How to make bass speaker sound lower?

[soundsupport1]

Another pedal option to consider is an octaver. Boss OC-5, TC Electronics Sub'n'up, and T-rex Quint all get a lot of love around here and are easy to find.

Does your amp have a 'deep' switch? Some do. Try that and see what happens.

Peace,
SoundSupport

 

[bastoe]

This is the sound I'm trying to emulate.

Sounds like that is a 5 or 6 string bass, with pretty even EQ - like almost flat to get that tight bounce on the fatter strings. Have you tried other basses and resetting your EQ flat as a starting point? Sounds like the fat strings are being used.

Also noticed you have the bass knob high on your EQ, I see you have the volume really low. I have a small Markbass 1x12 300watts or something, small and light and I can get that deep deep tone your looking for with the bass knob at 12pm. I have a MIM bass and swapped the stock pickups for a set of Aguillar's and a deeper tone showed up with them.

Lots of good answers, but you should start with the EQ since that doesn't cost anything. After that an Octave pedal turned way down will enhance the low end, but again you should be able to get it.

 

[mmbongo]

You could try a Fender Rumble, or maybe a Behringer

I see what you did there

 

[jw23mind]

Surprised no one has said to put the cab on the ground against a wall or in a corner for proximity effect.

 

[1958Bassman]

Don't just increase the level when you want more, decrease the level in the bands you want less of. Adding signal level causes distortion and earlier overdrive/clipping- you can always make up the loss of overall level by turning up the gain or volume control(s).

Also, WRT the octave pedal- if the speakers are tuned higher than the pedal's low frequency output, you won't hear much of a difference unless the speakers don't like it and in that case, you'll hear bad sound. Some can't handle extremely low frequencies.

 

[burgerdj]

Maybe a high pass/low pass?

 

[Ishmael_22]

Sounds like that is a 5 or 6 string bass, with pretty even EQ - like almost flat to get that tight bounce on the fatter strings. Have you tried other basses and resetting your EQ flat as a starting point? Sounds like the fat strings are being used.

Also noticed you have the bass knob high on your EQ, I see you have the volume really low. I have a small Markbass 1x12 300watts or something, small and light and I can get that deep deep tone your looking for with the bass knob at 12pm. I have a MIM bass and swapped the stock pickups for a set of Aguillar's and a deeper tone showed up with them.

Lots of good answers, but you should start with the EQ since that doesn't cost anything. After that an Octave pedal turned way down will enhance the low end, but again you should be able to get it.

I had the volume low because I was at home practicing but I've had it cranked way up during live performances.

I don't plan on buying another bass anytime soon but I'm interested in upgrading my pickups. What after stock pickups do you suggest for that deep growling bass sound?

 

[Ishmael_22]

I just joined this site and the interaction from you guys is outstanding. I've never been to a site that has so many immediate responses to a new post!

 

[jw23mind]

I had the volume low because I was at home practicing but I've had it cranked way up during live performances.

I don't plan on buying another bass anytime soon but I'm interested in upgrading my pickups. What after stock pickups do you suggest for that deep growling bass sound?

I'd suggest you'll do better to find a pedal or preamp circuit suited to creating that sound. That will have more effect than a pickup change. A combination of EQ and overdrive basically. I'd suggest VT Bass, Geddy YYZ, or the one I've got on order: Mountainking Behemoth II.

 

[mini-milli]

Here's what I would try first:

On the bass, I'd use both pickups with the tone turned down.
For eq I'd bump up the bass a little, low mids a little more, high mids flat, treble down a little.
I'd also play with a light touch and pluck close to the neck.

 

[bastoe]

I would still zero out the EQ first, the center frequency on the control should be in the user manual, as a reference, targeted boosts or cuts might can do it for you.

As far as pickups, most sites have a sample of what they sound like, since it's subjective, I can only tell you I went with Aguilar's over EMG, Seymore Duncan, Fender, Bartonlini, Dimarzio, Nordstrands etc...

A jw23mind is correct about a good preamp. It's less invasive than modifying the bass, easier, and may cost less. As a step that would be the second step I'd take with # 1 being EQ and Setup of the bass and rig.

EQ: Link Removed

For Preamps, you could take a look at preamps with a DI built in as some gigs require no amp/cab on stage, so you're going to need one anyway. I use TC Electrics Spectra-Drive as it has EQ, a Compressor, and Overdrive, plus a DI balanced out, and you can program it with different sounds via toneprint. So if you need it darker, you can reprogram it.

 

[paskisti]

I understood OP has Hartke 4x10 HD. That is closed speaker cabinet and has bit different sound compared to ported cabs. I have older revision of hydrive series (though 8x10) size and it is pushing nice sound. But, it is not "low low" end that is coming out there very well and that cabinets power is in the low mids giving the punch. If using bass know too much (let say unscientifically beyond 2 o'clock) is makes the sound messy. When start increasing bass from flat first speakers reproduce more low end but then start jumping disturbingly and not reproducing anything more (except distortion maybe).

Instead of using bass knob I just increase output volume to make myself sounding louder. Louder is also feel of more low end. If highs are getting too loud then reduce them with treble knob. Mids will determine your overall sound like nasal, honky, scooped etc.

I have same bass as you (Squier VM V?) and it actually have nice sound (enough low mids maybe) compared to my AM Jass. Hard to explain but Squier was easier to fit into band mix and cutting through without messing the overall sound. AM jazz was sounding boomy and I needed to cut a bit of bass to tame boominess.

Long story short: maybe that Hartke is not loud enough alone and you may need to double it. But before making expensive trials try your Eq to get sound correct = lower the bass.

 

[bassdude51]

Get it closer to a wall. Set the cab on top of a large empty wooden box.

 

[Silky Johnson]

Wut¿

Lol nope

 

[getBAK]

I'll echo here, this sounds like an EQ issue that shouldn't require a pedal.
In general Hartke cabs do tend to be very high-mid focused. If you can't get the sound you like out of this cab, it may be best to move on to something that is higher quality like the Mesa Subway series. Their 2x12 is light and will shake a house off the foundation.
Mesa Boogie Subway Ultra-Lite 2x12 Vertical Bass Cabinet | MESA/Boogie®

 

[Engle]

This is the sound I'm trying to emulate.

When you’re trying to get the sound, is it in a band context or just the bass?

 

[Slevage]

Pickup height... the closer the better due to the proximity effect

Don’t get do close that the magnetic field causes the notes to worble out of tune.

 

[DrThumpenstein]

EQing by subtraction is an often-neglected strategy, as @1958Bassman mentioned.

Also, a high-pass filter can spare the amp from wasting energy on extremely low frequencies, which can clean up deeper bass and keep the mud out.

You may not be able to get what you want from that cab; Hartkes tend toward brighter voicing, but you have some good suggestions above to try less expensive options to solve your tonal dilemma.

And welcome to Talkbass!

 

[pbass2]

Don't just increase the level when you want more, decrease the level in the bands you want less of.

This right here. "Proper" EQ'ing technique - in the studio as well as live - starts with cutting, not boosting. Then you can start boosting little bits to shape things further. I'd agree with others, the OP's bass and rig are perfectly capable of producing a totally deep dubwise sound. Just needs more experimentation. And turn off the darn tweeter if it's on for starters!

 

[Mike Marshall]

One easy useful pedal or device I'd add is a High Pass Filter: reduce the frequencies you can't hear to begin with, so your amp/speakers arn't wasting power/excusion trying to reproduce them. Usually cleaning up that extreme low end actually makes the low end sound better.

Read up on HPF's and decide if its something you want to try/mess with and if so, then I'd get something thats a combo HPF+LPF, whether in a multi-unit (Zoom, Line6, etc), or a Broughton makes a great combo LPF+HPF pedal for ~165.

I believe a low pass filter is what you need or a combination