Bass Tones

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Kingofpain678

Kingofpain678

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There are two bass tones I would like to achieve. One is a growling bass tone... Not necessarily distorted or over driven, but just growling.
The second would be an overdriven bass tone.

I suppose I'm just looking for some general knowledge/tips/tricks/techniques... Anything really. I did some research and all I came up with were other forums with people raving about ampeg SVT-Pro bass amps.

But the different basses, bass amps, and equipment and such used and some elaboration on those pieces would be great. Any kind of bass tone primer or anything like that... :)

Thanks in advance for anyone willing to reply - KoP
 
growl= PJ bass set

i've got a schecter model T with some PJ's in it, and holy hell that thing growled like crazy. nice mid range growly sound, and hell, even a jazz bass or anything with two J pickups can growl on that low E when you play it hard.

for overdrive bass sound, lately i've fallen in love with a nice SD-1 in front of my G&L L2000..i put on the neck humbucker and turn the tone allll the way down, put the level on the SD1 to 12:00, tone to like 1:00, and gain anywhere between 9:00 and 3:00 and that's such a sick honky distorted tone!
 
Kingofpain678 said:
There are two bass tones I would like to achieve. One is a growling bass tone... Not necessarily distorted or over driven, but just growling.
The second would be an overdriven bass tone.

I suppose I'm just looking for some general knowledge/tips/tricks/techniques... Anything really. I did some research and all I came up with were other forums with people raving about ampeg SVT-Pro bass amps.

But the different basses, bass amps, and equipment and such used and some elaboration on those pieces would be great. Any kind of bass tone primer or anything like that... :)

Thanks in advance for anyone willing to reply - KoP
Click to expand...

for live or recording?
 
ZoSo58LP said:
growl= PJ bass set

i've got a schecter model T with some PJ's in it, and holy hell that thing growled like crazy. nice mid range growly sound, and hell, even a jazz bass or anything with two J pickups can growl on that low E when you play it hard.

for overdrive bass sound, lately i've fallen in love with a nice SD-1 in front of my G&L L2000..i put on the neck humbucker and turn the tone allll the way down, put the level on the SD1 to 12:00, tone to like 1:00, and gain anywhere between 9:00 and 3:00 and that's such a sick honky distorted tone!
Click to expand...

PJ Bass set? Are those pickups?

:confused:
 
Kingofpain678 said:
Recording.
Click to expand...

Copy your DI track, and on the second track high pass anywhere from 200k to 800k (adjust to taste) and low pass around 2000k. Add a distortion plug in, or run it through a guitar amp sim, then blend that in to taste with the original track. Depending on the type of distortion you're putting on that grit track, you might want to add some additional compression so it sits better, but again that's something to do once you see how it sits in the mix.
 
Russtopher said:
Depending on the type of distortion you're putting on that grit track, you might want to add some additional compression so it sits better, but again that's something to do once you see how it sits in the mix.
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Depending on the type of distortion, you might not NEED compression, since it's naturally compressing the signal. In fact, I usually leave the distorted track relatively uncompressed, and instead compress the clean one.

Barring that I do this in real time by capturing a direct and a distorted out from the same preamp, this is how I record bass. And even printing the distorted track to disk, this gives you a LOT of flexibility to shape your bass tone in the mix.

Here's the bass clips, just bass and drums, recorded with identical preamp settings. One man's growl is another man's fizzy and a third's muddy so god only knows if you'll like either, but by varying the relative mix and eQ of each track it leaves you a lot of room. Excuse the less-than-stellar bass playing. :D

Cleaner, darker clip

brighter, more distorted clip

Both of these are just barely mixed, I'm still tracking. :lol:
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
Depending on the type of distortion, you might not NEED compression, since it's naturally compressing the signal. In fact, I usually leave the distorted track relatively uncompressed, and instead compress the clean one.
Click to expand...

Very true, that's why I recommended checking it in the mix first :) Depending on the style of music, I sometimes will compress the grit track a bit to even it out if it's more of an overdrive than distortion. If it's going through a hi-gain ampsim, then no compression.

I really like your second example, it has a real nice Doug Pinnick feel to the tone.
 
Russtopher said:
Very true, that's why I recommended checking it in the mix first :) Depending on the style of music, I sometimes will compress the grit track a bit to even it out if it's more of an overdrive than distortion. If it's going through a hi-gain ampsim, then no compression.

I really like your second example, it has a real nice Doug Pinnick feel to the tone.
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I do too - I think the first one stands up better in isolation, and considering there isn't much rhythm guitar (well, anything that sounds like it - a lot of heavily processed reversed, faded in/faded out guitar harmony for a synth like effect) will probably work better mixed in that general direction in that particular tune, but the grit of the second one really seems to fill a hole nicely in my rhythm guitar tone and combines to a pretty big guitar sound, so under distorted guitars thats closer to what I'm after.
 
Anyone try the sansamp tech 21? I've run that into my hartke and DI into my interface and you can do whatever you want with that baby. There's a drive control on the pedal and if you have a bass where you can dial in a heavy high and mid tone, then you don't need a grit track. Never tried it straight to the interface though. Probably should and see what I get.
 
ZionBound said:
Anyone try the sansamp tech 21? I've run that into my hartke and DI into my interface and you can do whatever you want with that baby. There's a drive control on the pedal and if you have a bass where you can dial in a heavy high and mid tone, then you don't need a grit track. Never tried it straight to the interface though. Probably should and see what I get.
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I've tried one straight to interface and came up with an alright tone. I'm wishing I had that pedal back but only out of desperation.
Check out ampeg svx ;)
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
Depending on the type of distortion, you might not NEED compression, since it's naturally compressing the signal. In fact, I usually leave the distorted track relatively uncompressed, and instead compress the clean one.

Barring that I do this in real time by capturing a direct and a distorted out from the same preamp, this is how I record bass. And even printing the distorted track to disk, this gives you a LOT of flexibility to shape your bass tone in the mix.

Here's the bass clips, just bass and drums, recorded with identical preamp settings. One man's growl is another man's fizzy and a third's muddy so god only knows if you'll like either, but by varying the relative mix and eQ of each track it leaves you a lot of room. Excuse the less-than-stellar bass playing. :D

Cleaner, darker clip

brighter, more distorted clip

Both of these are just barely mixed, I'm still tracking. :lol:
Click to expand...

I liked the "afterimages" bass tone better than the other... Just IMO.
 
Have you though about your bass tone overall? I'm not trying to sound sarcastic or anything like that but my first bass was a Dean double soap bar 4 string. I tried everything to make that bass sound good whether it was pedals, different amps, or even different strings. I finally came to the conclusion that the electronics of the pickups were way less than par. This happened after playing my first MTD. Check that and see if another bass would fit your tone better. You wouldn't wear a parka in July (unless you lived in Siberia) so why play a bass that doesn't fit your season. Just a thought.
 
yes, I had considered that.
But, as I mentioned in a previous thread, for now I have to work with what I have.
 
What makes a musician SO strong is having to grind things out. Again this is all up for debate but I'm just giving my piece. Had I not spent so much time with that original bass I never would have appreciated what I have now. I believe trial and error is the mother of invention.
 
ZionBound said:
Anyone try the sansamp tech 21? I've run that into my hartke and DI into my interface and you can do whatever you want with that baby. There's a drive control on the pedal and if you have a bass where you can dial in a heavy high and mid tone, then you don't need a grit track. Never tried it straight to the interface though. Probably should and see what I get.
Click to expand...

Which Sansamp, though? :laughings: I'm a bit of a Sansamp fan, at least for certain applications - I have a Trademark-30 practice amp that fucking owns, considering its diminuative size and 18-pound weight, and the clips in this thread were recorded with a Sansamp RPM preamp.

KingofPain - I do too, FWIW. However, it's worth noting that the two clips used the exact same preamp settings - all I did was vary the relative blend of the distorted track to the DI, and EQ them a bit differently. It's a pretty effective approach.
 
I'm not big into amp sim plug ins EXCEPT for the Ampeg SVT one.
It does the job like majic.
 
Thats the sansamp pedal that I was talking about the VT Tech 21. Mean machine if I do say so myself.
 
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