How do you use your EQ?

[FJJazz23]

Thanks for the guidance @Gearhead17

 

[phangtonpower]

I use heavy gauge flats. They can be really bass heavy, so I usually have my bass turned all the way down to a little less than a quarter the way up on my pre. Otherwise everything else is set flat.

 

[buldog5151bass]

I think many people get too carried away trying to "recreate the tone on the recording". IMO, it is much more important to find a sound that sits in the mix - in most cases, other than simple CCR type situations, you are not going to have the same instrumentation anyway.

I have a basic eq setting for each bass, and then I tweak for the room.

 

[Brother Goose]

I play passive basses and try to get as much "eq" as possible by adjusting pickup volume and hand position.

Amp-wise, I've started using my carvin BX500 to REMOVE the frequencies not needed for the room. (this is especially important now that I use an uncolored fEARFUL 12/6)

I anticipate moving to the new GK pedal preamp in the next few months and running that into a graphic EQ and high powered power amp for stage sounds.

I love the benefits of onboard EQ (having owned a number of great active basses in the past) but seem to benefit more from "setting and forgetting" these days- once I have a good sound for the room and style of music.

 

[Brother Goose]

I think many people get too carried away trying to "recreate the tone on the recording". IMO, it is much more important to find a sound that sits in the mix - in most cases, other than simple CCR type situations, you are not going to have the same instrumentation anyway.

I have a basic eq setting for each bass, and then I tweak for the room.

Wisdom! I used to use a scooped Marcus sound that sounded great in my living room and led to blown woofers/tweeters on stage. I back off sub-bass and 800-1k "honk" and try to get a sound that sounds good once the guitars/cymbals start churning!

 

[GK Growl]

I think many people get too carried away trying to "recreate the tone on the recording". IMO, it is much more important to find a sound that sits in the mix - in most cases, other than simple CCR type situations, you are not going to have the same instrumentation anyway.

I have a basic eq setting for each bass, and then I tweak for the room.

Exactly. Also, are the other instruments sounding like the recordings? More than likely, no. The goal is to give the audience balance of all instruments and a lot of times in the venues I play that usually means that my stage tone sounds nothing like what the crowd hears.

 

[Systolic]

I'm in a 90's pop punk/rock/grunge cover band, so I took have to cover a lot of sonic ground too. From Sublime to Pantera.

I work it like this:

Amp:
Hartke LH500 - keep it set flat. Which on these means bass at 4, mids at 8, treble at 5. Bright switch off.

Basses: ESP LTD Surveyor 415 and Ibanez Talman TMB600. Keep those pre's set flat as a starting spot.

EQ: Source Audio SA170. Has 4 eq presets. So I dial in a "warm/round" tone and a "growly/cutting" tone for each bass. Which I'll switch between from song to song.

Pres/Dirt: Depending on which EQ preset i'm in and if I'm using a pick or not on a given song, I have a EHX Bass Soul Food and a Darkglass B7k to choose from.

Individual songs/rooms can then be easily adjusted on the bass's onboard pre. Or if the guitard decides he wants to "git lowd," I can just bump all three bands and it'll act as a volume boost.


If it's a small venue, the audience will just get the tone from my cab. If it's a larger, I'll take all that into a Radial JDI and DI into the FOH.