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Obsessed with trying to find the perfect tone?

#21
+1 hard to go wrong w/ a SVT or V4,B,BH & a P-bass!!!! I use this combo reg. & almost ALWAYS leave all EQ's flat- sounds SUPERB!!! I USUALLY only mess w/ the EQ when the room makes me NEED to. Sounds SO good- get a good growl outta the P bass thru the V4BH in the 'sweet spot' - near Overdrive...dig in & U get a natural power tube OD, play softer or roll back volume on bass & it cleans up beautifully!!!!
 
#22
How does a thread titled "obsessed with trying to find the perfect tone" get
consumed by EQ anything? I want my 4 octives of E to be heard equally:
Now thats EQ. I want all my Es, regardless of octive to sound like______:
Now thats Tone. rodl2005 has a pretty answer to pure tone. The little
Behringer amp does OK, even with a cheap bass. Perhaps a string change
would be your first step.
 
#23
savit260 said:
Seriously though, I've always found "less is more" when it comes to P basses and amps. (required IMO)
Click to expand...


i definately agree with this philosophy, i run my Waterstone Lulu (p bass copy) through an all tube class A mic preamp and a crown power amp, no eq. if i absolutely need EQ (for the room mostly) then i throw a rocktron utopia in front of it. Less is more for me, i try to have as little equipment as possible between the string and the amp
 
#24
I have found when you practice and play out you have good nights and bad nights on all fronts. Sometimes a good sound is just elusive - we used to call it having Gremlins - in theory at practice you should be able to get some consistency in the sound of your rig - in the same room - with the same instruments,

But when you have Gremlins - your futz and never seem to get a good sound. Come back the next day - same room, same gear, same other guys/gals and you sound smoking and the band is sounding great - you have a good mix in the room and life is good.

It is one of those things - Music is energy and very spiritual to me - some times you just channel it and everything sounds great.
 
#25
Ah, the quest for "the" tone. I have spent and wasted thousands of dollars on said quest. It's all well and good, but really, I end up getting a similar tone with most any combination of gear I use.
 
#26
John Deacon said:
Tonite at practice, I had my P bass with me and I just kept messing with the graphic EQ on my amp. And I would find a good tone, but think there may be a better one so I keep messing with it. I must've spent over an hour tonite messing with it. I just couldn't get COMPLETELY satisfied. At the last song of practice I think I found a good mix. I had bumped the lows a bit, and lower the mids just a tiny tiny bit. But even in my head, I'm thinking..."What do I need to do to get the tone that satisfies me?"

First off, Im upgrading my amp. So I think that'll help a bit. Something I also noticed tonite is that my P bass is verrrrry woody. It has a good smooth sound, but I think I just might get a Jaguar to get some hardcore growl.

Anybody else get that obsessed? Although I do have OCD...haha
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I have had this problem since day one playing bass (or any electric instrument). Sometimes it gets so bad I don't practice, I mess with the settings. Going flat usually doesn't work for me. Somedays I love my tone, somedays I can't stand it.

The biggest issue I have is that if my tone isn't right I lose inspiration to play. I'm working on this a bit every day. I find if I spend the first part of practice on scales it helps aleviate this OCD stuff
 
#28
Sometimes what you hear is not what others hear. Your ears tend to get less clear sounds while playing loud for some hour so you will always need to tweak your sound through your amp when the real problem might just be about your tired ears (and bad mood). And don't forget. Even if Roger waters would let you play with his bass via his bass amp using his personal eq and knob parameters, you WOULD sound diferent. You always play with a personal style. You need to change your touch on the strings in order to get a new tone.
 
#29
I spent more time early on messing with EQ knobs than I did trying to improve myself as a bassist, but I'd like to think I got over it quick enough. I've still got plenty to learn, but the less I worry about my "tone" and the more I worry about my skill level, the better I get. With my band, I dime both knobs on the P Bass and just bump one of the mid knobs on my amp so I can hear myself over the clutter. Ahem, other instruments...It's all I really need.

Nobody besides yourself and a few tone snobs with too much time on their hands is ever going to be impressed by your tone. Normal people don't give a damn. All they can hear is whether you're playing well enough for them to listen to you.
 
#30
my advice is, get a setup like me:D
my starfire has one volume and one tone. my amp has volume, bass, treble, and a 3-way tone selector.
takes me less than minute to dial in the sound i want (which just so happens to be my favorite sound i've ever heard)
 
#31
PBass101 said:
Nobody besides yourself and a few tone snobs with too much time on their hands is ever going to be impressed by your tone. Normal people don't give a damn. All they can hear is whether you're playing well enough for them to listen to you.
Click to expand...

+1 I hate to admit it but you are right
 
#32
Funny this thread should come up today, as I just got the Tech 21 VT pedal in the mail and have been A/B testing it with my Sansamp BDDI. After an hour of messing around EVERYTHING sounds bad. LOL. :D

Really, though, I have been through this before, and I know when I'm listening too hard it clouds my mind. When I'm thinking about the music instead of my gear, it all sounds way better.

I also think your mood changes how you hear. It certainly changes how you play.

A friend of mine who is a very good guitar player and also a well respected luthier says that when something is bugging him about his instrument or his tone, he just stops playing and comes back to it later. Almost always he forgets what the "problem" was and all is well.
 
#34
Great tone comes from being a Supporting Member (comon somebody had to say it.):bassist: Seriously, one of my professors made a comment once that true tone comes from "within", not knobs, switches or effects.:smug:

Neutralize everything and start over!
 
#35
If I used half the time I burn talkingbass and tweakingbass to actually playbass I'd be so friggin' good you guys would all know my real first and last name.

Seriously, I'm so obsessed with tone - always have been no matter what I'm playing.
 
#37
PBass101 said:
Nobody besides yourself and a few tone snobs with too much time on their hands is ever going to be impressed by your tone. Normal people don't give a damn. All they can hear is whether you're playing well enough for them to listen to you.
Click to expand...

I've been saying this for a long time. All the talk about needing this bass or that amp or moving this much air is really just for us. That's fine. If you want to play a $3,000 bass through a $5,000 rig through a junky house PA at your $10 club gig that's great. The audience really doesn't know any difference between that and a Rougue through a Behringer into the same cheap house PA as long as you are playing well and entertaining them.
 
#40
It's true. The more you have to fiddle with the harder it gets to get a good tone.

I used to use a Trace Elliot rig which was fairly simple to get a good sound out of.

Then a few years back I got a Line 6 Bass Pod Pro rack mount pre-amp going into a 400 watt per side power amp then into a couple of Eden cabs. I got this because I needed to swap between a number of basses (mainly between my Rick and my Fretless 5).

Eventually I have got a good system where some key sounds for each of my basses live in a certain bunch of presets and I can now just flick between them whenever I change bass. Modelling might not suit the purists, but it's versatile. But man was it ever a fiddle to get these sounds. I would start with a certain amp model, then go through all the tone options then choose which cab to model, then get into the deep dive of the parametric etc...by the time I had finished I would often end up and find that the core sound that I'd started with was better. It was as frustrating as shopping with my wife when she tries on a dress, then spends the rest of the afternoon walking around all the other stores, then deciding she really liked the first one best after all
 

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