How to get pops to cut through in fingerstyle playing

[meisi]

You’re most definitely going to have to veer off topic to tell us about this bass.

This thread is useless without pics.

 

[PotsdamBass8]

Live mix or recorded mix?

Live. 90s cover band, electric and acoustic guitars, drums, tracks for some songs with piano etc

 

[Wasnex]

Thanks for all the feedback! I should say that the pops sound fine when I’m playing by myself, they’re just not cutting through as loud in the mix.

While I expect my bass to be compressed at front of house, I have never used a compressor on stage. In a mix, too much compression can cause you to feel disconnected from the instrument and make it harder to hear details in your playing. The typical consequence is to play harder, which degrades speed and accuracy, and reduces endurance.

If you find compression essential, I suggest starting at the the other end of the spectrum and use as little as possible.

You can use heavier compression if you want, but you will probably have to learn play more on faith.

I like to hear a lot of detail in my sound on stage. To achieve this I typically have to boost mids and highs, and cut lows. Sound awful by itself, but works in the mix.

 

[Killing Floor]

Once again from the depths of TalkBass:

“How can I make my MIDS more audible in a band mix”

TB - Try lowering your mids.

 

[Bassmec]

You’re most definitely going to have to veer off topic to tell us about this bass.

There was a time in the early seventies that I would have been perfectly happy with just four strings of the Fender maple neck precision bass variety, but then came the drugs which caused me to become more adventurous. So I got John Birch guitars of Birmingham to build me a Rickenbircher which was great but seemed to be lacking a low b and active electronics so as I had bought an original 1973 Gibson grabber which as a passive bass sounded a lot more lively than the sum of its parts might suggest, so I had a go with the parts cannon, as I loved the big Bill Lawrence designed pickup but hated how they had done the sliding pickup arrangement, but liked the concept as it worked so well on my Dan Armstrong bass that sadly went missing in a studio break in along with a truck load of my studio equipment, but they left the stuff I had customised or modified.
So now I have cultivated a long list of luthiers and breed a couple of sons who also build beautiful guitars in sheds. So my sliding pickup Stingray five was originally built by Doug Wilkes back in the early eighties, with the best pickup and onboard pre that could be obtained. It would have been churlish to deny my Doug Wilkes Custom Stingray 5, the chance of sporting a Nordstrand Big Blademan and its JC 3B onboard pre. When we all know “the Clangs the Thang”.
PS. As to my Grabber, adding an acre or two of 3mm stainless steel plate and a cheeky hot wound Jazz bass pickup at the dingiest harmonic near the bridge, after purging all capacitance introduced from the tone control so I fitted a phase inversion switch instead. I don’t do dull bass sounds on my Grabber, I leave that to my all passive Yamaha PJ Bass I put flat wound strings on. For when the tight plunk, with little to no sustain is the thang.

 

[SteveLo42]

I struggled with this for a while but, like others have said, a compressor set up correctly made the world of difference. Play around with settings until you find the sweet spot.