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What is Growl

#123
Spector - seriously there such no brand like this one who makes basses sounds growl in terms of rock music ( otherwise i do not think is relevant).I know you will tell warwick"s do - no,to me they have some similarly tone shapes but the got lack of expressions - no offenses to anyone.
 
#132
If ya just gotta have growl, seek it in the amp first. Unless you have several basses to play. My Warwick Fortress is nothing but growl. If I played country, folk, or bluegrass with it I'd get run off the stage. If you only play tunes that work with growl then seek it in the bass. For me, I have to leave the Fortress at home when playing bluegrass. It scares the old timers sitting on the back row in recliners.
 
#133
Joe Beets said:
When you are on the road you will be eating a lot of restaurant food. Unless you have a wife or girlfriend with you who likes to cook in hotel rooms, that means Denny's, McDonalds, and 7-11 for most of your meals. And if you are playing smaller venues, like Podunk City, that means a lot of one-of-a-kind greasy spoons where the food is very "special". You soon find out what the "growl" is. Be sure to pack a bunch of those car air fresheners to hang in the back of the tour bus. Five or six sweaty musicians trapped on a bus is bad enough, but add in the "growl" factor and the stench can be unbearable. :hmm:
Click to expand...

Jeez I wish this forum had a "like" button!
 
#134
Means different things to different people. To me it means a Gibson Mudbucker with the treble control on the bass turned all the way up. Room shaking low, but a touch of clarity. With Fender it means neck pickup only on a Jazz with the bass control on the guitar turned all the way up. More of a mid sound, but not as room shaking as a Gibson. I don't use distortion or any pedals for that matter. I just tweak the gain on the amp. Just my opinion and observation.
 
#140
Growl is the natural vibration of the string, the actual "flapping," similar to the flapping of a tubist's lips or a baritone saxophone's reed. Some strings are better than others. A bari sax puts out more growl than a bone, cello, or other instrument of the same range.

Growl is not imparted by subsequent mechanical or electronic filters and links in the signal chain, rather it's preserved by elements that transmit it faithfully. It is one of many crucial elements that make a great bass sound.

I undertook a lengthy preamp tube quest once and found the most rigidly-constructed tube delivered up the most growl (or refrained from stepping on it). That 1959 Cold War military tube was built to perform under the forces of launch and flight in an ICBM.

I prefer to call P-bass growl "grunt" to differentiate it from J-bridge "mwah" which results from the portion of string closest the finger vibrating against a fretless fingerboard. That's an entirely different mechanism.
 

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