Nobody cares about your tone....

[PullThePlug]

I honestly believe that everybody cares. Folks ignorant to jargon in professional audio and live sound may not know the proper words to describe what they didn't like in a band, but they'll generally say that "the band did not sound good." If these uninformed populations had more knowledge of live sound and pro audio, I do think they would care about what the bassist/guitarist/drummer/PA is playing through.

 

[JimmyM]

I honestly believe that everybody cares. Folks ignorant to jargon in professional audio and live sound may not know the proper words to describe what they didn't like in a band, but they'll generally say that "the band did not sound good." If these uninformed populations had more knowledge of live sound and pro audio, I do think they would care about what the bassist/guitarist/drummer/PA is playing through.

100% agreed. Any idiot can tell the difference between a boombox and a line array PA...what makes people think their audiences can't? Arrogance. That's the only answer I can come up with.

 

[FretNoMore]

You can fuss all you want over your tone. Then you get to a gig and the sound guy plops down a DI and you lose everything.
...

Not really a problem if your sound is based on using a DI in the first place. My amp, or the one supplied, on stage is just a monitor and not part of the FOH feed.

I have not yet encountered a sound guy who I couldn't discuss with, and who was not open to trying other things than his old beat up DI. I would think chances are good you can use your own mic too if all the sound guy has to do is hook up the cable to it instead of to his DI.

But OK, I realize there are situations where there is no time for that, like multi band shows, but I fail to see why I shouldn't strive for a good sound for all the other situations where I can do better than just a bare minimum.

 

[Altitude]

I have not yet encountered a sound guy who I couldn't discuss with, and who was not open to trying other things than his old beat up DI.

In theory and in aspiration I agree with you. I just think that for every 10 such conversations I have with FOH guys, 8 of them are nodding, saying "uh-huh", but mostly thinking about getting the check done early so they can fit in a smoke before the downbeat.

 

[Nephilymbass]

I played for a few years in a Rush tribute band and I can tell you that tone DOES matter.... generally!!!

If I came out and ripped through YYZ without that Geddy growl and tone (or at least similar tone depending upon the song) people would've thrown chairs.

.

There's a local cover band here that occasionally does Tool covers with no effects, it doesn't sound right at all.

 

[Korladis]

Yeah, I also tend to think audiences are not as stupid as a lot of people seem to think they are.

They might not know what is off, but they can tell when something is.

But in the end, it wouldn't matter even if the people saying that the audience won't know the difference were right... because they aren't why I'm doing this. I am. I don't care if my tone matters to them. It matters to me.

 

[gjohnson441496]

"So is it we are doing this to amuse ourselves? Is this another form of playing with our peckers?"

ABSOLUTELY! I'm a pecker player.

 

[Neon Blues]

I think a valid point is Gigging Bassists vs Recording Bassists. I find that most bassists that spend a ton on their gear are often either playing music where tone is more critical, such as jazz bands. Or they are heavily recording or Session Musicians.

Most gigging bassists that I see use pretty standard heads and 410/810 cabs and fairly mainstream basses. Stingrays, Jazzes and Precisions.

9/10 times I go to a gig it's a Fender and an SVT or a Stingray and a GK.

 

[Korladis]

"So is it we are doing this to amuse ourselves? Is this another form of playing with our peckers?"

ABSOLUTELY! I'm a pecker player.

I dunno, I think the idea of playing music for some other reason than that it brings you personal enjoyment and fulfillment is pretty weird.

If I wasn't having a good time when playing shows, playing with a band... well, I wouldn't do it. It's a lot of effort, so I can't imagine bothering if it wasn't personally/emotionally rewarding.

 

[ggunn]

First off, my words are written in stone as far as anyone else is concerned so there shall be no more "fixing" Second, if you have to fix it, you should replace "some" with "most." Third, you're as awesome as you wanna be!

But I know a lot of bass players; most of them go straight in and none of them have that attitude. You must hang out with a bunch of jerks.

 

[Muddslide]

I dunno, I think the idea of playing music for some other reason than that it brings you personal enjoyment and fulfillment is pretty weird.

If I wasn't having a good time when playing shows, playing with a band... well, I wouldn't do it. It's a lot of effort, so I can't imagine bothering if it wasn't personally/emotionally rewarding.

Completely agree here. One of the drag things about aging is that it's hard to find guys to jam with who are into the same kinda things I am.

I stopped gigging about 16 years ago and really wanna get back into it. My wife wants me to also, which is cool.

Aside from the minor problem that I don't have an amp rig at the moment, all my forays into trying to find people to play with have just been effin' horrible.

I'll post an ad for some jam partners, maybe to evolve into a gigging band, and get nothing, or I hear back from really sketchy people.

And the ads I SEE are all like:

"Wanted, pasty, tubby bass player who rocks cargo shorts, shades and a fedora to play stone cold Stevie Ray, Clapton and Eagles classics all night long,. Whooo!"

I mean, I don't really have an issue with being in a cover band if it's the right kind of music.

And there's nothing "wrong" with guys who want to play Steve Miller Band classic rock over and over. It's just not my thing. As much as I miss playing live, I ain't gonna do it if it's music that doesn't move me in any way.

I told my wife if she ever caught me playing golf-dad rock in cargo shorts, to please just shoot me in the friggin' face.

 

[bryan gibson]

I used to think that no one noticed. When I bumped up to a Warwick, they noticed Even those not in-the-know began asking "what happened?!?" Seriously

 

[higain617]

No one cares about my tone, but yours may be different.

 

[monkeyfinger]

I also think a lot of the 'tone matters' depends on what you are playing. I think bass is more of the defining sound of modern rock than classic rock. (Not to detract from Geezer Butler or other great bassist of the era.) Ever since players like Flea came on the scene, the focus on the bass increased significantly. I think a lot of this has to do with major improvements to the playback devices average consumers could access. In my original hard rock band, which I liken to Foo Fighters, the bass tone has a much larger effect on the overall tone than in my previous band. In that band, I was playing music more like Joe Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Beatles and Nick Lowe.

 

[ggunn]

I have read every post in this thread (well, I skimmed some of them due to my short span of... what was I saying, again?), and the opinions really run the gamut. Mine is that the truth is somewhere in the middle. I don't think that anyone in the room cares quite as much as I do about my tone, but I think everyone cares to some degree. Non musicians don't listen to music analytically like we do; they can't as easily separate out the sound of one instrument from the rest of what is going on as musicians can. Listening to music actuates different parts of their brains (reference: Study published in the Scientific American circa 1979). People who aren't players tend to listen to music holistically (as many have said in here) and if the bass is muddy or harsh or overpowering or buried or otherwise not slotted well into the mix, the music as a whole does not sound as good to them.

 

[Korladis]

I also think a lot of the 'tone matters' depends on what you are playing. I think bass is more of the defining sound of modern rock than classic rock. (Not to detract from Geezer Butler or other great bassist of the era.) Ever since players like Flea came on the scene, the focus on the bass increased significantly. I think a lot of this has to do with major improvements to the playback devices average consumers could access. In my original hard rock band, which I liken to Foo Fighters, the bass tone has a much larger effect on the overall tone than in my previous band. In that band, I was playing music more like Joe Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Beatles and Nick Lowe.

I dunno, I kinda disagree.

I mean, the Led Zeppelin song "Heartbreaker," for example, would sound very, very different, I think even to most people, if the bass sound were different. Even if they might not be aware of what is different about it.

 

[monkeyfinger]

Agreed. I don't want to dimish the important role JPJ played in Zep. I love his work. But to most people, his tone was not as signature to the sound of the band as Jimmy Page's guitar. Lincoln Park would not be Lincoln Park without Fieldy's tone. (Which I hate, BTW.)

 

[Korladis]

Agreed. I don't want to dimish the important role JPJ played in Zep. I love his work. But to most people, his tone was not as signature to the sound of the band as Jimmy Page's guitar. Lincoln Park would not be Lincoln Park without Fieldy's tone. (Which I hate, BTW.)

I dunno. I think if you played that same song with a really hi-fi clean tone, people might not notice it was the bass that was different, they might even think it's the guitar sounding different... but they would probably notice that something was off.

I thought Fieldy was in Korn? Not a fan of either band, though.

 

[Eminor3rd]

I don't like this idea that a 3 Pro is settling from a DB751

Haha, but see that's an important point. If you can make a legitimate argument of preference between two amps, then it's hard to make an argument that one of them is "cheap" and represents tone being meaningless in comparison to the other.

 

[monkeyfinger]

I dunno. I think if you played that same song with a really hi-fi clean tone, people might not notice it was the bass that was different, they might even think it's the guitar sounding different... but they would probably notice that something was off.

I thought Fieldy was in Korn? Not a fan of either band, though.

Oh, right, it was Korn. I don't like that style either and it shows. I do agree about overdriven bass. When I use it, a lot of people assume it is the guitar player doing that.