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?
That would be me. I'm an old fart and have been playing bass since 1965 although there was a 20-year gap in there for raising a family.
I absolutely love the sound I get out of my 1982 Olympic White Jazz Bass with its white bound, all-maple neck, and its 70's era pickup spacing of 4" center to center, that I bought in 1985. My previous "best bass" was my 1965 Jazz that I bought in 1966. Unfortunately it was stolen from me along with all my touring gear in 1976. It took me almost 10-years to find another Jazz bass with that same 60's Slim C-shape neck with a 7.25" radius and another 12-years to come up with an amp I could gig. When I picked my "White Lady" off the wall to try it out, it just felt like coming home. ALL the Jazz basses I'd tried since mine was stolen in '76 had fat necks - same width, but looked like they'd been overeating for years and just felt bad to me really uncomfortable to play and not that far away from having a P-bass neck.
So I was pleased as punch to find it. I had no amp until 1997 when I started gigging again. As I slowly improved my gear I finally realized I had something special with this bass besides the great neck on it. In 2008 I got my first Eden amp, a Nemesis RS400. The clarity and the clean sound of that amp really let me hear what my bass was sounding like even though I didn't have great cabs. A couple of years later I bought my "big" Eden amp, my WT500/800. Because it is a dual powerblock amp, I'd plug the boomy GK115bpx in one channel and the previously "starved for bass EQ" acoustic B410 and adjust the mix of sound with the balance knob. That allowed me to send less power to the 115 while giving the 410 100%. Then I could run the Bass EQ at flat. Prior to that I had to cut the bass EQ down to 10 o'clock to make that 115 usable. That improved the sound a fair amount because I wasn't starving my B410 cab anymore, so I gigged with that set-up for the next 5-years and was pretty happy.
Then in 2015 I got my first DNA cab, a DNS-410. And now my bass sound was crystal clear. I thought it was clear before but when I plugged it into my DNS-410 driven by my big Eden amp bridged at 800-wats rms into it, it sounded like I'd just removed a blanket from over my speakers. My bass is so clear through that, that I can actually hear all 3 distinct notes when I play bass chords. I also get told to turn down at music festivals when using just my 410 if I set the master on my WT500/800 at 10:30, and it's still crystal clear above that. Plus the clarity a those higher levels is just remarkable. The little changes I make with how I pluck the strings and where I pluck them; how I fret the notes, and how I mute them; the ability to play softly, play loud, or make my bass growl; all of those are right there and easy initiate and easy to hear.
The upshot is that as I got better and better gear, I got to hear what my bass was actually capable of. My '82 Jazz has a bit of a brighter sound than my '65 did, and I attribute that to the 70's era pickup spacing that puts the bridge pickup almost 1/2" closer to the bridge. It also has night and day better sustain than my '65 did, and I presume that's due to the all-maple neck. Whatever the reason is, it is a happy combination of all the right features combining to give me just the BEST sound out of my bass.
In 2019, I played a 3-hour recording session at a pro-studio in Seattle and they wouldn't let me use my DNS-410 because they had both bass and drums in the same room and were concerned about bleed over between the channels. So they wanted me to go direct to their board by plugging into the wall using one of their DI's. I agreed but insisted upon using my own DI (WTDI) that has a built-in Eden WT preamp. I set everything flat on that but boosted the low mids at 500Hz up to 1:30, which is not a lot but makes a difference in my sound. They reluctantly agreed and I played through it for the entire recording session.
At the end of the session they had me listen to the raw takes through some specific headphones and asked what I thought. I told them it sounded like the bass EQ was slightly boosted but it was super clear and not muddy at all and I thought it sounded great. Then both the sound engineer and the owner of the studio came out to see what I was using and they said that the sound they recorded for the bass was exactly the signal that I sent to them. They didn't EQ it or compress it at all. The only thing they adjusted was the level on the track.
So, yeah, I love the sound of my bass and its ability to accurately portray the subtleties and dynamics of sound that I strive to portray. I did put in my will that my '82 Jazz was to be given to my oldest son who is one of the very few people I've allowed to play it. He's one of those rare musicians that can make anything sound good, including a hollow rock with three holes in it...
I've posted this picture multiple times before, but here's my White Lady:
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