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Obsessed with trying to find the perfect tone?

#61
First I'll start off by saying that there is alot of great advice here and alot of great players.

My idea about tone came about when my computer went down for a couple months. I'm swayed by what people say is the latest and greatest, using trends to find my sound. I've been through many basses from production to customs...whatever. Here's what I've found.

1) A comfortable bass is more important than anything else. Find what feels good to you, even if it doesn't have all the gadgets and switches you'd like. You'll make a good feeling bass sound good......cause you'll play it.

2)I don't like a midrange controls on my bass. I mess with it too much and usually end up sounding worse. Bass for more ass or to tame the boom and treble for either less "click" or more definition. If you want mids, play closer to the bridge or pan towards the bridge.


3) Pay attention to your right hand position. If you want a change in tone, move your hand. Trust me. Also, be aware of your left hand and start slowly with everything.

4) P basses are a beautiful thing. Jazzes are also mighty fine. Spectors are even better.

5) Don't believe the hype. Sadowsky ( take any high end builder really) makes a great bass. I love mine but don't feel that, for me, it's $1200 dollars better than my MIM Fender P/J. For some people it is but I'm not to that level yet.

6) A setup and new strings works wonders.

7) Oh and practice more and fiddle less.
 
#62
ishouldbeking said:
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.
Click to expand...

How are the ashdown amps?
 
#63
One of the essential elements of a good bass for me is great tone when the bridge pickup is ran solo. If it needs some neck pickup mixed in to get a good sound, I'm not interested. There are simply too many basses that do a better job, in that case!
 
#66
John Deacon said:
How are the ashdown amps?
Click to expand...

I really like it, yeah. The typical way to describe its stock sound is "ampeg with more clarity/flexibility". so, tube-y sound with a lot of grind on tap due to the tube in the preamp, but the 7 band preamp gives a lot of flexibility. Aside from some bad quality control a few years back, i've never heard anything bad about these. Mine is made in china and has never let me down, and i got it for $600 on sale from music123, brand new.

But i think the main thing is to get out there and try some amps. Ampegs do it for a lot of people, GK are another popular choice. My Ashdown is great too, but there are a lot of other solid choices including fender, peavey, the new acoustic amps sound good, markbass, and possibly the hartke you're considering. Just gotta try em and see what floats your boat.
 

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