What's your sweet spot tone setup?

[Kerry Brown]

This is mine:

Jazz bass with D'Addario chrome flats, neck pickup full, bridge pickup 8/10, tone 7/10.
EHX Battalion DI with a little bit of compression, small bass cut, small low mid boost, flat high mid and treble.
Into the return jack on Quilter 101R Mini guitar amp.
Into an Epifani ULII 1x12,cab.

This is awesome for practicing at home and practicing with the band. I'm just using the power amp of the Quilter with the Battalion as the preamp section. The Quilter just using the power section is very clean even at almost full volume but it only has 50 watts. It's not loud enough live. Live I use the same setup with an Ampeg RB210 combo and the Epifani. I like the tone better with the practice setup but it is still very nice with the live setup. The Epifani cab has a beautiful round tone. Live the two 10s and the 12 with the RB210 at 500 watts cuts through the mix very nicely.

 

[Killing Floor]

Right now it’s my P with nicely seated TI JF into a Sex Drive into a TT800. The SD is a boost with a very mild compression. It pushes the preamp nicely.

Ask me tomorrow and we’ll see.

 

[Moving Pictures]

When going direct:
Jazz or Precision into a TU-3 tuner, Keeley Compressor Pro, Xotic RC Booster, VT Bass DI.

Using an amp:
Jazz or Precision into a TU-3 tuner, Keeley Compressor or EBS MultiComp, ToneHammer 500 head, Bergantino CN212 cab.

 

[tvbop]

Squire P bass. Light touch on very old dead chromes, no pedals. Sounds dry and punchy whatever rig I play into with the bass knob dialed back a smidge and the mid knob pushed a bit.

 

[Geri O]

Mike Lull Jazz-style bass, Lindy Fralin Singles, East J Retro preamp. Both pups 100%, tone flat. Into a REDDI DI. Straight to amp, mixer, or DAW.

D’addario NYXLs.

Perfect for me every time.

 

[Nedmundo]

When I frequently played through my own rig, G-K MB-500 into a Neo112, I cut the amp's treble and high mids to 9:00, and adjusted boost to taste. The cab's tweeter was barely on, maybe 20%. I started with these settings whether it was an old-school passive Jazz or my M-2500. It always sounded great. But in my last band rigs were usually supplied, and in my current band the rig is always supplied, so I've only used my G-K rig twice in the past 6-7 years.

The common thread across my basses is favoring the neck pickup and adjusting the treble to preserve just a touch of "zing," whether it's one of my J-basses, my G&L M-2500, or my G&L SB-2 (on which I rarely use the bridge pickup at all). I'm usually using a pick, so on my M-2500, this means the treble is barely above zero, while on my G&L JB with Lace Man o' War pickups, the treble is almost up full. On stage I usually set and forget, but I sometimes adjust when there's a wide range of material (as with musical theater).

I'm always using rounds, usually nickel plated except for DR Fat Beams.

 

[alembicbones]

When it comes to my 2 pickup active basses, I tend to blend 70% bridge/30% neck pickup. Then with a 3 band EQ, I boost the bass and mids a bit, and dial back the treble slightly.

Bones

 

[CletusMarley]

I'm playing a Jazz bass 90% of the time. Neck pickup 100%. Bridge pickup about 25 ish %.

Either DR Pure Blues of EB Cobalt rounds.

 

[musicman556]

Japenese Fender Jazz (Aerodyne, Elemental, or Jino) wearing the Rotosound Billy Sheehan string set > a little compression and a little low and low-mid boost, usually from my Transit B preamp pedal > our church's killer PA, run by our super awesome audio engineer. Epic goodness.

I have a full Mesa Subway stack, as well as a Legacy 800, TH500, and 2x GK Neo 112ii cabs. None of that holds a candle to our church's PA. Our engineer is also a bass junkie. He cranks me up WAY more than I ever would, and I'm not mad about it.

 

[Thumpin6string]

My self-built 6 string through a Broughton HPF/LPF into a Markbass Compressore into one of my 2 heads into my Epifani UL210 UL112 stack.

 

[semiprohooker]

P w/flats: V:10 T:5-7
P w/rounds: V:10 T:4-6
Passive J: NV:10 BV:10 T:7-8
Active J: V:10 Blend: Center Treble:-1 or 2 Mid: 3-4 Mid frequency: hard to tell but 150hz-450hz Bass: 0-1
Active 5 w/ Bart soapbars: everything centered V:10
Active 5 w/ Split and humbucker and Sadowsky preamp: V:10 BLEND: Center VTC:3-5 TREBLE:4-6 BASS: 3-5

Into a Kemper.

 

[5StringBlues]

62 re issue jazz bass, all knobs full up. Amp set to true flat as possible. Nickel strings. all tone changes done with right hand positioning and palm muting.

 

[5aP]

When at home, most of time - unplugged. I'm free to move around a house and sound is always the same. And when I find a sweet spot for standing or sitting (something like a dog ) in that moment, that's where I'll play.
Depending of spot, I then either practice, or compose. Or just doodle...

 

[themickster]

This is mine:

Jazz bass with D'Addario chrome flats, neck pickup full, bridge pickup 8/10, tone 7/10.
EHX Battalion DI with a little bit of compression, small bass cut, small low mid boost, flat high mid and treble.
Into the return jack on Quilter 101R Mini guitar amp.
Into an Epifani ULII 1x12,cab.

This is awesome for practicing at home and practicing with the band. I'm just using the power amp of the Quilter with the Battalion as the preamp section. The Quilter just using the power section is very clean even at almost full volume but it only has 50 watts. It's not loud enough live. Live I use the same setup with an Ampeg RB210 combo and the Epifani. I like the tone better with the practice setup but it is still very nice with the live setup. The Epifani cab has a beautiful round tone. Live the two 10s and the 12 with the RB210 at 500 watts cuts through the mix very nicely.

The sweet spot changes from room to room, and I set EQ like this: Put all the tone knobs to halfway. Twist the lefthand knob to 0. Twist it towards 10, whilst playing through the amp. Stop twisting when you can hear a difference. Do the same for the other knobs.

 

[Jogobass]

My new Gary Willis bass, with rounds that are not new, sounds good through any amp.

 

[_Tay_]

Mike Lull Jazz-style bass, Lindy Fralin Singles, East J Retro preamp. Both pups 100%, tone flat. Into a REDDI DI. Straight to amp, mixer, or DAW.

D’addario NYXLs.

Perfect for me every time.

Not far off my set up. I use a Fender Jag w Status graph neck, Lindy Fralin +5% P and Fralin jazz, East J retro preamp, Tone flat balance slightly favouring p pickup. Into a RNDI.

D'addario NYXLs for me too! Great strings

 

[ga_edwards]

At the moment, my main squeeze is my G&L JB2 Tribute, strung with fender 7250 nickel plated 45-105 strings. Most of the time I use neck on full, bridge slightly rolled just enough to get that P bass type bloom, but more refined. Tone control varies depending on the song, but I have more treble than generally needed in my amp sim, and control it with the bass tone control. For a few songs that need "that" sound, I run both pickups on full, or for a stingray-type "burp", I turn the bridge up full, back up the neck and turn the tone down to about half.

I don't use an amp any more. Just a Helix LT and a headrush frfr as monitor and I go direct to PA. I use the SVT4Pro model in pretty much every patch for consistency, dialled in with the bass up to around 8 and the mids up to 6.5 at 3hz, treble at 5. Slight tweaks to the graphic eq to refine and the ultra hi/lo and bright are turned off. You'd think it would sound scooped but it doesn't. Just the right amount of midrange that sits in the mix beautifully. I use a crossover split at 200hz at the start of every patch, even if I don't have anything in either path, it just seems to affect the tone the right way, but generally, drives sit in the top part of the signal for clean lows. Always into the Rochester comp on average settings, into the SVT4Pro sim into LA comp for final polish and into an EQ block (I prefer this to cab blocks). EQ is mainly set to highpass at 53hz and low pass at 4.5khz, this protects my speakers and brings the signal into typical bass cab territory.

XLR out to FOH - mic level, volume knob and global eq bypassed
1/4" out to onstage speaker - controlled by helix volume knob and global eq set to tame environmental acoustics.

We've recently acquired an EV subwoofer for our PA (currently 2x Yamaha DXR12) and the Xvive U4 IEM to replace our crappy cheap system that doesn't handle a full mix. So the plan is to eventually ditch the backline and go FOH and IEM only.

This comment is much more detailed than I initially planned, but it might be useful to someone.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

I twist the twisty knobs on the amp. If that doesn't satisfy me, I twist the twisty knobs on the bass. If I'm still grumpy I kick thinks on the pedalboard.
Eventually my 56 year old deaf ears stop complaining.

 

[scott sinner]

Bass I have a few basses but they are all rather on the modern full frequency side, Warwicks and a Maruszczyk. I usually play them with the tone at about 75%, so I can have a little bright boost at the ready. And I set the rest so that the middle of the pickups is 'home base.'

Strings depends on the bass, but mostly DR LoRiders. Nickle and Steel depending on what I want to push.

Pedals I don't have any always on that do anything most of the time. I have a Spectracomp set as a limiter but that is set with a threshold so high, it is only engaging when I am hitting full fff and have some effects on.

Amp GK Legacy 500. Tone controls are almost all noon. Bump, contour, and presence off.

Cab Hartke HD 1x15 and 2x10. I can roll with just the 1x15 though, that's mostly all I've used in recording.

 

[el murdoque]

Without getting too complex:
Le Fay 6 string (Jazz setup) with well worn Optima flats, Bridge 8/10, tone and Neck 10/10.
The 4 always on pedals:
-Cali76 Compact Bass
-Broughton RFE
-Strymon BigSky
-Noble

Exiting the Noble my signal is ready for whatever. I can play it into my barefaced cabinets by plugging into the FX return of the amp, or I can send my DI to the board. The signal is low passed, high passed and compressed and sounds well through most FOH systems right out of the box.