Tone is all in the fingers

[SteveCS]

Steve, I'm not sure if this was aimed at me but I already do use all four fingers on my right hand to pluck my strings.

Sorry, no, it was not aimed at anyone in particular. I was just trying to show how much fine motor control we develop and how that gets absorbed into the subconscious mind that we sometimes take it for granted to the point of, it seems, denial.

 

[chadds]

How about this?
You can sound meh, bad or good.
When your gear is either heavily eq'd or very colored by design then what you do with your fingers is less important.
When your gear has a wide dynamic range, is more transparent, and your playing has developed so unconsciously you are changing your touch to add different inflection and color note by note then tone is in the fingers.
It's been said here that the original P the single coil '51 or later called Telecaster bass was designed to sound like an upright. Even with round wounds if you bend your index finger so from the second joint to the tip is parallel with the strings that bass will give the fast decay prominent thud of an upright. Get out a pick and you sound like Ron Wood with Jeff Beck. Rotosound roar.

It's okay if we repeat this discussion as new members are joining us.
The trick is as Marcus Miller said, "get your gear then get on with playing."
You have to want to hear the note sound like you want it to. That's not knob twirling its intention.
Doubt this? Play upright. Why do different bassists sound different on the same bass? No graphic eq, tubes or SS, 12"s or 10"s etc. Just touch.

 

[ThisBass]

Try an experiment. Instead of using your normal plucking fingers, try using different ones and see how the tone is. Mix up your 1st, 2nd and 3rd RH fingers. See you it sounds. Once upon a time you sounded as bad with your usual fingers as you do with your unused ones. Then you learned how to pluck. Now deny that tone is in the hands.

Indeed a very nice experience that I sometimes practice with 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th RH fingers.
There is always an obvious difference in tone between 1st and 4th finger due to the different position to the string. The 4th finger is more close to the bridge while the 1st finger in a distance of around 3"-4" to the 4th finger.

When I started playing bass guitar in the mid 70's I began all alone with three fingers picking at the right hand. May be I was one of the first players ever using this technique, I was already trained on the piano before I started playing bass guitar. A couple of years later I tried to avoid the 3rd finger just to get a more balanced tone on the instrument.
Just for fun sometimes I still use the "three finger" technique randomly

To get back to the tone of the very first beginner situation it's more "practical" to use the bass guitar just like as a left handed player if you are a right handed people (or versa visa)
That's really a very lot of fun trying to play the bass guitar this way, it feels like enjoying far to much of ..... anything,

tried it out again just this moment, and again it makes me chucklin