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Is this tone even possible?
- Thread starter SonicMirage
- Start date
It’s a typical modern J tone with roundwounds. Set both pups wide open and boost mids (400 Hz).
I don’t think that tone is rocket science. Good strong control from his right hand, roundwounds, emphasis on the bridge pickup, and he’s keeping a lid on the mids and highs. Any good jazz bass should be able to get pretty close with the right playing technique.
Just have to say I love that guy. His videos are so good. I wish I had a teacher like him growing up. Good player too.
Here's the pedal he says he's using: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...1S5ZT&linkId=3cb2be607ffbee85ab97994508f684a7
If you click "show more" there's an awful lot of info there.
If you click "show more" there's an awful lot of info there.
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To my ears it sounds like he's emphasizing the bridge pickup. He's also controlling the decay by playing very staccato. Attack and decay are an under appreciated element of 'tone'
EQ and compression have a lot to do with the sound he’s getting. But I’ll completely agree with @Dr. Cheese that his taste and touch is what’s really bringing it.
Have five players swap seats with him and leave everything else the same and I’ll guarantee all five will sound very different from him - and each other.
Have five players swap seats with him and leave everything else the same and I’ll guarantee all five will sound very different from him - and each other.
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I think that's a pretty straightforward tone that one can achieve with a decent J bass, amp, and the right techique. I don't hear anything extraordinary tone wise. And the face of course 
JeezyMcNuggles
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- Feb 23, 2018
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Sounds like a jazz bass to me. A nice one at that, but still just a fairly standard jazz bass tone.
Yoooooo it’s ya boy Travis Dykes!
I fired him over a message on IG about this thread. I have a running conversation with him.
It’s a pretty straight forward Jazz sound...a lot of his tone comes from his hands. Lean into that bridge pickup...physically too.
Travis is a monster man...I love his playing.
He’s also got a Patreon ;-)
I fired him over a message on IG about this thread. I have a running conversation with him.
It’s a pretty straight forward Jazz sound...a lot of his tone comes from his hands. Lean into that bridge pickup...physically too.
Travis is a monster man...I love his playing.
He’s also got a Patreon ;-)
Strings make the biggest difference.......and not so much the brand but how new they are....This is the main reason why I always use fresh new-as-possible roundwounds live: because I can subtract zing, subtract mid growl to taste, and shape tone (usually right off the bass itself)......if I were using broken-in flatwounds or even broken in roundwounds, I can't add extra string harmonic structure or mid growl even if I wanted it because they aren't there
Good player w/ good tone. Probably some different parameters reached but it’s not a gear thing....more of a chops thing I’m guessing.
Travis Dykes has a good sound but what grabbed me was his groove. After a bar the groove was all I was hearing.
Gotta go with the guys saying it’s in his hands. That tone comes from digging in over the bridge pickup, and would change if he moved an inch towards the neck or an inch back towards the bridge. All three of those locations would necessitate different amounts of muting from the left hand, depending on how much you were digging in (and string height). Someone also mentioned hearing the tip of his fingernail, too. The importance of fingernails, the shape of the fingertip, the relative softness of the skin- all of these have an impact, that can’t be overstated. If your nails are “down to the quick”, and your fingertips are soft, it’s going to take a lot of tweaking to get that tone. If you have fingernails long enough to support the entire tip, and smooth, hard fingertips with well developed calluses, which the guy in this video audibly has, you’re halfway there.
A jazz bass will do it, and an active jazz will really do it. I had a Bass Mods with Delano pickups and a John East J Retro dlx preamp that I traded away (seriously regret) and it could get that tone all day long.
The biggest thing in my opinion is a jazz bass with stainless strings. Hi/Fat Beams are perfect.
Awesome song btw, thank you for sharing. If you like that bass tone, listen to Love Is Where You Are & Anything You Want by Reel People. Of course, it helps if you're Julian Crampton.
I don't agree that it's all in the hands. There's a kind of meaty, low-level/low frequency distortion on the notes, especially the lower ones, that just isn't there on a totally clean jazz bass no matter what you pluck the strings with or where.
That's why I instantly thought of going hotter on the pickups. I also refrained from the try-this-other-bass thing, to hopefully save the OP from running out and buying a bunch of basses just to get one tone.....
But that said....
The last time I really had that Fender milk chocolate meat on the tone that you can hear in the OP video was with my L2K. The Leo Fender MFD is the hottest pickup on planet earth with overly strong magnets; it gave a really nice chocolate, tube-breakup like distortion on the low notes like that, especially in parallel mode. That was mostly due to the 80 billion windings and the magnets that can suck up all the metal in your room if it's not bolted to the floor.
Again I don't want the OP to go out and spend 2 large on an L2K (it has other possibly unwanted tonal consequences), but there is definitely electronics involved in that sound. Most likely it's in the DI he's using, and the other likelihood is it's being added by the compressor he's using. A thin possibility is hotter than usual pickups, but you can compensate for that too with electronics.
Finally, it might be tone shaping in his DAW. And lord only knows what settings he might be using there.
So don't make too much of the "it's all in the hands" thing. Our instruments are primarily electronic so there's a huge contribution there, and a lot of what we want to achieve can be, and often is, done electronically....
L
That's why I instantly thought of going hotter on the pickups. I also refrained from the try-this-other-bass thing, to hopefully save the OP from running out and buying a bunch of basses just to get one tone.....
But that said....
The last time I really had that Fender milk chocolate meat on the tone that you can hear in the OP video was with my L2K. The Leo Fender MFD is the hottest pickup on planet earth with overly strong magnets; it gave a really nice chocolate, tube-breakup like distortion on the low notes like that, especially in parallel mode. That was mostly due to the 80 billion windings and the magnets that can suck up all the metal in your room if it's not bolted to the floor.
Again I don't want the OP to go out and spend 2 large on an L2K (it has other possibly unwanted tonal consequences), but there is definitely electronics involved in that sound. Most likely it's in the DI he's using, and the other likelihood is it's being added by the compressor he's using. A thin possibility is hotter than usual pickups, but you can compensate for that too with electronics.
Finally, it might be tone shaping in his DAW. And lord only knows what settings he might be using there.
So don't make too much of the "it's all in the hands" thing. Our instruments are primarily electronic so there's a huge contribution there, and a lot of what we want to achieve can be, and often is, done electronically....
L
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