Indeed. The people in the crowd have quite an impact on the EQ of the FOH.
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Precision vs Jazz at a gig
- Thread starter RichardW
- Start date
When I started my new hard rock power trio I thought for sure my main bass would be the 73 Precision played fingerstyle though an overdrive GK400RB. I wanted a tone similar to Nomeansno and Iron Maiden. It ended up not sounding as good in the mix as my Geddy Lee Jazz bass. The Jazz seemed to stand out more as an individual voice where the P bass seemed like it was blending to much in the mix or overpowering.
Yeah, definitely...a lot of Luke Bryan's stuff features Brignardello - Country Girl Shake it For Me probably being the most immediate to my mind:
That style of country playing has a very legato feel, doesn't emphasize the top of the beat, and oftentimes has a tendency to gliss into the chord changes. Also, almost every verse and chorus is played differently. Tonally there's a punch in the low-mids with little going on in the mid-mids or high-mids. To be truthful, the style and tone has kind of a mushiness to it. A lot of the session cats are copping that style. You can hear it all over Florida Georgia Line's, Jake Owen's, Cole Swindel's, Brantley Gilbert's, etc. stuff. It's almost a 180 from what you hear on 90s country records, which have a very staccato, on top of the beat feel.
Honestly, it's pretty unintuitive to my own playing style, but I kind of just absorbed it from playing a lot of modern country gigs.
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My gzr and flats is nothing but buttery bass tone
Ric5
Inactive
- Jan 29, 2008
- 29,772
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- I like 5, 8, 10, and 12 string basses
I have 16 basses and 2 more in pieces waiting to be assembled and I want to buy another, and I want to build a 10 string … So why would I ever just take one? and in case of a malfunction I always want to have a backup, and it is nice to an active and a passive bass, and my 8 string is getting more playing time lately ...
first world problems
I think that the main thing making technology different since the 70s is digital technology as opposed to vinyl as the most frequent means of reproduction, and the frequent use of subwoofers in both live and home audio situations. This allowed for beefed up low end, and a lot of people dialed back on the mids as a result. CDs gained popularity in the mid-late 80s. I have no idea about subwoofers. Then there was a kinda re-minimalization as most people started listening on earbuds and tiny digital systems.
What makes bass tones different is the way that players, producers and engineers use the technology. Most players are playing technology from previous decades. People were slapping and popping Music Man basses in the 70s and in the 90s, but they didn't sound the same.
There are also bass products that are of their time sonically, but not in terms of technological innovation. For example, SWR bass amps tended to emphasize lows and highs over mids, where the previous generation's Acoustic and Ampeg amps had a lot more mids.
But yeah, vintage vs modern sounds means nothing, really. It's not like most of this past decade's hits have a commonality of bass sound, and if they do, it's probably not a sound that we'd call modern.
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Wow! I think I need to re-reply to this!
I referred to the first SS Amp heads by the likes of HH, not power amps that mainly PA companies used.
Really no need to be so rude and patronising, not cool.
Preamp + PA (or other large) power amp was used by a number of bass players, some of them fairly well known musicians.
I try to be reasonably precise in my communication, especially in writing. Many of the persons I send messages to, are also trying to be precise in text. I sometimes forget to re-calibrate to the much worse signal to noise ratio in ie. this board.
There is no ad hominem, and also no insult intended.
You definitely have a way with words! But you are right about the power amps. AFAIK there wasn’t anything comparable to the SS heads of today like Aguilar, Mesa etc unless you had a more ‘high end’ separate power amp rig.
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I don't know if I agree with that, Mark. I've found those old SS amps to be very clean and full range, and very dependent on whether you hear them that way on the cab(s) used. Maybe they didn't get levels of .0000001% THD or have the capability of 2000w, but still very clean and loud if you had a big enough cab with the range to reproduce it. Hybrids weren't a thing till Hartke came along with the first one, but separate tube pres into power amps and PA cabs were very much a thing all through the 70's for bassists, with the first one I remember seeing being Greg Lake from ELP in 73. Phil Lesh might have been earlier with the Wall Of Sound, but I wasn't very gear aware in those days.
Ah well, I was mainly playing Hammond and Wurlitzer piano back then, so excuse my ignorance. Had an old Bandmaster Reverb with a Ampeg 4x12 for the piano, sounded great.
Always found HH amps to be rather cold sounding in comparison to Fenders, and a bass player used to play locally with a Hiwatt and he ‘upgraded’ to a HH amp, ruined his tone, imo. I didn’t go to many gigs as I was working a lot, and pretty much only interested in Jazz, hence my now apparent ignorance re bass amplification
I’ve been using EV and JBL active cabs for bass for quite some time, mainly because I had them for keys, and they work surprisingly well with a small mixer or preamp. So I guess I have quite a modern setup after all. So when did SS heads become viable alternatives to a SVT? I guess you're the guy to ask, and I think I know your answer
Just reread your post, and you mention tube preamps, I was more referring to 100% SS Heads, but I probably wasn’t very clear. Anyway, thanks for your reply.
Jim Carr
Dr. Jim
- Jan 21, 2006
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Lol.. he's doing a good enough job of handling just recording our weekly sessions, stock piling material to put to use.
this seems like a pretty accurate description of the modern country bass sound. Definitely not a style/tone that I enjoy. I’m an old guy with a huge love of strong punchy mid-focused P-bass. I’m with a group that does a lot of modern country covers and I have absolutely no desire to cop the modern Nashville sound. Of course, I’m not a pro session or touring guy, so I can do what I please within reason. We play to some large crowds and I do get comments from non-musicians that the bass tone is excellent. If Motown, Stax, Sun and the like had not existed, I can safely say I would NEVER have been attracted to the bass.
Mike Brignardello plays a Sadowsky PJ most often, it seems. He claims it is his main squeeze. So I guess he can easily get that more modern sound they like, although he (like most pros I guess) has some different axes, including a ‘59 P-bass. I didnt know that he played for Luke Bryan
but good on him...he’s in demand. Heard him with Amy Grant and he was kind of buried, IMO, but that gig may have been an anomaly.I dont care for the bass tone in ANY country pop, and frankly dont care for 90% of the shallow stuff that comes out of there (the tendency for artists who likely have never experienced the life they are singing about to throw as many overused country tropes as they can into each verse...trucks, bales, boots, skol, Daisy Duke cutoffs, etc etc). it pays their bills I guess...and it gives an old guy like me a decent paying hobby that keeps me active. A full diet of it would make me barf however.
But, as a hobbyist, I will play it with gear of my own choosing, and in my own way. Been doing that for the last 12 years with the same musicians, and there is no sign of it slacking off.
Well yeah, obviously neverAh well, I was mainly playing Hammond and Wurlitzer piano back then, so excuse my ignorance. Had an old Bandmaster Reverb with a Ampeg 4x12 for the piano, sounded great.
Always found HH amps to be rather cold sounding in comparison to Fenders, and a bass player used to play locally with a Hiwatt and he ‘upgraded’ to a HH amp, ruined his tone, imo. I didn’t go to many gigs as I was working a lot, and pretty much only interested in Jazz, hence my now apparent ignorance re bass amplification
So when did SS heads become viable alternatives to a SVT? I guess you're the guy to ask, and I think I know your answer
But I'd say for bass, 68 was the turning point year. That was when Acoustic started making its mark on the bass scene. There were others for sure, but they often had tech problems or lower wattage. And in 67 and 68, Ampeg was playing catchup to technology because the original owner was so stuck in his ways that he wouldn't dream of allowing much over 50w, and he had to be talked into even that much wattage. No, I got that, and my point still stands. I can easily get brilliant hi-fi full range frequency response out of any of my tube amps plugged into a cab that delivers it or direct into a mixing board, and I can do it with an early SS amp as well. It wasn't the amps...it was the cabs.
Super low being below the range of human ears?
Nope - super low being the fundamentals of notes played liw on the E or B string. Bass guitar cabinets don’t typically reproduce those well.
I too own both Precision and Jazz, however, a proper comparison would be same strings, with each bass EQ'ed to its respective strengths.
Otherwise, your post reeks of Trolling.
Dang, lighten up a little!
I did. You should read what a I wanted to write.
**Note** I got written-up on TB for "Trolling," in another thread, for something pretty darn innocuous. So, the bar is already set pretty low for getting busted, around here.
