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When being a tonaholic becomes a problem

yamaha

yamaha

Apr 7, 2006
1,264
14
57
Montreal
#1
In a quest for the perfect tone (for me), as I'm sure many of you also are.

I've bought, sold, exchanged, rented many amps and cabs in this quest.

I was almost there, with last month's purchase of a Mesa Mpulse. Sounded great with my Bergs (Ae210 and HS410), and my SRW Goliath sr (6x10), but with my SWR 8x10 Megoliath, it was way too dark and boomy. Still love it and kept it, as it sounds very good with all the other cabs.

I was into pre-power rack setups a few years back, and the tone was always good, sometimes great, even amazing, but the weight of those Crown Microtechs and Crest CA6's were just too much for me. Enter the LMII and GB Shuttle 6.0. Tones very easy to live with, but not amazing. Considering I could fit both in my back pack, transport and weight made up for lack of the perfect tone.

2 weeks ago, a QCS PLX2 in the classifieds. 3 days ago, an ampeg SVPCL. Wow, finally tone heaven. Not quite an all tube head, but I am absolutely not gassing for any amp right now. I just LOVE it.

Tests at home with my Bergs were very pleasant. Test with band 1 with the SWR Goliath sr (6x10) was just as good. Got a few compliments on my tone from the band.

Test number 2 with my loud hard rock band tonight, with the SWR 8x10. Perfect, sweet, amazing tone. But, I think I was the only one in absolute love with my tone. The guys barely noticed I had another amp. And just to make things even more crazy, they didn't always notice when I changed from a Jazz to a P bass. I know this tone quest is for me, and me only. No one in the audience will even notice a difference between a good, great, or amazing bass tone. Not many sound engineers will either. Maybe just a few musicians. Anyway, it just hit me today that this is really for me, and only me.
 
#5
gregoire1 said:
Dont expect a guitar player to understand.
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haha, that reminds me of my show saturday night. during sound check i was dialing in my mids to the room. it was the first time we played this joint, and as i was messing with the e.q. my one guitarist looks at me and says, "ew. that sounds like crap!"

i go, "well, i don't have it in quite perfect, but give me a minute."

so i finish twiddling with the knobs, start playing a little, nod my head and go "there it is."

"it still sounds like crap. play a low c again. yea. that's the brown note, dude. it makes me wanna poop my pants."

now, i run a sansamp into a fender rumble 100 with a single 15. i use the sansamp to get the basic color of my tone, and the e.q. on the rumble to dial in the room. i play a spector euro 4lx-35 tuned drop c. this venue used to be a pretty popular place in this town. it had alot of local bands, and alot of national acts come through. breaking ben, saliva, static-x. you know, national acts. well, the sound guy that night has run sound there forever.

after the show, the sound man comes up to me, and says, "i really liked your bass tone. it was real thick and full. all i did was compress a little and didn't touch the e.q."

i look at my guitard, smile, and say, "yup! sounds like crap!"

then i laughed and walked away.


point of the story is that usually guitarists are the last people to take their word for bass tone. it's all about what fills the sound of your band out and what you like best. i've really gotten into boosting low mids lately, and i think that's why my guitarist hated it. but, the soundguy loved it. i could feel it onstage through the FOH subs all night. best feeling ever.

sorry for the slight hijack of the thread.
 
#6
My band's guitar player thinks my tone is "trashy" unless I scoop all of the mids out. And I mean all. His idea of good bass tone is sub-lows and some high end.

As far as finding a tone you like...well, of course it's for you! Playing music should be entirely self-satisfying - if you're not having any fun, why do it at all? I know that when I do some equipment upgrades in the future, nobody in my band is really going to notice.

And you know what? I could care less. I tell my drummer that I love his vintage Ludwig drum set, but to be completely honest, it sounds like any other drum set I've ever heard. It is pretty good looking, though. Same for the guitar player's gear - it's just a guitar to me, and most of the time it's too damn loud.
 
#7
Ever listen to your rig played by someone else in a band setting? I had the chance recently - of course the bassist had a different bass, a different touch, so the source sounded different. He also had a bunch of different pedals, and fidgeted endlessly with his bass controls.

I could detect no noticeable difference in his (and my rigs) tone in the full band setting regardless of buttons pushed and controls turned.

But, the basic tone of my rig, I liked.

Next day, gave up on my pedal experiments. If I have a hard time noticing in the audience, it doesn't matter. BTW, I find it VERY obvious when I'm the one playing.

js
 
#9
Hmm, I'm often conflicted in my feelings about tone. On one hand most listeners will not be able to discern or even care about minor changes in tone. On the other hand, Tone is our voice... equivalent to the quality of a singer's timbre. A truly superb tone really does add that sparkle to the musical message, just as an amazing singer's voice can communicate so much.

I guess the pursuit of tone only becomes problematic when there is a lack of substance to sing about.

Ha, I've switched back to flats and tubes... not much nitpicking about tone anymore!
 
#10
I hate this nonsense about "the crowd can't tell." Yes they can. If they couldn't, we'd all play First Act basses and Behringer amps. They can't tell the difference between an SVT and a Shuttle, but they know when it's not right. Musicians should stop selling their audiences short. Yeah, the subtleties of your rig only matters to you, but it's all part of building a good mix for the crowd, and it's much easier to do it with stuff you like than stuff you don't.
 
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#11
I lived happily with my previous rig (Eden WT-600, Ashdown 4x10/Eden 1x18) for years, until I for some reason wanted to upgrade last year. It's been quite painful, as I really don't enjoy checking out new gear, I prefer to just plug and play.

However, I think I'm there again. Now I just need to sell some of the stuff that didn't suit me. ;)
 
#12
JimmyM said:
I hate this nonsense about "the crowd can't tell." Yes they can. If they couldn't, we'd all play First Act basses and Behringer amps. They can't tell the difference between an SVT and a Shuttle, but they know when it's not right. Musicians should stop selling their audiences short. Yeah, the subtleties of your rig only matters to you, but it's all part of building a good mix for the crowd, and it's much easier to do it with stuff you like than stuff you don't.
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I have to agree with this.
 
#13
One time my main bass was in the shop, so I had to bring my first bass, a Peavey P-copy to rehearsal instead. My amp was EQed for my main bass (a 70's Ibanez Rick copy at the time, whose previous owner had swapped in actual Ric pickups), not this one. The Peavey doesn't have that great a sound to start with, and so sounded like complete mud the entire time.

The guitarist and drummer were both very happy the next time, when I brought my main bass.

A while later, I again had to use my first bass, and you should have seen the look of absolute disgust on the drummer's face when I pulled the Peavey out of its case. He looked like he had just stepped in a dog turd or something (This isn't a dig on all Peavey instruments, as I have played some higher end Peaveys that were fantastic instruments, but I've never been satisfied with mine's pickup and plugged in sound). So yes, some guitards and drummers can tell.

Though not all can. Despite the fact that my band's (currently only, but at the time rhythm and riff-writing) guitarist loves my regular tone (I learned this after the first aforementioned substitution), the lead guitarist who was in the band at the time hated it. He called it "farty." While it is most assuredly NOT "farty," it is incredibly growly and clanky (though I do have plenty of bottom end, too, my sound is pretty massive for the relatively small size of my rig). I guess since he's used to listening to bands whose bassists use very clean, mellow tone that blends in, going to rehearsal to be blasted by very aggressive, in your face bass was a bit strange to him.

Not why he left the band, though. While he could shred at soloing, he couldn't play many of the riffs the rhythm guitarist wrote very well (I admit, I can't play some of them on guitar, he writes very difficult riffs a lot of times; the chords are often quite awkward and uncomfortable, and not that intuitive), and I think that made him feel a little inadequate.

Now the drummer really loves my sound because it has enough bite to always cut through, even when we had two guitarists who both liked lots of heavy distortion. I'm sure he doesn't pay much attention to how I get it, but he does like it.

As for audience members... well, if they even notice what I'm playing (in a positive way, of course), I count that as success. The audience might not be versed in all the subtleties of tone, but I'm sure that if my sound was complete mud, that would have an adverse effect on their perception of my band's performance. Some of them might not know exactly how to describe what's wrong, but they'd know that something was. If, on the other hand, my rig's set up in a way that gives my notes a lot of definition and helps my band's sound, they'll probably enjoy our set a lot more.
 
#14
JimmyM said:
I hate this nonsense about "the crowd can't tell." Yes they can. If they couldn't, we'd all play First Act basses and Behringer amps. They can't tell the difference between an SVT and a Shuttle, but they know when it's not right. Musicians should stop selling their audiences short. Yeah, the subtleties of your rig only matters to you, but it's all part of building a good mix for the crowd, and it's much easier to do it with stuff you like than stuff you don't.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more.
 
#15
smogg said:
The only people who notice the subtleties of bass tone are bass players and the occasional drummer. To the rest of the world it's just "bass".
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A bigger issue here, to me at least, is just how much does "tone" matter in the context of a live situation? I have said many times that what you hear when playing in a store or playing alone at home is VERY different than what a bass sounds like in the mix.

I think the obsession with perfect tone is just silly unless you are doing recordings like Victor Wooten. If folks spent as much time working on their playing rather than their "tone" (which is a nice way of saying "equipment") then we'd have more great bassists in the world.
 
#18
I agree with JimmyM on the whole "the audience can't tell thing." Of course, I also agree with the people who say they can't in the first place. The thing is I think the audience "can" or "can't" tell is just too simplistic to say what people really mean. In other words, I don't think most people who say the audience can't tell actually mean they would not be able to tell a difference between First Act and Behringer gear and quality gear like Fender, Ampeg, etc. I think they mean (like Jimmy says, essentually) that once you get into the realm of good tone, they're likely not gonna notice the nuances that change from Ampeg to Genz to GK to Mesa... Now even that's not a fully accurate way to say it, though, as they'd probably be able to tell doing side-by-side comparisons. But if I'm playing a Fender Jazz into an Ampeg SVT and a fridge and I switch over to Markbass LMII and Berg NV610, most causal listeners/fans aren't going to notice the change much apart from the fact that different gear is sitting on stage. At the very least, no one's likely to come up to you and say, "hey man, I saw you guys play a couple months ago, and I just wanted to say that the change in your tone with that new gear just really doesn't do it for me." In that context, no, the audience (in general) probably can't tell a difference. But if your tone is just plain bad or isn't jiving with the mix, yeah, they're gonna know... They do like/listen to music, after all, right?

Brian

P.S. I'd also like to say that I don't care if they notice or not. I don't care if other musicians notice or not. I don't care if my band notices or not. There's just something about when I hear my tone that I like with my own ears... More enjoyable than any compliments from other people about them liking my tone/playing, however much those may mean also.
 
#19
JimmyM said:
I hate this nonsense about "the crowd can't tell." Yes they can. If they couldn't, we'd all play First Act basses and Behringer amps. They can't tell the difference between an SVT and a Shuttle, but they know when it's not right. Musicians should stop selling their audiences short. Yeah, the subtleties of your rig only matters to you, but it's all part of building a good mix for the crowd, and it's much easier to do it with stuff you like than stuff you don't.
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+1000!

i think that many of us (at least i do) not only sound, but play ALOT better when we're happy and that definitely HAS to show. i mentioned in an earlier post that at one gig, a couple of chicks that were dancing in front of me ,were playing "air Bass" and were saying "i love your bass' sound!".
 
#20
JimmyM said:
I hate this nonsense about "the crowd can't tell." Yes they can. If they couldn't, we'd all play First Act basses and Behringer amps. They can't tell the difference between an SVT and a Shuttle, but they know when it's not right. Musicians should stop selling their audiences short. Yeah, the subtleties of your rig only matters to you, but it's all part of building a good mix for the crowd, and it's much easier to do it with stuff you like than stuff you don't.
Click to expand...

I couldn't have said this better myself! Well, I could, but I would have really had to think about it! :)

Paul
 

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