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Please help me EQ!

V

Vibhas Patil

Supporting Member
Sep 9, 2010
199
37
#1
Hi.

I have a question about EQ-ing an amp, any amp at that and I hope I am able to understand some things in this regard from you guys on the forum here.

First, some introduction. I have a 50's style precision bass. I have got DR Marcus Miller strings on it. The gauges are 45-65-85-05.

I am looking for a fat warm sound and as it is, I am rooling back the tone on the bass quite a bit.

The problem I usually face is:

In my quest to eliminate all the finger noise and get a warm sound, I tend to roll off some tiny part of the treble. What this does is make the sound too boomy. Now, I add treble and still it's too boomy. Now, I have tried to reduce the bass to reduce this woofiness but then, I lose that low end support that a strong bass provides.

IS there any fix for this?

Please advise me on how to eq an amp in such a scenario. This is a very common occurence. I get this sort of problem with many different amps.

Thanks!
 
#2
1. Unroll the tone pot dernit. (the problem with the tone pot to get rid of finger noise is it takes all the cut off of your signal to get rid of finger noise; you need targeted cuts as described below to get rid of finger noise without getting muddy, IMHO).

2. Play near the neck.

3. Use Nickelwound strings (I prefer D'addarios, but whatever). I haven't tried the MM strings, but almost all stainless strings I've tried tend to be quite a bit snappier.

4. Consider your action and make sure it's high enough.

5. Boost a bit at 100-50hz. Cut at 800, 1200 and 2500 (try your favorite, but 800 is the main offender for me).
 
#3
Boominess is most often around the 125Hz region (which ironically is where most cabs are designed to accentuate). If you can cut that some with an EQ, it will help, but note that sometimes that's also the predominant "low end" tone through many cabs.

Otherwise it's difficult to find the exact cause without checking into your bass setup, like pickups and their distance to the strings (closer can give you a brighter sound for instance) or other factors like the preamp of your amp, pedals and your cab. Experiment with all of that.
 
#4
It is almost always more effective to cut what you have too much of rather than boosting the other frequencies.

Start with everything flat and both controls wide open on the bass and tweak from there.

Nickel strings are generally warmer sounding that stainless. I also have had great luck with D'Addario Chromes and TI Jazz Flats. The TI's make most any bass sound great IMO.

Chuck
 
#7
IMO, your issue is a mismatch of string/bass/tone goal, and possibly a bit of technique work needed.

The Marcus Miller DR's are big down low, a bit scooped in the mid mids, WAY scooped in the upper mids (which is where you get note definition from a P Bass), and has a zingy to end that really isn't very effective with a P (especially the older model type P you have).

So, the first thing to do is consider a more midrange present set of strings. If you want to stick with roundwounds, I would suggest the Dunlop Nickel strings (they come in a variety of gauges). They are relatively cheap (compared to the DR's), and have a nice lower midrange response, and the top end is 'where a P Bass needs it), so you can open your tone control a bit and have the P still sound warm and organic.

Technique:D You get rid of string/fretnoise by spending a lot of time in the woodshed. There is NO reason to ever roll off anything up top in order to control fret noise. I know I sound like your mom or something, but eliminating fret noise is in the hands, not in the tone knobs. Of course, as you are doing, you can dial down everything above 1K and that will take care of it. That's kind of like not putting any gas in a car to make sure you don't have an accident:D

A combination of these two things will make your EQ issue become very simple. Of course, the 'string fix' will take you about $20 and a trip to Guitar Center. The technique fix will be free, but will take some time.:)
 
#8
What amps(s) and speakers?

Some don't have much for eq up where your noise is. Mid knob maybe not set high enough to affect it without gutting too much sound. Most treble knobs are set so high as to be almost worthless for a bass, IMO.

I'd start by working with your hands and try to eliminate some of the finger noise so you've less to fix to begin with. Try plucking a little softer, use more of the pad of the finger and less the tip, pull across the strings and don't push them down towards the pickup and let them pop back up, or anything you can come up with to let out more tone and less noise.

Nickel strings might be a good change if you're using stainless.

Can roll the tone knob back a little bit if you need to, rolling it all down leaves you with nothing but thud. That can be desirable in certain types of music, but for now, I'd concentrate on getting as close as you can with hands and bass, then using eq to fine tune.
 
#10
Make sure your strings aren't twisted. Meaning when you change them, let the tuning peg do all the string wrapping. Don't use your hand to wrap the string around the peg because it's faster that way, it can put a twist in the string and make weird sounds.
 
#11
Sundogue said:
Boominess is most often around the 125Hz region (which ironically is where most cabs are designed to accentuate). If you can cut that some with an EQ, it will help, but note that sometimes that's also the predominant "low end" tone through many cabs.
Click to expand...

+1.

Also, some finger noise is OK if you ask me, and rolling off hi mids and/or treble to mask it is not the best idea. This will become painfully obvious the moment you run a pre-eq signal to the board IME. ;)
 
#13
KJung said:
IMO, your issue is a mismatch of string/bass/tone goal, and possibly a bit of technique work needed.

The Marcus Miller DR's are big down low, a bit scooped in the mid mids, WAY scooped in the upper mids (which is where you get note definition from a P Bass), and has a zingy to end that really isn't very effective with a P (especially the older model type P you have).

So, the first thing to do is consider a more midrange present set of strings. If you want to stick with roundwounds, I would suggest the Dunlop Nickel strings (they come in a variety of gauges). They are relatively cheap (compared to the DR's), and have a nice lower midrange response, and the top end is 'where a P Bass needs it), so you can open your tone control a bit and have the P still sound warm and organic.

Technique:D You get rid of string/fretnoise by spending a lot of time in the woodshed. There is NO reason to ever roll off anything up top in order to control fret noise. I know I sound like your mom or something, but eliminating fret noise is in the hands, not in the tone knobs. Of course, as you are doing, you can dial down everything above 1K and that will take care of it. That's kind of like not putting any gas in a car to make sure you don't have an accident:D

A combination of these two things will make your EQ issue become very simple. Of course, the 'string fix' will take you about $20 and a trip to Guitar Center. The technique fix will be free, but will take some time.:)
Click to expand...

Ken, I will admit, I need to work on my technique. :) I just got this bass couple of weeks back and I've never played a 4 string before :o :o

I know, bummer, right! HAHA, but I've played Ibanez/ESP style basses for some time and now. But the P bass is the best man!!
 

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