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Pickups and amps

Landy67

Landy67

Guest
Jul 30, 2012
456
99
The Peoples Republic of MA
#1
I tried a search, but couldn't figure out what to search for, I wasn't getting any hits.

I just bought one of the Fender Modern Player Dimension IV basses. It has a passive 3 coil pickup, and a 5 way selector for different combinations for the pickup. I tried it in the store connected to a Fender Rumble 40, and every setting on the pickup sounded completely different. I brought it home and tried it with my Genz Benz Streamliner 600 and it sounded even better. Last night I plugged it into my Pignose Hogg 30 and the switch settings all sound the same, (bad) just a slight increase in volume.

So here's my question; What makes the pickup sound so much more defined in one amp then it does in another? In the two amps this thing is as different as single coil and humbuckers, but in the other amp, nothing.
 
#2
While the pickup impedance can interact with the amp's input impedance, that's not what's happening here. Amps all sound different, and you're hearing how different they can be. The amp that you're not hearing much between settings has a very colored tone, that's not allowing you to hear the inherent differences of the settings.
 
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#3
BurningSkies said:
While the pickup impedance can interact with the amp's input impedance, that's not what's happening here. Amps all sound different, and you're hearing how different they can be. The amp that you're not hearing much between settings has a very colored tone, that's not allowing you to hear the inherent differences of the settings.
Click to expand...

The coloration an amp, or a cab might provide could cover up some of the nuances from your bass.
 
#4
CL400Peavey said:
The coloration an amp, or a cab might provide could cover up some of the nuances from your bass.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If an amp shows a pronounced high end roll off, or scoop in the mid, or roll off in the lows any of the pickup settings that change the tone in one of those areas will be less effective.
 
#5
Is there a way to over ride that condition? I mean, a P Bass pickup should sound different than a J or a Stingray humbucker.

Is there a pre-amp that would let you split the difference and feed the tone you want into the amp? Not that I care what comes out of the Pignose, but I spend lots of time on the road with a less than passable amp, and it would be nice to have a decent tone to practice with.
 
#6
Landy67 said:
Is there a way to over ride that condition? I mean, a P Bass pickup should sound different than a J or a Stingray humbucker.

Is there a pre-amp that would let you split the difference and feed the tone you want into the amp? Not that I care what comes out of the Pignose, but I spend lots of time on the road with a less than passable amp, and it would be nice to have a decent tone to practice with.
Click to expand...

Well is the tone you dont like a product of the amp, the cab you were running, or a combination?

You may not like the baked in pre amp tone the amp has, or you may not like the power amp tone, if it has one baked in. You may not like the combination. Or you may just not really like the way the amp sounds.
 
#7
The question comes from a bunch of things. I was trying to find a instrument/amp combo for travel. I tried several headphone amp's and headphone/speaker combinations, but I never found anything that was even halfway decent. The same thing with some of my cheep guitars and basses.

I'm trying to get my head around how the sound gets shaped, and where the tone gets lost. With this one bass, it sounds as good (to me) through a $99 Fender Rumble as it does through my Genz Benz Streamliner 600 connected to a 2 x 10 cabinet. I'm going to try it through my Ampeg B15 and see if that also has the huge difference in tones.

I'm starting to think that the whole pickup/pre-amp/power-amp/speaker selection is kind of a turkey shoot.
 
#8
Some amps are going to color more than others, it's just how the tone stacks are made that determines what and where. Tube amps seem to have a very colored tone compared to most solid state amps, in that it's a good sound on them but that can be subjective to some people's taste. Keep in mind that the speakers play a humungous role in how defined your stuff is or how it sounds coming out. You could have a $6k bass with a $2k amp into a crappy $150 cabinet and it will sound atrocious. Or even all that stuff into a cabinet that has too much coloration in the tone and you could get the same result.

It sounds like you aren't a fan of mid scoop or lack of definition, so we may have similar tastes in amps/cabs. I'm a GK convert because the tone is there, the weight is light, and the volume is totally there. I haven't used a combination of GK amps and cabs (yet lol), but I can hear a big difference in my cabs when using the GK gear. GK amps have some baked in tone, but the EQ is so flexible that you can negate it pretty easily. I'd just say you have a good ear for definition, might want to look at some stuff with mid drivers in the cabs as well.
 
#9
I played with the bass a bit today. I started with it plugged into a mixer, and again, the only difference I gear is volume when I change the selector switch. So I put it back into the GB Streamliner, and if I put the mid all the way up, and set the Mid FRQ to 220, I don't hear the difference. If I set the Mid FRQ to 2.5K it sounds fantastic, and every setting is a different tone.

I guess it's the MID that makes this pickup work. Now I'm going to have to see if I can tweak the Pignose and/or the mixer to see if I can find the sweet spot that makes the bass sing.

This is fun!
 

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