Is anyone else completely in love with their tone?

[lowendrachel]

Love the bridge pick up.

 

[shirojiro]

it took me a long time to figure out the perfect tone in my home studio, is not necessarily the perfect tone in a band situation or recording.

Listening to isolated tracks of some of my all-time favorite players and the parts that inspired me over the years has taught me that the tone out of context of the music, is usually a lot different than I thought it would be.

Listen to Chuck Rainey's isolated tracks from the Steely Dan Aja album. It was nothing like what I was expecting.

Same with Tiran Porter from the Doobie Brothers. His isolated bass tone is nothing I would have aspired to sitting in my basement.

This is really true.

The clanky fret noise gets lost amidst the cymbals and guitars and the prominent mids really define the growl and tone for me.

 

[MCS4]

I feel like I found "my tone" sometime back around my late teens or so and have pretty much stuck with it for a couple decades since then. I've gotten it with multiple different pieces of gear over the years, though.

 

[scuzzy]

i'm mostly running Haz equipped spector's into GK, into epifani. so, yeah. i'm good.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

I had a bit of a realization earlier today while I was practicing. I don't need to buy any more gear. The tone I'm getting from my Spector NS Ethos HP 4 through my Ampeg RB-110 is that "pure magic" I've been looking for for the last 30 years. Is anyone else fortunate enough to find their magic?

Congrats. I’ve known players that are on a life long quest for their “holy grail” tone.

I’ve been lucky to have found it with two different rigs. My Eden World Tour amp, D series cabs with an MIA Fender PBJ strung with DR Lo Riders I’ve had for the last 12 years. The other was back in the 70’s. A Rickenbacker 4001 with an ROS rig. A Hiwatt Custom 100 powering a Hiwatt 412 cab for the bridge pickup, and an SVT powering a Ampeg V-4b 2-15 reflex cab for the neck pickup which today would be totally obsolete. That Hiwatt amp is the only piece of gear I’ve regretted trading off, and for what 70’s Hiwatt amps are going for today, it was a huge miscalculation of future value.

 

[Gervais Cote]

I don’t know if anybody else has the same situation as me but in fact, I have the perfect TONES with different basses for different songs.

When I play Boogie Oogie Oogie from A Taste of Honey, my Squier Afinity jazz bass with its original pickups is just perfect. Not always that good with other disco songs though.

When I play Rock the Casbah or Somebody from Bryan Adams, my Frankenstein p bass with some Fender pure vintage 63 pickups is very convincing.

And when I play Mustang Sally or Rockin' is my business from The Four Horsemen, my home made p bass as per my avatar picture with some Nordstrand Power Blade pickups sounds like a 400 pounds wild boar that cuts and fits in the mix in a monstrous way.

My main amp kit is a Subway D350 with two GK Neo IV 112 cabs. Not the best in the world IMO but tends to be very transparent allowing different basses sound different.

A big Aguilar DB 751 would be nice to have to make everything still better but I don’t want to carry such a heavy amplifier back and forth.

 

[socknroll1]

I enjoy finding the right tone for each song. That's part of the fun. When I am able to do that and hear it well during a performance, yes, I love the tone(s).

 

[chris_b]

My signal path is Me~Sadowsky and Mike Lull basses~Aguilar amps~Barefaced cabs.

I think this is as good as I've ever sounded.

The only thing that can be improved is me. I work on that every day.

 

[Cory rich40]

I’ve been happy with my tone for a couple of years now. Mostly. I was alternating between using a Bongo and a stingray special and found I sounded better with the stingray. I sold the Bongo and got a dingwall droc and found that it sounds as good as the stingray. Before I purchased the droc, I was considering buying a Ernie ball darkray and a spector ethos was being considered. I was looking at buying the ethos at the beginning of the year but ended up with a fender American professional II fretless jazz. I think the best way for me to buy a spector ethos is in store instead of online if I ever decide to give in. I’m paranoid about the quality control. Besides for around 600 dollars more I could buy a lower end euro spector.

 

[WG Plum]

With my upright, yes. With my electrics, depends on the day, and probably the time of day.

 

[Ostie]

I picked up a Gretsch G2220 a couple years ago and it had rounds on it. I didn’t care for the tone. Just for kicks I strung it up with Labella flats and it completely changed the tone. I absolutely love it and it’s my number one. Now I want to try flats on the others, but I have eight more, so it’s going to take some time.

 

[HeavyJazz]

It only took me 25 years, 4 months, and 2 weeks to find a tone I was 100% happy with. Good things come to those who wait. ...And buy/sell/trade tons of gear!

 

[Freekmagnet]

I've been happy with my tone for a long time; I realized early on that "my tone" was something within me, equipment is merely a tool to express that sound.

Lately, I have been recording in my home studio, and I have been having a lot of fun trying different flavors with instruments, preamps, direct boxes, and emulators within the DAW. But again, it's all "my tone", and that tone changes to suit each song.

 

[Fat Bottom Kyle]

My problem is I love lots of tones and therefore I has no monies!

 

[Cleezmo]

I'd say 'sort of'. I'm probably 80-85% happy with my tone, regardless of which bass I'm playing. But, I have a new cabinet arriving this week which I think/hope will get me that last 15-20% that's missing. I have a handful of basses, and while I realize I'll always sound like me on each of them, I do enjoy the difference sounds/tones they bring, and that's why I'm changing cabs; I feel like my current cab makes them all sound too similar. The differences I hear when using headphones is just not there when playing through the cab. I know I won't get 100% there, but my hope is that I'll be able to hear those differences more clearly.

BTW, my 'tone' isn't based on pedals or pre-amps, it's just bass/HPF/amp. I have the basses I have because of their inherent tones and how they sound when I play them.

 

[shirojiro]

GK 700RBii, Two single Bag End fifteens, and an '85 Ibanez RB850. Just perfection.

I use a similar rig, GK 400RB or 800RB, 2 Bag End s15 cabs, and Ibanez RKB900 (Passive PJ bass) with EB Cobalt flats.

 

[CallMeAl]

Yeppers. P bass through any of my amps. (Markbass, Rumble v1, Rumble v3, Blackstar headphone amp.)

 

[Ritter667]

It varies, sometimes I think I got the absolute perfect tone, at other times I come in doubt.

And regardless I still suffer from GAS, and ever so often get ideas of how to improve it.
Usually it turns out that it's in fact not an improvement at all, and I revert back to my old setup.

I utilize an amp-less setup, and a great deal of thought, time and trial/error went into perfecting it.

My basic "clean" tone is mildly overdriven, with a nice slight grind to it, but very clear and articulate , and really punchy and snappy, just as I like it.

And due to the fact that it is an amp-less setup I get approximately the same tone, whether I practice at home through headphones, at jams/band rehearsals through my poweramp and passive FRFR PA speaker, or go through a full PA.

I suppose I could elaborate and include my post reverb high gain overdrive tone, which I really play as much as my main "clean" tone, think a bit more polite, more punchy, and a bit less grindy JJ Burnel, playing in a surf band, which comes from the most of the time added simulated short slap back tape delay after the overdrive.

Then there is my very blackgaze-esque post reverb high gain distortion.

And finally my quite raunchy monstrously ballsy and heavy main high gain distortion.

Love it all.

Oh, and I almost forgot, my fingers got tone for ages...

Those loving, love making digits...


Honorable mention:

Couldn't do this without my trusty EHX Black Finger, tube driven optical compressor, with its two preamp tubes operating at full 300V plate voltage. Though I use it dialed in so that the compression basically never kicks in, more so as a tube preamp stage, with the tubes driven to just on the verge of breakup.

Just makes everything you run through it sound better.



I'm loving it!

 

[newfuture]

I think so. Really regardless of the bass or amp in use. It's mostly that after 35+ years of playing, I've developed my hands to get what I want out of most instruments.

 

[mellowgerman]

Yes! It's a beautiful thing to find the right sound for your musical context. Each of my basses gets a bunch of different sounds that I find tasty and inspiring, so for me it's not one single sound. That said, for my current band, I found a sort of sweet spot with my heavily modified 1962 Gibson EB-0(MG) through my old Guild Thunderstar Bass head and Genzler 2x12 cab. It sounded nice and felt right while playing, but after hearing some of our more recent recordings, I just knew it was the perfect sound for the context of what we do. This bass also happens to be a total workhorse mojo-machine, so I can leave my more valuable or more sentimental ones at home.