P bass tone problem

[sambass0124]

Dear TB-ers,

I have difficulties to get a right tone: My P bass is 60th Anniversary MIA (not the tele one...is the one with S1 switch, body color is sunburst). I mainly use it at church , and the amp there is SWR 4004. The tone is tooooooooo bright even I have rolled off the tone knob. It's OK for certain fast songs but not good for some others like Amazing Grace, Near the Cross.... I have tried to plug my bass to another amp - not at church but friend's hartke bass amp head (model not known) - the tone is PERFECT! Actually, I can hear that my P bass tone is not same as other P ... I think it's because the PU on mine is Fender Vintage '62 PU, not the same as other stocked PU on other MIA models. What should I do? Roll off the treble on my preamp pedal? I have an Aguilar TH, the treble all off...the tone is a bit strange. Maybe I need to adjust some mids? Or does changing the strings from round to flats help?

 

[bolophonic]

I have never played through an SWR head and felt like I sounded awesome.

 

[mojomike001]

I'd start by changing to flats.

 

[joel406]

You play in a church right? Probably bad acoustics. Why you haven't tried EQing is strange. When you have bad tone the first thing I do is reach for the EQ.

 

[Stormer]

Set the amp EQ to flat and add or cut as needed.

 

[TRichardsbass]

Okay, here is my opinion, based on my knowledge of the bass:

1) the pickup position on the 60th anniversay is actually a touch closer to the bridge then on regular P basses, That will make the bass a touch bright to start.

2) The bass has a maple board, which is more bright to start.

3) The bass has a Fender vintage high mass bridge, which will give you more vibration and a bit of better overall string frequency transmission.

So, in general, if you are eq'ing only with the bass, you gotta roll off all the treb. The bass is meant to be a bit brighter and more well rounded then a regular or vintage precision.

Having said that, I just read the manual for the 4004. There is nuance there that you need to read about. You can Google the head and the .pdf manual comes up. But here is the one bit I took away from this:

"
BASS CONTROL
The Bass control (band 1) itself, as stated above, works in a range that will be useful under most "normal"
conditions. Its musical use might be thought of as a "fatness" control. Leaving the Aural Enhancer
in a position lower than 12 o'clock will not boost the extreme bottom so much as to make indistinct the
working of the Bass control. The overall "punch" of your instrument, from your low E-string on up about
two octaves (midway up the G-string), will be determined with this control. With passive instruments, this
will be straightforward. With active instruments having bass-boost controls, more exploration will be
worthwhile. (Some active tone circuits have boost-cut controls such as MTD, Sadowsky, etc. Others such
as Music Man, may be straight boost controls).

AURAL ENHANCER
The Aural Enhancer was developed to bring out the fundamental low notes of the bass, reduce certain
frequencies that can "mask" fundamentals and enhance the high-end transients. The effect becomes
more pronounced as the control is turned up. The result is a more transparent sound. Listening to a
passive bass with the control set all the way down, and then turning it all the way up, can be likened to
listening to the bass suddenly become "active".

So, I'd set your bass to full tone on (not roll off any treb.) I'd pull your pedal pre-amp out of the signal chain, and I'd set all the eq bands to mid. Then I would go to the recommended starting settings in the back of the manual for "STUDIO" or the one without a name that is first in line in the manual. Then I'd just tweak it from there. Only equ at the amp. This amp is just more nuanced then others.

My two pennies...

 

[fretno]

did that cab have a tweeter , if so turn that down

 

[sambass0124]

Hi TRichardsbass,

I did read the manual. The problem is: we use the XLR out of the SWR, and the manual said that "The Balanced XLR output is a true balanced output. No front panel controls affect its signal. The tone and output level are controlled only by the instrument plugged into one of the input jacks. "

It makes me disappointed - the EQ and the aural enhancer are by- passed. Why would someone implement this? If it's the case why don't I just use a simple direct box to PA? It drives me mad, and that's why I bought a Tone Hammar.

Also, my bass has a rosewood fingerboard... Are we talking about the same bass?

 

[4andnomore]

No reason your pass should be overly bright with the tone cranked down. I'd bet its something to do with then rig. Flats might be a good idea too.