That sound in your head...

[joebar]

...starts in your fingers

 

[MaxJJK]

At one point my favorite tone was from a YouTube video where he had dead standard gauge rounds tuned down to BEAD on a Jazz bass. That was pretty zero effort to achieve.

 

[tonemachine]

I hear voices in my head!
But seriously? The sound I aim for has always been slippery. It has as much, or more, to do with the sound I am trying to blend with than an 'ideal tone'

I like slippery, too. My Bongo HH does it and my stingray HH does it. My favorite owned bass doesn't do it. Could be cuz its a 35". Perhaps lighter Gauge strings would do it. My P, J and Spector don't do it though but, again, the strings on those are not quite as light as the stock MM strings which I'm still using on my MM's. Just my thoughts.. But yes I found slippery when I got the MMs! .But they can be non-slippery when needed; they' simply greatly accommodate playing slipperyly. Lol.

 

[klokker]

I'll play one day and it just seems like the tone is excellent. Same settings the next day and it sounds wrong. Same in the gig, what works one day can suck the next. Sometimes the time of day seems to make a difference in what I like. Tone is the weirdest thing.

I have some general things that I do to get the tone I think I like. But there are so many other things that seem more important like groove, line, attack, feel, etc. Searching through a bunch of amps and strings to find the right tone isn't important to me at all. When it comes to practice I can play for hours without an amp. It's great.

Some people don't have the greatest voice. But they sure can sing if you know what I mean.

 

[tonemachine]

I have some general things that I do to get the tone I think I like. But there are so many other things that seem more important like groove, line, attack, feel, etc. Searching through a bunch of amps and strings to find the right tone isn't important to me at all.

I agree. Each different sound is fun but at the end of the day in a band setting, as long as it's clear and distinct, it cool.

 

[Yango]

When I picked up an Ernie Ball Musicman Sterling, I had that, "wow, this is the sound that I've been trying to reproduce all these years" moment. I bought the bass, and am now a devoted EBMM player. My main bass is now a Stingray—killer tone and the neck fits my hand like a glove.

 

[FronTowardEnemy]

the sound in my head is tinnitus

Mine too unfortunately.

 

[mpdd]

after 9 basses, 5 amps, and 10 pedals i have found that my nirvana was actually attained through a pretty basic setup and my playing improving a lot