Specific Tone

[naveman]

My band rehearses at a rehearsal studio and every practice i find myself playing on a different bass rig - amp and cab combo. Usually they are pretty beat up. So i find myself spending a lot of time tweaking the gain and eq controls usually trying to get my bass to sound right. At home I find myself doing this a lot as well mainly because i can't seem to get my tone to sound like what i'd like it to. A good description of the tone that i'm trying to get is on the intro bass line to Nirvana's lounge act. Any suggestions of a quick way to tweak gain and eq settings to come close to this tone?

 

[brianrost]

First of all the bass you play and the strings play a HUGE part in the overall tone. Next most important thing is the speaker cabinet. The amp (and it's EQ facilities) come last.

The best advice I can give is TRUST YOUR EARS. Start with all EQ knobs at 12:00, with any "boost" or "contour" switches OFF. Now try adjusting each knob to see what it does to change the tone. Now flip the boost switches on and off to see what they do. That's the easy part. The HARD part is identifying what is wrong with the tone in the first place and figuring out how to dial it in.

One trick is you get more by cutting than boosting. Need more bass? Cut some midrange and treble. Need more treble? Cut some bass and mids.

Another trick is turn up the volume and play with a lighter touch. The lighter your touch, the fatter and rounder the bass will sound. Playing too hard chokes the sound, making it thin and brittle.

 

[Warwick]

I was wondering I play through a Warwick Thumb 5 bolt-on and was wondering If I ran through an Ampeg svt-4 Pro and an 8x10e what would my tone most likely be? I was wondering because that was the rig I am wanting to buy and I have no idea on the whole eq process so I was curious could I get a sound like Tool and what would my general tone also be? Thanks

 

[Electricmayhem]

You'll still have to play around with the EQ.