How were you using gear WRONG as a noob?

[bassfiddlesteve]

A few of these posts about tuning the bass incorrectly remind me of this quote from an interview with Peter Cetera from Bass Player magazine:

"I got my Danelectro Short Horn and I asked somebody in our band how to tune it. He said, I think it’s tuned like the first four strings of a guitar. So, that’s what I did. I started playing, and I’m thinking, gee, it doesn’t sound real bassy. A few weeks later, a famous local bassist came and sat in at our club gig. He put the bass on and went, What the hell?! He quickly tuned it down the right way and I had to learn all over again; I was lucky the neck hadn’t snapped!"

- Steve

 

[TNCreature]

And the most embarrassing of all:
- I thought that to tune a bass, you went from the guitar 6th to the bass 1st string. So we'd tune the 1st string 5th fret of the bass to the open low E on the guitar and go from there. So I wound up with the bass tuned to... BF#C#G#. And then wondered *** what I'm doing doesn't match anything bassists I see on tv are doing. Fortunately this one was corrected very, very fast.

I had OCD as a kid (grew out of it), and I was sure that in order to tune a bass or guitar, all of the tuning keys had to be aligned. It was hard for me to learn that that was not the case. I almost couldn't play because of it.

 

[DrayMiles]

I wonder what happens when you missmatch impedance?

The band are much louder than I was… In my case.

 

[Deleted member 271037]

exactly my issue. I dropped the bass eq and raised the mids. It took forever to figure it out

I didn't understand the importance of this until I started working in a recording studio. My method for a quick starting point in the mix is now as follows:

1) Listen on small, narrow range speakers (like Mixcubes) and raise the volume of the bass track(s) until it's clearly audible in the mix.

2) Change to full range studio monitors w/sub. The bass will now usually be insanely loud because it has WAY too much lows/sub-bass. Remove lows until the bass sounds resonably balanced, add compression to taste and it's usually 80-90% there.

Even with a relatively mid-forward bass like a passive P-bass, straight into a "clean" DI box I nearly always have to CUT a significant amount of lows in the mix (both shelving and HPF). Of course some genres need a bit more going on down there but generally the problem is a lack of mids, not lows.

 

[Nebadon2000]

My entire first year of playing I held my bass entirely wrong, as pictured below:

View attachment 4704964

 

[Michedelic]

I used to put the dish-washing tabs in the dishwasher's liquid compartment. Apparently, you need to throw the tab directly into the machine.

Wait. Isn't this talkdishwasher.com ?

You need to go to Talkwashingmachines.com for proper guidance…

 

[SLIV]

Mismatched cabinets.

My first cabinet was some no-name 18 incher. Huge, sounded fine to my noob ears but then it was time to get those high sounds so I got a 2x10 to sit on top! Same impedance? Who knows, probably not.

 

[StereoPlayer]

Mismatched cabinets.

My first cabinet was some no-name 18 incher. Huge, sounded fine to my noob ears but then it was time to get those high sounds so I got a 2x10 to sit on top! Same impedance? Who knows, probably not.

I played for many years with just an 18” no-name speaker stuffed into an old 212 guitar cab…I sealed the back. I got many compliments from that cab.

yea…ohms…we’re just a suggestion to me…

 

[maxschrek]

So I had it right all along

 

[The Petro]

I started playing in a band in he 90s. I just learned in the past 2 years about bass/ guitar setup. I also just learned about the gain / master relationship.

 

[JRA]

I insisted ALL basses are fretless.

they should be! i don't think you were that wrong!

 

[bassfiddlesteve]

I was looking at a used bass on Reverb and saw this picture of the case compartment. Those contradictory notes on how to tune the open strings may have caused some confusion for someone.

- Steve

 

[slagbass]

- Wondering why I couldn't get a Chris Squire/Geddy Lee tone on my bass that had the the same roundwounds on it when I bought it.
-Wondering why I was having difficulty playing fast passages when my strings were 1/2" off the fret board.

 

[Zenbassie]

I remember working hard and saving money as a teen to buy my first bass rig. I got a used SWR Goliath 410 that didn’t fit in the front seat of my old Camaro… UNTIL I MADE IT FIT!!! Completely trashed my interior. That cab weighed a ton. Or roughly 100 lbs to be exact.

I also bought a used SWR Bass 350 or Basic 350 or whatever it was called.

Hmm. Sounds a little bit like my old rig....

 

[dpbass66]

Not knowing much about EQ and then the difference between high-end gear and not-high-end gear. Then my dad bought me a Walter Woods head, and my whole bass life changed. IU bought some nice cabinets (SWR Goliaths) after that and once I had great tone at my fingertips I played differently. Then I discovered boutique instruments...

 

[Xjenrbcjsmsbfjw]

Nothing quite that destructive, but I made the classic mistake (on guitar, but there's definitely a version of this on bass) of getting super excited by a giant tube amp then never having to push the thing anywhere near the sweet spot.

I played a hundred watt amp with a 4x10 cabinet in clubs the size of my bedroom. I had to turn the thing down to like 8:00 on the main volume to have the gain anywhere near the point where the guitar would respond right, then of course it didn't distort the way I wanted it to in my head, so I ran every distortion pedal I could find in front of it trying to figure out why it didn't sound right.

Would a 1x12 have broken up exactly how I wanted it to, fit the size of the places I was playing, and cost a quarter as much? Sure. But, would it have looked as bad a** to 16 year old me? Of course not.

 

[Xjenrbcjsmsbfjw]

Before the internet we were kinda on our own. Now I can't imagine not being able to google just about any problem or question on any possible subject at any time and have instant answers (some of which actually work!).

This.

I played all through high school in the days where the internet was a thing, but you might find one geo cities site via dialup about a topic. By the time I was out of college, it wasn't like it is now but you could basically find most answers on the web. I HATE that I'm turning into this guy, but I regularly think to myself "lucky little bastards, none of them will ever have to buy a magazine for tab!" when I see someone in their twenties playing.

 

[isaac42]

I played bass with a pick. Imagine that. I still do. Imagine that.

At band practice yesterday, I used a pick. For the whole time.
We were doing some surf tunes.

 

[MPat]

I bought a brand new '68 Rick 4001 in 1970 that I liked a lot, but it came strung with flats and I never put roundwounds on it. I think I would have loved it if I had tried them.

 

[Doug4321]

I didn’t know about the truss rod. So if the action was too tight, would put on lighter gauge strings, which would then flatten the board, so I would raise the action at the bridge. Easier to play even if the action is high. Duh.

Also, I had a medium scale Aria, and at one point found some medium scale Rotosound Swings. Sounded great, like Entwistle. But why didn’t I keep tracking down those strings, and instead play random clunky long scale sets? Duh. Of course we didn’t have internet shopping then so limited selection.

Also. Not practicing enough. Still. !