Knobs on my new Yamaha RBX270

[kiwlm]

Yippie, after months of spending my time on talkbass.com, finally went shopping and picked up a starter yamaha bass yesterday!

Question, there are 3 knobs on the bass, and according to the site here
yamaha rbx270
It says the 3 knobs are master volume, master tone and pickup selector.

Ok, I am an absolute beginner here, the first knob I assume will be the master volumn, turn up loud sound, turn down, no sound.

The second I will assume is the pickup selector, coz it gives a more mid sound when its turned down, and gives a more bass sound when its turned up. And it have a temporary stop at the center, I assume to use 1/2 of both pickups.

What I don't know now is the third knob. I just turn up and down, sound wise, there are no difference. But if its all the way up, there are some cases where some noise are generated, and when the strings are struck, and I just touch them with my fingers, there's some "clicking" sound coming from my small practice amp. When I turn the knob all the way down, no problems at all.

Somone please englithen me? Thanks in advance.

 

[pc]

I am not shure, but looks like a problem with the tone capacitor. Did you buy it new? Go back to the store and show it to the salesperson. Ask to compare to other basses to check if it is ok.

 

[rougeporn]

On My rbx270 the front control is master volume, the middle is a pickup blend (so if turned all the way forward its the front pickup on full and the bridge off and vice versa), and the back control is a tone. It seems like a rather silly way of doing it as you loose volume when either one of he pickups isnt on full, but whatever. Waybe the clicking is when the tone is fully open, so more bright and the amp isnt dealing with it too well? thats what happens when I play using my practice ampX

 

[SuperDuck]

What I don't know now is the third knob. I just turn up and down, sound wise, there are no difference. But if its all the way up, there are some cases where some noise are generated, and when the strings are struck, and I just touch them with my fingers, there's some "clicking" sound coming from my small practice amp. When I turn the knob all the way down, no problems at all.

Somone please englithen me? Thanks in advance.

Since you say you are an absolute beginner, you might just not be noticing the change in tone. I'm only saying this because when I first started to play, I didn't know what my tone knob did, either. It basically rolls off the high frequencies- turned all the way down, your tone will be muddy, thumpy, muffled, whatever you want to call it. Turn it all the way up, and your tone will be brighter, clearer, and noisier. If you are having trouble telling the difference, check the EQ settings on your amp. If they are set a certain way, like if the highs are all rolled off already, you won't notice a big difference when you change your tone setting on your bass.

And yes, there will be more finger noise and fret noise and even humming noise (possibly) with the tone turned all the way up. That's just part of having high frequencies in your signal. As your technique improves, however, many of the noises that aren't desired will go away. You can get rid of them now, of course, by turning your tone all the way down. Out of ears, out of mind. But then your technique will not develop and you'll more than likely play a little sloppier than if you had taken the time to clean up your technique to begin with.

Good luck.

 

[kiwlm]

It seems like a rather silly way of doing it as you loose volume when either one of he pickups isnt on full, but whatever. Waybe the clicking is when the tone is fully open, so more bright and the amp isnt dealing with it too well? thats what happens when I play using my practice ampX

Hmmm... I am using my practice Amp, maybe mine does not handles it well also... will play with the EQ settings of the amp though...

 

[kiwlm]

Since you say you are an absolute beginner, you might just not be noticing the change in tone. I'm only saying this because when I first started to play, I didn't know what my tone knob did, either. It basically rolls off the high frequencies- turned all the way down, your tone will be muddy, thumpy, muffled, whatever you want to call it. Turn it all the way up, and your tone will be brighter, clearer, and noisier. If you are having trouble telling the difference, check the EQ settings on your amp. If they are set a certain way, like if the highs are all rolled off already, you won't notice a big difference when you change your tone setting on your bass.

Yeah, I am definitely a beginner, I have some help from a bassist while buying the bass though... but now its all up to myself to experiment with it! Too bad my amp is a very small one, Behringer BX108, not much to play with actually, but I will try!

And yes, there will be more finger noise and fret noise and even humming noise (possibly) with the tone turned all the way up. That's just part of having high frequencies in your signal. As your technique improves, however, many of the noises that aren't desired will go away. You can get rid of them now, of course, by turning your tone all the way down. Out of ears, out of mind. But then your technique will not develop and you'll more than likely play a little sloppier than if you had taken the time to clean up your technique to begin with.

Cool, that's a good thing to works towards to! Coz I used to play Accoustic, tried Electric Guitars a couple of times, but generated too much noise as well. So time to perfect my technique I guess...

 

[kiwlm]

Just want to update you guys, that I realized the use of the last knob in my Bass, its for "Tone".

I made a blunder at first, because I tested the knob with the low E string, and it does not make much difference. Realized the difference in sound when I tested the knob on the G string instead. Somehow turning the Tone all up give me more of a "piano" sound, which I was wondering how Billy Sheehan got that sound off his bass! Now I know its from the Tone control.

But Jaco's sound (from the Modern Elec Bass video) does not seem to have a lot of tone control in it?