Not another Class D thr...

[Element Zero]

aaaaaah made you look.

Sometimes just a few tweaks of the eq knobs can really inspire me to play. Beyond happy with my setup and all it can do. I get why some people are attached to their "sound" or "feel" with certain amps. Sometimes, you're playing the amp just as much as the bass. Case in point, this morning I spent a few hours just running through tunes. One bass is effortless to play and my amp just screams with excitement when pushed. The other bass, is much more sensitive and requires a bit more finesse and my amp seems to really pick up on that, so to speak.

Curious of other peoples thoughts and feelings on "playing the amp" instead of "playing the bass"

 

[abarson]

My approach to my amp is adjust it to sound good in the physical setting, then leave it alone. Often that's just a tweak of the main volume knob.
My bass is flexible enough to cover everything thereafter.

 

[MrKpawz]

The answer is: mayo does not belong on a steak. That's what I call a misteak.

Theres a random phenomenon I encounter every so often with my amp settings. Im not much of a knob twister once I find "the settings". However within the parameters of same bass, same room, same amp, different days... some days (be from weather or who knows what else) my sound is different. I then spend 15 minutes twisting knobs until I find pleasant tones again. Only for a few days later/weeks later I find myself again hearing a different tone and tweak knobs once more. HellifIknowwhatshappening

 

[Element Zero]

Only for a few days later/weeks later I find myself again hearing a different tone and tweak knobs once more.

Exactly.

 

[LBS-bass]

aaaaaah made you look.

Sometimes just a few tweaks of the eq knobs can really inspire me to play. Beyond happy with my setup and all it can do. I get why some people are attached to their "sound" or "feel" with certain amps. Sometimes, you're playing the amp just as much as the bass. Case in point, this morning I spent a few hours just running through tunes. One bass is effortless to play and my amp just screams with excitement when pushed. The other bass, is much more sensitive and requires a bit more finesse and my amp seems to really pick up on that, so to speak.

Curious of other peoples thoughts and feelings on "playing the amp" instead of "playing the bass"

I have had well-regarded amps that I just couldn't get to work with certain basses, regardless of what I tweaked, and I think that some (or all) of this has to do with whether or not certain things are baked into the amp itself.

I don't want to contribute to the messes here of late, but certain types of amp appeal to me because of their transparency. Garbage in, garbage out is a thing, and when you have a decent instrument you might not want to add too much layered over that with the other parts of your signal chain. Or, you might really want to color your sound to match a certain era, etc.

So it's very much a matter of "to each his own" when it comes to what works for you.

 

[two fingers]

Honestly, no matter what gear I play through, I sound like me.

That said, I like an "organic" tone. It doesn't have to be vintage ooey gooey NOS tubes in a 50 year old amp. I just like to be able to dial in some warmth. On my Mesa TT800 that is ridiculously easy. With two channels, I use EQ for two completely different tones. One is my "most of the time" tone using my neck (P bass) pickup. The other is very low end heavy and is only used to get me into Stingray territory with my bridge (Nordy Dual Coil) pickup.

But, to your point, give me something with a working EQ section and I can find something usable in seconds (assuming the speakers in said rig can hang).

 

[lug]

Some basses just love certain amps. My Ric loves my Ampeg, My G&L loves my Acoustic, My Pbass loves every damn amp ever made.

 

[Texican]

 

[Michedelic]

I slap my amp.

 

[MrKpawz]

I slap my amp.

"hello, police?"

 

[Chickenwheels]

I just sound like me whatever I use, based on all the backline supplied to me over the years. This has been commented on by others, too.
I always pull some 250hz out to clean things up at higher volumes (any band gig in other words).
I use an old compressor to mimic the way a tube amp responds. Long story.
Speaker cabinets seem to have a more drastic effect on live sound for me. And the "playing the room" is super important too.

 

[Paul New]

I had, years ago, an amp that basically no one ever liked. Hartke combo with a 15" aluminum cone driver and dome tweeter, and I used that for upright bass with a piezo pickup. Best amplified upright sound I have ever achieved, except for through a reissue tweed bassman, came out of that rig. It had a 10 or so band equalizer on board, and both tube or solid state preamps, and a built in compressor. I never used any of that stuff, maybe a little compression, because it also had something called a Contour control that swept from a very scooped tone to a very middy tone. Sweep that all the way to the left, turn down the bass, mid, and treble tone controls, and it would just sing.

I like an amp with a lot of control. Combine that with an empty head, and you can come up with something good.

 

[5StringBlues]

Where's all the DD threads?

 

[J Wilson]

I went through my BS Audio Snob Phase where it was rack rigs and the like. Nobody heard it but me, nobody paid extra for it, and, hell, half the time I couldn't hear it.

Today, a bass I like, an amp that sounds good and is loud enough for the situation, I'm good.

'Close is good enough'.

Blasphemy !

The truth, beat into my alternately granite or balsa wood head, learned the hard way over the years, is that . . .

It may sound perfect today. Come back tomorrow, change nothing, it utterly stinks.

What it sounds like to me is utterly different than what it sounds on the other end of the stage, much less anywhere else in the room. Also, see Number One.

IF there's a DI Box between me and the amp, why did I lug an amp in here? And then, they tell me I sound great out front. . . Without the amp.

And on and on. So since in a way I'm really at the mercy of the room and FOH (if there is any . . . ), it realigned just how much I needed to worry about this, and all I can really do is shoot for something that's relatively pleasing and play well.

 

[Slough Feg Bass]

At my rehearsal space, once a every couple of months I will set all my knobs to zero (not flat) and try to find new sounds starting with different knobs bring them up.
For gigs, I pretty much set everything flat and see what needs tweaking, since I usually use backline amps.

 

[DJ Bebop]

aaaaaah made you look.

Sometimes just a few tweaks of the eq knobs can really inspire me to play. Beyond happy with my setup and all it can do. I get why some people are attached to their "sound" or "feel" with certain amps. Sometimes, you're playing the amp just as much as the bass. Case in point, this morning I spent a few hours just running through tunes. One bass is effortless to play and my amp just screams with excitement when pushed. The other bass, is much more sensitive and requires a bit more finesse and my amp seems to really pick up on that, so to speak.

Curious of other peoples thoughts and feelings on "playing the amp" instead of "playing the bass"

But why are P bass watts more than Jazz bass watts. Like 3x more.
CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN IT TO ME.

 

[DJ Bebop]

I went through my BS Audio Snob Phase where it was rack rigs and the like. Nobody heard it but me, nobody paid extra for it, and, hell, half the time I couldn't hear it.

Today, a bass I like, an amp that sounds good and is loud enough for the situation, I'm good.

'Close is good enough'.

Blasphemy !

The truth, beat into my alternately granite or balsa wood head, learned the hard way over the years, is that . . .

It may sound perfect today. Come back tomorrow, change nothing, it utterly stinks.

What it sounds like to me is utterly different than what it sounds on the other end of the stage, much less anywhere else in the room. Also, see Number One.

IF there's a DI Box between me and the amp, why did I lug an amp in here? And then, they tell me I sound great out front. . . Without the amp.

And on and on. So since in a way I'm really at the mercy of the room and FOH (if there is any . . . ), it realigned just how much I needed to worry about this, and all I can really do is shoot for something that's relatively pleasing and play well.

My answer to that.
Stop playing gigs that are big enough to have the bass run through the FOH!

There, I said it.

 

[Killing Floor]

Gear is awesome!!!

But bottom line if you can't get a workable tone out of your amp maybe it's not the amp.

See first sentence. Buy stuff I'd you want. But it's not the stuff you're hearing most of the time.

 

[Chickenwheels]

My answer to that.
Stop playing gigs that are big enough to have the bass run through the FOH!

There, I said it.

If there's a L'Acoustic wedge in front of me, and the engineer asks if I want some bass in it, the bass amp has just been fired.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

I slap my amp.

Back in 1971 my 1966 Fender Bassman amp started making some weird low frequency sounds in between songs. Some judiciously applied "percussive maintenance" to the top of the amp would temporarily clear it up.

Come to find out it was a tube that had gone microphonic and upon replacement said problem disappeared. Of course, that was an all-tube amp and I haven't used percussive maintenance on any of my amps since. I certainly would not recommend it to be used on Solid State amps. However, I have found the threat of percussive maintenance to be persuasive upon occasion...