bass tone

[cheyen]

HI All,

Please help advise on any effects/pedal/whatever that i could use to help bring my basstone wherever I go,....
seems like each and every gig i have gives me a diff basstone depending on the cab and the amp of the club.

any ideas,. ? EQ ? hartke tone shaper?

thanks a mill!

[bearclaw]

hmm depends on if your bass is active or passive. for passive basses, i seem to find the hartke bass attack a great help, for active basses, i found that a bass eq works better

[shinobi]

you need to understand what makes your tone. when you play live there are 2 considerations: achieving your desired tone, and getting the right mix. for the latter, how you will sound also depends on how your band mates will sound. the audience doesn't hear each sound source individually, they only hear the final result, the mix.

as far as your rig is concerned, it is the combination of preamp + power amp + cab. any and all of these factors will affect your tone.

the hartke bass attack is merely one of the many pedal preamps available. if you are using an amp, the preamp pedal will be in series with the preamp of the amp. even if you set the EQ of the amp to flat, the amp itself will still colour the tone. which means the effectiveness of your preamp pedal will vary depending on the amp you plug it into. that doesn't really help you.

so a preamp pedal into an amp will by no means make your tone consistent with every venue. however, it at least gives you an interface that you are familiar with. this may or may not help a great deal.

i have read many people saying that the cheaper stuff doesnt sound good when it is plugged into bigger rigs or used for recording. thats probably because bigger rigs lets you hear more of your 'true' tone. and you don't really want to hear more of the lower quality stuff. whatever can be considered as 'lower quality' is subjective.

if you go directly into the sound board, you can either consider yourself free from tone-affecting variables such as the power amp or cabs, or you can consider yourself completely at the mercy of the soundman. the PA is obviously more powerful than any rig. since bassists don't drive tube amps as often as guitarists do (some venues don't even use tube bass amps), they may prefer to go DI.

in short, it is just not possible to have the same tone everytime, unless you bring your entire rig to every gig. using a preamp+DI into the soundboard will be the next compromise.

[cheyen]

thanks for all your response,.

so a pre-amp is the near best solution for it?
:-)
im thinking of hartke bass attack, samsamp or the ebs microbass II but davis is out of stock,.

you guys know other shops that carry EBS ?

[Resetti]

i think only davis brings in EBS, but i may be wrong.

anyways, the hartke bass attack is pretty good. you can get a really good sound from it, and the best part is that it is not expensive!

[b33r]

the bass attack is serious bang for buck. i was very satisfied with mine.

[shinobi]

you could also take a look at the mxr m-80. pretty solid. ebenex and blackwood carry EBS but i dont know if they get their stock from davis or directly from the manufacturer

alternatively you could use an EQ pedal and a DI box. gives you alot more tone control because it has more bands of equalization. but preamp pedal gives you convenience.

many amp heads have a balanced out that you can connect to the soundboard as well. then you can have a solid amp+cab combi for practice, and you can use the head for your gigs.

[lordie]

whats up with all the spam the mod is sleeping?

btw i use the hartke bass attack as a outboard pre for my passive bass very happy with the result and i add a Zoom B2.u last in the chain. works well if i need to D.I as i got my fave "amp emulator tone programe into it" i got a bunch of presets. that works for different amp i usually encounter. which is Harke and more Hartke usually. once in a while got an Ampeq combo, or a peavey, etc...

if hartke 3500a or 5500a i use preset 1, if hartke LH-500 preset 2, if ampeq 3, if peavey 4 and so on and so forth sometimes DI out to FOH but use the amp on stage as monitoring speakers. i never attempt to achieve consistency tone, the amp color it too much and too much variable in the board to fiddle with, but i manage to get the tone i like without spending time getting frustrated during sound check. it takes time to dial in the sort of tone u like to come out from the amp, but once u got it. its a breeze all the way thru.

unless you want to drag your amp head + cab for gigs. the above sort help me save time.

[SicBarney]

Ah-hah! Just the thread I was looking for.

Guys, I need help badly. My bass is lacking tone.

A sound engineer once said that my bass has seriously no tone, while another person who does multi-track recording said my bass is "sumbang", or "nose-blocked" like how you sound when you have a cold and your nose is blocked LOL.

Anyway, could it be the strings, or the pickups? I'm using a Dean Zone bass, and the stock strings that came with it are pathetic, though I have yet to change 'em. As for the pups, I dunno. Tone knob fully turned on on my bass, yet still sounds... Erm... "Sumbang".

Anyone care to help me? I'm in dire need of help! If the problem lies in both the strings and pickups, well let's just hope my NSF Corporal pay is enough to make my bass sing.

[b33r]

1. new strings. definitely.
2. EQ. are you boosting the lows too much? got any mids to cut through?
3. pickups could be muddy. in that case, forget replacing them and get a new bass.