How to get this kind of tone?

[Christian12]

I've been listening to a lot of gospel bass players, they all have similar tones like this, where the bass is like, sort of roaring, or growl, or crisp, its kind of hard to explain, but how do I get this tone, EQ wise, besides plucking technique.

 

[rtslinger]

Try amp settings everything a 12 roll off the bass guitar volume a little and roll off tone a little

 

[groove pump]

That's a super-fat 'n warm sound for sure, but there's also some good snap on standby in the higher frequencies for the slappy fills. In terms of EQ, I'd say maybe cut some of the high-mids (around 800-900 Hz) and boost some lower mids (I'm thinking around 300-400 Hz). Keep the tone rather opened up if the bass is passive so that those snappy highs are on hand and give that high end of the EQ a little bump in the 2k Hz realm, too.

The tricky thing could be dealing with the difference between a tone that comes through headphones easily, but gets harder to duplicate in a mix. Some mids have a sort of helpful obnoxious aspect that actually lets the bass tone cut through a mix in a live setting, so exactly where to cut or boost will need a little tweaking. That bass sound is big 'n round, but I don't get the feeling that the low-lows are boosted much at all. I think the raw high-mids have been sidelined.

Just my impression.

 

[Christian12]

That's a super-fat 'n warm sound for sure, but there's also some good snap on standby in the higher frequencies for the slappy fills. In terms of EQ, I'd say maybe cut some of the high-mids (around 800-900 Hz) and boost some lower mids (I'm thinking around 300-400 Hz). Keep the tone rather opened up if the bass is passive so that those snappy highs are on hand and give that high end of the EQ a little bump in the 2k Hz realm, too.

The tricky thing could be dealing with the difference between a tone that comes through headphones easily, but gets harder to duplicate in a mix. Some mids have a sort of helpful obnoxious aspect that actually lets the bass tone cut through a mix in a live setting, so exactly where to cut or boost will need a little tweaking. That bass sound is big 'n round, but I don't get the feeling that the low-lows are boosted much at all. I think the raw high-mids have been sidelined.

Just my impression.

Wow that's very overwhelming xD, I'm an intermediate level bass player, dont really know much about the # of Hz and what not, could you break that down for me? I also have a BTB675 Maple.

 

[groove pump]

As far as the high frequencies go, that tone doesn't sound especially clanky or as though there's much metal scraping together. In other words, it's not all too "bright" through the finger style portions, but it's still snappy when slapped. I'd say don't boost the highs on your bass for now or the sound may get too brittle. It will probably be bright and clear enough for slapping, even without boosted highs.

Something down in the lower realm sounds a little bigger than average, but it's hard to know what specific frequencies the eq on your bass controls (unless they're indicated in an owner's manual). So try a slight boost in your lows, play that way for a bit, then cut your mids a little bit to see what happens. Then go back to "flat", boost your mids just a little, play that way for a bit, then cut your lows a little and see how that changes the tone. That may help you get closer to the tone in that recording.

Cutting too much of the mids - often called "scooping" - can suppress too much audible tone in a bass sound, so be careful to avoid squashing too much of any frequency. It can also get bad if we boost too much of the really low, boomy frequencies - you'll know that when it happens. If you can get some time to experiment with a decent graphic eq or even a good parametric eq, you'll be able to identify some general frequencies by isolating them. This can be a lot of fun and also rather illuminating - I strongly recommend it.