Tone settings

[anonpersona]

Does anyone know the right settings on the (passive) bass and amp knobs to get different sounds for different music?

 

[shinobi]

yeah

amp - treble controls the treble, middle for mids and bass for bass. everything in between controls the frequencies in between

it doesn't make sense to cut or boost all at the same time. what you are doing then is increasing the gain, which can be done on the 'volume' knob, or sometimes found as pre/post gain knobs

for a bass it depends on the bass. a mark hoppus bass only has 1 knob because obviously tone is not his main concern

usually there are pickup volume, pickup balance and tone. tone is the high frequency cutoff. for pickups, the pickups near the bridge will have more prominent mids and trebles, while pickups near the neck will have more prominent fundamental note and bass.

 

[anonpersona]

Thankd bro, some more questions.

On the amp, there are usually standard knobs like Low, mid-low, mid-high and High. Do you know how much of each to dial for the following sounds?

- Deep growl
- Punchy
- Twangy pick sound

Also, what's the difference between Gain and Volume?

 

[infinitemellon]

I am no expert in toning the amp but I'll try giving you some suggestions though...

For low growl - cut the bass, increase the treble and then increase the high mids
Punchy - a bit of bass and increase the low mids. the treble and high mids keep it at more or less neutral position
Twangy - no idea on this man

Hope this helps

 

[rylche]

I think a low growl would be more suited for 250hz type of boost, which is your typical low-mids. Don't cut anything, boost a little bit of bass and boost the region around 250hz ( this value could change based upon the unique tonal characteristics of your bass, so do experiment ). Treble, you can leave it flat. I get a good growl going on with this settings with my P-Bass and DR Hi-beams.

For punch, rolling off the tone knob about 75% on my P with bass and treble boost helps alot. Contrary to what others have told me, I found out that a slight tinge of treble helps bring out the definition in the 'punch'.

Twangy, I would use a pick, with treble slightly boosted and mids cranked a little higher. Bass, I would keep it flat. I usually use this settings along with a graceful addition of overdrive on my P to keep the low end clanking and cranking along.

All this purely IMO, on-my-amp,with-my-fingers,on-my-bass and listened-with-my-ears.

 

[DarkRed]

I think the pickup blend plays a big part too. In general, panning to the the bridge pickup would give the tone more bite. For passive basses / basses that have multiple volume controls, more bridge pickup volume relative to the neck pickup volume would give similar results.

Also, the same knob on different amps would alter the tone in different ways. The mid control on one amp may be, say 250Hz, while the mid knob on a different model amp might be 400Hz. And its not just the frequency, but a bunch of other ways each control shapes the sound.

Bottom line is to let your ears guide you And if you've found your holy grail of tone.. hope you will be able to bring your rig around with you or request for *that* preamp with *that* setting.