I have a basic question that is probably a piece of cake for most of you. I've actually been playing awhile and would consider myself a decent player. But I have no live sound experience. I've always played, unplugged in my house. My bass sounds great acoustically, but when I try and get a good tone through my amp (Fender bmx 200), I fail miserably. My bass is a Bogart from a small company in Germany, and is considered a good guitar line. My amp has a fader bar eq built in, but no matter how I tweak things I cant get to where I feel like it doesn't sound like crap. Anybody have any advice?
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Tone
- Thread starter Dirtyshift
- Start date
Assuming the above battery requirement is met, I was advised to just dial your amp to "middle" settings on the eq. Then adjust accordingly.
If you're still not happy there's a few other things to check. The cable? Do you know any other bassists that would let you plug into their amp or their bass into your amp? That might help you rule out one or the other as causing the issue.
Just some thoughts.
If you're still not happy there's a few other things to check. The cable? Do you know any other bassists that would let you plug into their amp or their bass into your amp? That might help you rule out one or the other as causing the issue.
Just some thoughts.
Thanks man. I've been wondering if it's just the amp I'm using. I'll try what you suggested
Maiden, Rush....etc...bands who's bass players aren't buried in the mix. Thanks man. Maybe your right about the Fender amp
Do you know what you want to sound like?
Having an idea of what kind of tone you want is important to defining "good" or "bad" tone, since it is so subjective.
Also, it would help if you could express what specifically you don't like about the tone out of your amp. Is it too quiet, too muddy, too much in the mids, is there distortion, etc?
Someone mentioned a battery. Active basses use the battery for the preamp. If the battery is starting to go, the bass may not sound its best.
A good setup can do wonders for a bass. If the strings are too close, or too far away from the pickups, they might sound "off." If the action is too high, or the neck it too bowed, the articulation might sound like a rubber band. If the strings are dead that can make them sound uneven or just bad all the way around. If the neck is warped, you might get fret buzz in one place and dead spots in another.
Just out of curiosity, and you probably have, but I'm going to ask anyways - have you listened to any of your influences with bass isolated? Sometimes the tone in the mix sounds way different than it does solo, sometimes surprisingly so.
Also, what strings are you using and how old are they?
Dial all your EQ setting down to zero. Then, one by one, turn them up a little bit. Get to really understand what each frequency band sounds like on its own.
Then, start back at zero again and set each frequency one at a time. When the lows sound pretty good, add some mids and adjust accordingly. Then, add the treble. Doing this all slowly and starting from zero will help your brain process what you’re hearing.
Then, start back at zero again and set each frequency one at a time. When the lows sound pretty good, add some mids and adjust accordingly. Then, add the treble. Doing this all slowly and starting from zero will help your brain process what you’re hearing.
This should be moved to amps, probably.
Being a bass player means you have to learn how to play the amp and electronics inside the instrument as much as you're playing the strings. You haven't done that yet.
What's a BMX 200? Google doesn't come up with any information on it.
If it's a BXR 200, those are old, but decent quality.
Assuming the amp isn't broken, and the instrument is properly set up, including having decent strings on it and a fresh battery:
Put all the amp EQ knobs at 12:00, sliders at the center stop. Volume between 9:00 and 12:00. If the bass has EQ, move them to the center stops. If it has a passive tone control turn it all the way up. Same with volume on the bass. If the bass has more than one pickup select the one that's closest to half way between the bridge and end of the neck.
Then play until it sounds good. If you've been playing with no amp up to now you'll probably have to relearn everything you think you know about muting and right hand attack.
Thanks for responding. I know my question is fairly vague. I just feel that when I use amplification, that it sounds very sloppy, whether I try fx- or just DI, whereas when I'm unplugged, everything sounds fantastic to me. Maybe I'm just not as good as I thought I was, and amplification is just highlighting all my sloppiness that I didnt hear before. Just not sure anymore.
- Dec 21, 2007
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Don’t think of it as “not as good as I thought I was” (which is pretty demotivating). You’re getting new information about your playing.
Many of us here have had the experience of getting a great amp or cabs and noticing “it reveals all the flaws in my playing “.
Work with it.
Wow, thanks for that! Yeah, I meant to type BXR, but was out in the sun and auto correct escaped my notice. I'm going to explore everything you suggested, thanks much.
Are you talking about how your bass sounds when you play by yourself or how it sounds when you play with your band? These are two different things.
I don't know if this helps, but one of the first things I went through when I started playing bass was realizing that I couldn't make my bass sound like the recordings. It took me a while to adjust to that. Then I had to figure out a tone that worked in the mix. What works live is much different than what works recorded.
I'd just get used to playing through the amp you have, and then maybe play through some other ones and get a feel for what you want your live tone to be.
But it won't be like a recording. That kind of bass is engineered pretty heavily in the studio. You may have a better sound than you think.
I'd just get used to playing through the amp you have, and then maybe play through some other ones and get a feel for what you want your live tone to be.
But it won't be like a recording. That kind of bass is engineered pretty heavily in the studio. You may have a better sound than you think.
Solid body bass?
If you like the sound of a solid body bass acoustically and that is what you want it to sound like through an amp, maybe you don't really like bass?
Acoustically, the instrument is very rich in harmonics and brightness. Weak subdued lows. Lots of clarity. Through an amp you're going to hear all the lows and low mids that are so weak acoustically.
Or possibly Basses, or Pickups and Electronics, or Hardware, Setup, and Repair, or (my guess) Technique.
I think playing unplugged is generally a bad idea (except perhaps with a pick) because (1) you have no idea whether your technique would sound good amplified or not and (2) it encourages your to pluck harder than you ought to in order to be able to hear yourself. Also, assuming that playing unplugged means not playing along with records, or a drum machine, or (obviously) a band, it is impossible to know how good your time is -- perhaps the single most important attribute of a good bass player.
