"bad" is hard to pinpoint, a lot of stuff out there doesn't work. so you'd need to identify qualities of sound that do work, and then sounds missing that would be "bad" depending on how much they're missing and how bad.
a good tone should have some character to it. "good" or "Bad" character to the sound is subjective, but a sense of flavor is very important. it's important for the tone to not be interchangeable and unidentifiable, it should have its own fingerprint in some way. all P-basses of a reasonable build quality are a great example of this. Jaco or Marcus are even better examples.
next would come down to eq/frequency response issues. almost always, its important to have a big enough low end to fill out the texture of the band. sometimes this isn't necessary, such as solo playing or certain unique examples, but almost always big low end will be a factor in making a "good" sound.
after that i'd go for clarity. muddy bass sounds are cool, but hearing the notes is even better. weather that comes from a lot of clear treble or just the eq bump in a simple P bass sound, clarity means we can hear your notes and not just feel the vibrations.
so, a bad tone would be one with no character to it- bland sounding. not enough low end, and poor clarity. i think this is a pretty good universal set of requirements.
trying to identify sounds that have all of my qualifications, character, low end, and clarity - nearly any good bass player i can think of right now is coming to mind. billy sheen's sound has those 3. so does Janek gwizdala. so does the lower bass-stringed-half of charlie hunters guitars. so does flea. so does les claypool.. and so on..
a good tone should have some character to it. "good" or "Bad" character to the sound is subjective, but a sense of flavor is very important. it's important for the tone to not be interchangeable and unidentifiable, it should have its own fingerprint in some way. all P-basses of a reasonable build quality are a great example of this. Jaco or Marcus are even better examples.
next would come down to eq/frequency response issues. almost always, its important to have a big enough low end to fill out the texture of the band. sometimes this isn't necessary, such as solo playing or certain unique examples, but almost always big low end will be a factor in making a "good" sound.
after that i'd go for clarity. muddy bass sounds are cool, but hearing the notes is even better. weather that comes from a lot of clear treble or just the eq bump in a simple P bass sound, clarity means we can hear your notes and not just feel the vibrations.
so, a bad tone would be one with no character to it- bland sounding. not enough low end, and poor clarity. i think this is a pretty good universal set of requirements.
trying to identify sounds that have all of my qualifications, character, low end, and clarity - nearly any good bass player i can think of right now is coming to mind. billy sheen's sound has those 3. so does Janek gwizdala. so does the lower bass-stringed-half of charlie hunters guitars. so does flea. so does les claypool.. and so on..
