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Obsessed with trying to find the perfect tone?
- Thread starter John Deacon
- Start date
"Obsessed with trying to find the perfect tone"
Otherwise this site wouldn't exist
Exactly. What would we have to talk about otherwise. This site is all about gear.
Ding Ding Ding...
I can use whatever bass, amp, preamp, poweramp combo at my access and after 5 minutes with it I still have my tone essentially.
Give me a bass that sounds good and I'm bound to find a tone or two that I like. Granted, you can't polish a turd.
I think once you get a full sized amp, you should be able to find your tone fairly quickly, provided you are choosing the right cap+speakers and know how to make the amp do what you want.
If you don't know what you want.....probably will never find it. I've seen many guitarists and bassists fuss over tones that sound great. Part of me believes that some musicians simply are never happy with what they have in front of them. Other guys are always changing what they want.
As someone mentioned the wise Marcus Miller quote, just find it and stop worrying.
I think once you get a full sized amp, you should be able to find your tone fairly quickly, provided you are choosing the right cap+speakers and know how to make the amp do what you want.
If you don't know what you want.....probably will never find it. I've seen many guitarists and bassists fuss over tones that sound great. Part of me believes that some musicians simply are never happy with what they have in front of them. Other guys are always changing what they want.
As someone mentioned the wise Marcus Miller quote, just find it and stop worrying.
Do you know what actually goes into tone? Here's a list off the top of my head
Bass
Head
Cabs
EQ on Bass
EQ on head
Strings
Soundman
Soundman's Equipment
Other band instruments
room size
what the room is made of
shape of room
number of people in room
where are you standing in relation to your cabs
where are you standing in relation to the other insstruments
where are you standing in relation to the room
Where are the other instruments standng in relation to the room
where is the listener standing in relation to all of this
I'm sure there's more but can't think of them. How many of these can you actually control? Not many. I found 2 basses that get close to my tone and I love the feel of. It is good enough for me. Besides, who knows what the soundman will do with it.
Bass
Head
Cabs
EQ on Bass
EQ on head
Strings
Soundman
Soundman's Equipment
Other band instruments
room size
what the room is made of
shape of room
number of people in room
where are you standing in relation to your cabs
where are you standing in relation to the other insstruments
where are you standing in relation to the room
Where are the other instruments standng in relation to the room
where is the listener standing in relation to all of this
I'm sure there's more but can't think of them. How many of these can you actually control? Not many. I found 2 basses that get close to my tone and I love the feel of. It is good enough for me. Besides, who knows what the soundman will do with it.
Exactly.
At some point, you have to let it go... just... let it go...
And speaking of minimalism, I knew a fine bassist who used a G&L L1000 through a compressor (he slapped most of the time) and a power amp. That's right: no preamp. Always sounded great, too.
Here are a few others off the top of my head:
- what you're hitting the strings with, i.e. fingers, pick, thumb, etc.
- if fingers, what fingers, and how calloused are they, and which parts of your fingers - ends, sides, etc.
- If a pick, what kind/guage...
- where you attack the strings, i.e. close to the bridge, over your pickups, close to the neck
- how you attack the strings, what is the striking angle, etc.
- height of pickups (higher up can feed more signal into your preamp, as well as pickup other string noises)
- action of strings
- how heavy handed is your fretting hand
Find your tone in the foot or so of string between the bridge and the neck.
If I want a buttery groove, I play at the base of the neck, if I want a hard bite, I play off the bridge.
Keep the bass' volume full and let the magic happen. If it isn't, get another bass.
Anything past that: room size, crowd, etc is beyond your control.
If I want a buttery groove, I play at the base of the neck, if I want a hard bite, I play off the bridge.
Keep the bass' volume full and let the magic happen. If it isn't, get another bass.
Anything past that: room size, crowd, etc is beyond your control.
Bingo!
what sounds really good in front of your dream bass gear, might not sound so sweet in the context of a band.
If you have a P bass , you shouldn't have to mess with eq'ing. its there all ready.
If you are soloing alot ....that might be another story...
Personally, I start in finding a comfortable bass that sounds good flat, and try not to mess to much with it.
all the best
RB
I actually learned how to play bass because I liked jaco's fretless tone so much, I'm still working on it but now i actually love playing bass even though I'm a drummer first. Tone obsession seems to be what drives a lot of musicians
I think the "perfect tone" is a circular thing. Your tastes change and go in cycles. I think the more you hone in on what you like, the closer you come to finding basses that give you what you want. For me, my Status Matrix is the bass which gives me exactly what I want. It really feels like it has been custom made for me, it plays and sounds so amazing!
But really, the search for the perfect tone will go on as long as you keep feeding it cash!
But really, the search for the perfect tone will go on as long as you keep feeding it cash!
I'm at the point where I can get great tone with my stuff. After a while, however, I get used to it, and start to wonder if it could be better. Listening to a recording of the band can help there, as an observer I can distance myself enough to realize it sounds better than just about anything else I've heard. Not trying to "toot my own horn" (I'd never do that in public, at least not sober) but ideally we're all working towards our own "perfect tone" so if you can say you like your sound better than anyone else's, you're all set.
I think a lot of my tone chasing came from listening to pro players getting great tones. That has pushed me in all sorts of directions: Kubicki, Status, various jazz basses etc etc.
I listen to them and see what works for me. Of course, I soon settle into these basses and make them work for me the way I want them to.
I listen to them and see what works for me. Of course, I soon settle into these basses and make them work for me the way I want them to.
A lot of good responses have come up so far, i'll throw mine into the ring as well. Clearly there are a lot of factors to what constitutes a "good tone", including your personal taste (which for some of us is constantly changing!), and which tone will work well within a given song. I've found that in order to stop chasing that elusive tone so much, you have to make sure you're not battling your gear.
Now i'm not saying you need the best of anything, or any of that. But at least get what is gonna work for you. A p-bass is a pretty solid start. They work for most types of music, and they've been proven to sound good live and on record by many a player. But if you're playing a ton of melodic stuff, or getting really active all over the fretboard, a jazz bass, or something with more tone-shaping abilities might be more suited for you. But to bring this back down to earth: chances are the P bass isn't the problem. It sounds like you're not happy with your amp. Little story of my own: I play in an indie rock band with an old fashioned rock and roll kinda sound, we go for a "vintage" kind of tone all around. when I joined the band my main rig was a Gallien Krueger 2001RB... which is a great amp, and not low end by any one's standard. But no matter what I'd try, I couldn't quite get my sound where i wanted. I tried everything under the sun to make that amp work... different basses, different pickups, fx, EQ pedals, a slew of strings, different picks, you name it. By the end of all this, the only common denominator in the tone I wasn't liking, was my amp. Ultimately I unloaded it and got an Ashdown ABM 500, and I've never regretted it once. Suddenly I didn't have to struggle to get my desired sound.
Not to say I don't sit there frustrated sometimes because it's not sounding great on a particular day, but I do think you have to get gear that at least gets you in the right ball park. What I would do is hit a music store (gc, sam ash, mom and pop, whatever) and play through a lot of amps until you find one that makes you the most happy... then get the closest thing you can afford ;-)
One last thing to consider too... when you're chasing a tone that you've fallen in love with... don't compare your live tone to someone else's studio recorded tone. A lot of the best studio bass tones are created in the studio... whether it's by running direct into some fancy rack gear and ultra high end compressors, or whatever, there are sounds out there that can be really hard to get live. But you can listen to live recordings of bands (or better yet, watch them live) and if you like someone's tone, pay attention to the things they're using, or better yet, things they're doing onstage, and try to learn from that. man, long post, my bad.
Now i'm not saying you need the best of anything, or any of that. But at least get what is gonna work for you. A p-bass is a pretty solid start. They work for most types of music, and they've been proven to sound good live and on record by many a player. But if you're playing a ton of melodic stuff, or getting really active all over the fretboard, a jazz bass, or something with more tone-shaping abilities might be more suited for you. But to bring this back down to earth: chances are the P bass isn't the problem. It sounds like you're not happy with your amp. Little story of my own: I play in an indie rock band with an old fashioned rock and roll kinda sound, we go for a "vintage" kind of tone all around. when I joined the band my main rig was a Gallien Krueger 2001RB... which is a great amp, and not low end by any one's standard. But no matter what I'd try, I couldn't quite get my sound where i wanted. I tried everything under the sun to make that amp work... different basses, different pickups, fx, EQ pedals, a slew of strings, different picks, you name it. By the end of all this, the only common denominator in the tone I wasn't liking, was my amp. Ultimately I unloaded it and got an Ashdown ABM 500, and I've never regretted it once. Suddenly I didn't have to struggle to get my desired sound.
Not to say I don't sit there frustrated sometimes because it's not sounding great on a particular day, but I do think you have to get gear that at least gets you in the right ball park. What I would do is hit a music store (gc, sam ash, mom and pop, whatever) and play through a lot of amps until you find one that makes you the most happy... then get the closest thing you can afford ;-)
One last thing to consider too... when you're chasing a tone that you've fallen in love with... don't compare your live tone to someone else's studio recorded tone. A lot of the best studio bass tones are created in the studio... whether it's by running direct into some fancy rack gear and ultra high end compressors, or whatever, there are sounds out there that can be really hard to get live. But you can listen to live recordings of bands (or better yet, watch them live) and if you like someone's tone, pay attention to the things they're using, or better yet, things they're doing onstage, and try to learn from that. man, long post, my bad.
Tone is a moving target.
I can recall nights where everything started out sounding great, then set after set, went straight to heck, no matter how many knobs I twisted. Sometimes, things sounded really lousy at the beginning of the night, but then got better and better (even without TOUCHING any knobs) until the last set was amazing.
To me, it's more about finding my own frequency/resonance place to occupy in the context of the band's mix... some for the audience's enjoyment (sound man) and just some so you can monitor yourself effectively.
"My" tone is not what's important... it's about my ability to sonically fill the bill, adapt to what the band, room, recording, or audience needs. I'd feel pretty stupid dialing in the perfect bedroom sound only to get to the gig and find that the new room just ain't gonna give that sound up... there goes "MY" perfect tone... LOL!!
Agreement with ausf... Ideally, I like to not touch knobs at all, but vary my picking position, attack to get the range of tones needed. Really, unless you have some reallly specialized solo part to repro, that alone should get you most of the range you'll need in most band settings.
I can recall nights where everything started out sounding great, then set after set, went straight to heck, no matter how many knobs I twisted. Sometimes, things sounded really lousy at the beginning of the night, but then got better and better (even without TOUCHING any knobs) until the last set was amazing.
To me, it's more about finding my own frequency/resonance place to occupy in the context of the band's mix... some for the audience's enjoyment (sound man) and just some so you can monitor yourself effectively.
"My" tone is not what's important... it's about my ability to sonically fill the bill, adapt to what the band, room, recording, or audience needs. I'd feel pretty stupid dialing in the perfect bedroom sound only to get to the gig and find that the new room just ain't gonna give that sound up... there goes "MY" perfect tone... LOL!!
Agreement with ausf... Ideally, I like to not touch knobs at all, but vary my picking position, attack to get the range of tones needed. Really, unless you have some reallly specialized solo part to repro, that alone should get you most of the range you'll need in most band settings.
+1
This is a very important point! My favourite pick is one that I got from Stuart Hamm, one of his BX3 Fender triangle picks that he used when he was touring with Joe Satriani. It's thin, but stiff and makes my basses sound really good. On the other hand, most of my other picks are very thick Dunlop Tortex picks. These I now realise, produce a picked sound I really don't like, and were the result of me being quite unhappy with my picked tone for a few years!
I tend not to use a pick unless it's called for specifically, but having the right type of pickc an really aid you in getting the tone you want!
