle depending on what sounds good to me that day.
Click to expand...
You had it right the first time. I'm curious of amp settings.
 

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