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The illusive SVT sound, from the VT

AndreasK

AndreasK

Jun 11, 2014
360
334
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Northern Norway
#1
This is the SVT sounding like its supposed to (or at least the sound I want):


Begining of this is what my VT bass sounds like in its SVT setting:


Its not the same. I know Nick plays with a pick, but to me its not even close. Especially with lower notes I get the same nasal, honky, farty sound from the VT vid. Not the crisp, deep, badass, in your face tone Nick has. Why? And what can I do to get closer?

I play a Matt Freeman sig P bass. Flats at the moment, but same problem with rounds, and my J bass. My rig is Ampeg PF350 and 2xsvt210av´s.
 
#3
Playing with a pick and rounds will make a huge difference. I tried the SVT sim on the Zoom pedals out trying to match that track before, and playing fingerstyle, it sounded like a huge bloated mess with the gain up. Too much bass going in. But with a pick, it actually got pretty close to that QOTSA track.
 
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#4
Yeah, a pick and rounds is needed for the exact thing, but even then lower notes gets all honky tonk farty. I can dial in nice aggressive tones on high notes, played with fingers and flats, but i can´t stand the lows. And I need my lows. It gets better with a comp in front. But not quite to where I want to be. Highs and lows start to even out with character around noon, but then the bottom starts falling out.
 
#5
This might be long, but perhaps it can help you cop this sound.

So there's a few things affecting the sound of the bass on this track:

You might already have done this but just in case... His bass guitar is tuned down two whole steps (C, F, Bb, Eb).
Which gives it that characteristic floppy sound. Definitely sounds like roundwounds with a heavy pick. Perhaps because of his tuning he uses heavy gauge strings (that I don't know).

My guess is that he probably recorded this bass with both a mic'd up and heavily cranked SVT as well as a direct clean line (DI) into the board.
Allowing the engineer to mix, process and eq the two signals separately and build this monstrous, yet defined sound.

So with that in mind what I think you can do to get close to the sound: use roundwounds, down tune 2 whole steps, use a heavy pick.
Then get the sound as close as you can with your VT Pedal. If you have the VT Bass DI, play with the BITE button and the Blend knob.
(BTW the VT Bass DI would be kinda of ideal to get you closer to his sound, that blend knob is a God send).

I would then try compression (I would try both before the VT pedal and after and see which one works best).
Not sure what compressor you have but I think low compression (to even out the peaks and valleys of your signal), with a slow release and semi fast attack should do (adjust threshold to taste).
Last item in the chain would be an EQ (ideally a multiband graphic eq). Here you can dial-in, and fine tune your lows (30-60 Hz) and low mids because this is where the tone of this track thrives in.
Add some high mids around 700-900Hz to add some bite and definition to cut through. (I also hear a hole carved out in the mids around 300-600Hz or so, probably where the meat of the guitar and vocals exist).

Lastly, all tho I don't hear much of it on this track; look at dialing a bit around 2 to 3khz to get the pick sound for added definition (Warning this can also add string noise, specially if you have fresh roundwounds).

I lied, one more thing.... What speaker cab you use matters. I believe this guy used the big SVT 8x10 fridge.
So if you are trying to reproduce this through a 15 you'll have a much harder time doing so. (VT Bass pedal cab sim is supposed to be voiced to mimmic a mic'd 10 inch speaker,
which I have successfully done through a 15 inch speaker before... But it's never the same as using 10 inchers). So a 4x10 cab would probably be a smart choice.

Sorry this was long, but I put in a much detail as I could:)


Good luck!
 
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#7
Thanks a lot @Manny Bernardez For the long and helpfull answer! Will try some of it. While you wrote I've been experimenting on a far simpler level. And I think my main issue may be a case of simply to much Ampeg. As I said in the original post, I have an Ampeg rig with two 210av's. And the SVT setting of the VT just sounds wrong, especially on low notes. But with character around 1-2 I get that aggressiveness of the drive. But then I loose my bottom. Boosting the bass on the amp brings it back, and I can actually get pretty close. At least for my needs. I have a downtuned jazz with thick rounds and that gets really close, minus some p-thump. My p with flats sound awesome to, and even with fingers I get some of that aggressiveness I'm after. Need to try with my band to see if I've solved my issues. I don't have to get that exact sound, but it's got a "feel" I really want. The SVT setting in the VT manual definately doesn't do it for me! Tanks again, for all suggestions
 
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#9
AndreasK said:
Thanks a lot @Manny Bernardez For the long and helpfull answer! Will try some of it. While you wrote I've been experimenting on a far simpler level. And I think my main issue may be a case of simply to much Ampeg. As I said in the original post, I have an Ampeg rig with two 210av's. And the SVT setting of the VT just sounds wrong, especially on low notes. But with character around 1-2 I get that aggressiveness of the drive. But then I loose my bottom. Boosting the bass on the amp brings it back, and I can actually get pretty close. At least for my needs. I have a downtuned jazz with thick rounds and that gets really close, minus some p-thump. My p with flats sound awesome to, and even with fingers I get some of that aggressiveness I'm after. Need to try with my band to see if I've solved my issues. I don't have to get that exact sound, but it's got a "feel" I really want. The SVT setting in the VT manual definately doesn't do it for me! Tanks again, for all suggestions
Click to expand...

My pleasure
:)
Are you using the neck pickup on your Jazz? That might get you closer to the P Bass territory (never the same).

BTW if someone you know has a PF 500 or 800 perhaps you can borrow it and try that tone stack. The PF 350 has a nice and musical three band eq.
But his two bigger brothers have the selectable mid frequency and the Ultra Hi and Ultra Lo buttons (which at times can work well in shaping these sounds).

Keep turnin' knobs man!
 
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#10
Yeah, it's a Modern Player jazz, with humbuckers. Ghs pressurewounds. Awesome bass. Can get quite p-ish with neck full, bridge half and slight rolled of tone. I've had the VT a long time, but never quite happy. Had a good run with a barbershop and other od's. But now with the new Tech21 bass fly rig coming, I want to see if I can manage with the VT as my only od.

Crappy pic of my current board:
Board jan2016

Board jan2016

 
#11
First off, I'm pretty sure Nick used a V4B, which is a flatter response with knobs at noon than the SVT, so forget the VT's alleged SVT manual setting. Put the mids and character on about 12:30, crank the drive, and add bass and treble to taste, even if you have to crank bass all the way up. Personally, I'd keep the treble around 9:00 for that sound.

It's "elusive," BTW :D
 
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#12
All good suggestions. As a long term VT pedal user I have one more. To my ears the response and tone of the pedal has a lot to do with how hard you hit the input. For me to get the best tone out of the pedal I have to turn down the volume on the bass. If I put a lower signal into the pedal I can get more of the tube feel out. With my bass volume at max the pedal has a much different break-up response. Obviously you can turn the output from the pedal up as much as you want.
In my case I am using the MFD pickups from G&L so YMMV.
 
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#13
Even though it has nothing to do with the pedal, it should be noted that Nick is tuned down pretty low for that song (C standard I believe). As for getting as close as you can to that tone with the vt, assuming you're starting out on the factory recommended "svt" tone, try bringing the mids and the character knobs up a little. As has already been said, rounds and a pick will help too.
 
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#14
Thanks for all suggestions! I think I´ve gotten close enough. Some more tweaking and I´m there :) I have been way to hung up in the manual setting.

JimmyM said:
First off, I'm pretty sure Nick used a V4B, which is a flatter response with knobs at noon than the SVT, so forget the VT's alleged SVT manual setting. Put the mids and character on about 12:30, crank the drive, and add bass and treble to taste, even if you have to crank bass all the way up. Personally, I'd keep the treble around 9:00 for that sound.
Click to expand...

Thanks! That´s close to where I ended up. Except I dindn´t cut as much highs. I will try that!
A V4B? I´m trying to avoid getting one;)

JimmyM said:
It's "elusive," BTW :D
Click to expand...

Thanks! I´m Norwegian BTW:roflmao:
 
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#16
I am not sure you can get that tone only with the vt bass.
I tried too :) And I too found that the lows weren't right. I find that if I crank the drive too much lows loose too much definition.
The key should be to blend some clean signal, maybe with an eq on this clean signal, Just to keep a bit of clean low end.
I can see a ls-2 on your pedal board, so you could make some tries.
And I found too that flats can be overdriven more than rounds before loosing too much definition.
The key with the vt bass is really to find the good interaction between the character and the drive. Without wanting too much drive it's possible to get a lot of harmonics while keeping a strong low end.
And I found too that lows can be pushed a lot to compensate the too middy tone generated by character and mids further than 12 o'clock.
 
#17
This kept me intrigued and so I gave a quick try with my VT Bass with speaker sim on (as I see you have the older model), my P bass with rounds and the E string detuned to C (so, really sloppy). And while I couldn't get the exact same tone, it's not that far except for the low end which doesn't sound thick enough. But I tried that with the VT Bass only (with an EBS multicomp in front of it : Tubesim, Comp at 12:30, Gain at 8:30), with headphones, so no aditionnal amp and cab.
Played with a pick between the pickup and the neck (it gives a fatter tone and more clank), with lows maxed, mids at 1 o'clock, character at 12:30, highs at 12 and drive at 11:30, it seems to be in the good area.
Played in an amp + cab, you should reduce a bit the lows and the highs.
That's nice because I could'nt get so close before. The VT bass as so many settings that it takes time to understand it fully :)
 
#18
I think there's a lot less treble then most people think.
I have a spectrum analyzer on my stereo, and while that's not exactly professional gear it still gives a nice idea on what sound looks like.
On No one knows I see a huge boost on 60 Hz, from there it steadily slopes down to 2.4kHz, with very little action above that, 6kHz hardly shows up at all.

My best guess for a homebrew version would be: a P-bass with a pick, boosted lows and low-mids, flat high-mids and reduced treble.
Some compression is nice, and definetely some medium gain overdrive.
And play it like you mean it! :D
 
#20
NightCat said:
All good suggestions. As a long term VT pedal user I have one more. To my ears the response and tone of the pedal has a lot to do with how hard you hit the input. For me to get the best tone out of the pedal I have to turn down the volume on the bass. If I put a lower signal into the pedal I can get more of the tube feel out. With my bass volume at max the pedal has a much different break-up response. Obviously you can turn the output from the pedal up as much as you want.
In my case I am using the MFD pickups from G&L so YMMV.
Click to expand...

I agree, which is why I'm quite interested in the VT500 amp as it has an input pad switch!
 

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