Inspiration for your tone

[Adam Barkley]

Nick Oliveri/Scott Reeder/Micheal Henderson + Billy Gould; mellow, warm, distinct, etc.

 

[Alan Vorse]

Mine is always changing. In the cover band I play with, I will try to emulate the sound from the recording (mostly to keep myself amused more than anything else). Otherwise, probably Jamerson for deep grooves, Marcus Miller for slap, Jaco for 16th note funk.

 

[phxlbrmpf]

I think Flea's Wal tone simply kicks butt (he never sounded better in my opinion).
This is a recent find (Suzanne Vega's touring bassist) that made me go like "holy crap, this sounds good!":

 

[jmarcus2]

"The Hornet" (i think). Jimmy Haslip from that first Yellowjackets album.

 

[cheezewiz]

Wow - very kind of you to say, Pat. It's just a stock MIJ jazz special.

Yeah...I know you love those Jazz Specials, and the tone on that song, towards the end where you have a few of those "Geddy-esque" fills is just stellar. Every time I hear that I think..."Wow...that sounded great"

 

[zcwilkes]

For Hard Rock- Doug Wimbish w/Living Colour-Stain
For Everything else sorta like Oteil Burbridge on the Family Secret album( I don't like his solo live tone)
On Fretless I like Victor Wooten's tone on The West Country (UFO TOFU)

I love Chuck Rainey's tone on Steeley Dan's Aja. I don't try to sound like it but I thought I'd just throw that in.

 

[rylche]

I fashion my tone after a mixture of JPJ ( think Lemon Song ) and Jack Bruce ( Crossroads : original recorded version ).

Though, sometimes it changes everyday.

 

[Dash Rantic]

I was chasing a Timmy C tone for quite a while, but never could get a distortion that I really liked that could fit in to what I play.

Now I've been chasing after something more similar to Justin Chancellor, though that's been difficult since I don't use a pick. So my tone I'm using now is some sort of unholy mixture of those two plus other various little influences I've picked up.

-Dash

 

[SlavaF]

For pick tone, I'd say mostly I'm a mix of Chris Squire's grindy high-midrange and David Ellefson's deep bass and cranked treble (I'm thinkin a remastered Rust In Peace kind of sound).

Then for fingerstyle tone, I try to get a mixture between Geddy's high-mid, treble cut (Red Barchetta off ...Exit Stage Left is my favorite finger tone), Steve Harris' galloping mid-boosted sound (Number of the Beast) and finally a bit of John Myung.

But then, it all depends on the song - I can't always play like 'Arry

 

[Matt Till]

Scott Reeder's more in your face tone like on the split with Queens of the Stoneage. That and Geezer Butler's wub tone.

 

[Ale]

Abstract logic With Jonas Hellborg ..
And for the DB , Everything with NHÖP..
But its all in the fingers

 

[CHILDISHGAMBINO]

Eric Avery, Flea, Billy cox, Geezer, Kyuss. Depends on what I'm playing really. I'm always fiddling around with my eq and pickup configurations.

 

[PrimusNut]

for playing clean, Geezer Butler. For fuzz solo's cliff burton, and for distortion, cliff burton.

I have also tried to match Joey DeMaio's overdrive tone too.

 

[Bubba Love]

My favourite bass tone at the moment is the one Billy Gould captured on FNM tunes like Everything's Ruined and Kindergarten. I wouldn't say he influenced me from the start, I never looked to anyone specific for tone. I wandered around for several years fiddling with different basses and EQs, never being happy with the result, until one day last year I found my tone. I can't really say it sounds like anyone though!

 

[ArwinH]

I love Marcus' slap tone, Meshell's back pickup funky bark, flea's tone on alot of bssm, JPJ and Jack bruce are huge influences in the way I phrase lines and how my playing comes out. I also really liked Ben Kenny's tone on a crow left of the murder.

 

[KeithBMI]

I try to go for a nice growly mid/high end tone. I'd like to thank the 60's and 70's for that.