The search for THE tone.

[bassmonkey]

I've been thinking a lot about tone recently. Mainly because since returning from Dallas I have been woodshedding like a mad man, spending lots of time playing and listening to bass. It seems to me from reading these boards that most people are never 100% happy with the tone they get from their bass.

Sure, most MM owners are content with the tone, but they always seem to be looking for something different. Where does this come from? What exactly are people looking for that they do not have yet?

This 20th SR5 really got me thinking, when Dargin said that although it looks fantastic, plugging it in shows its true beauty(okay, he didn't say exactly that, but it was along those lines). How so? The MM line of basses are already pretty amazing, what extra will this thing have over and above what is already available. How would you define the perfect tone(other than saying "The one I hear in my head")?

Perhaps this should have been 2 threads.

 

[strummer]

How would you define the perfect tone(other than saying "The one I hear in my head")?

Imho the quest for perfect tone is what has helped the bass evolve so tremedously over the years. And as basses, amps, strings and technique continue to evolve the "perfect tone" does so also. What I mean is that noone will ever find the perfect tone, but your tone today (or mine for that matter) actually WAS the perfect tone for us back when we could't get it. Now that we can we move the goal if you will forward, happily forgetting (or ignoring) the certainity that we'll never reach the goal.

I have been very happy with my tone since pairing a dual H Bongo 5 with my current amp and boxes, so for the moment my search for the perfect tone is directed solely towards my lack of technique.

 

[bassmonkey]

I have been very happy with my tone since pairing a dual H Bongo 5 with my current amp and boxes, so for the moment my search for the perfect tone is directed solely towards my lack of technique.

Yes, but what is your perfect tone?

Also that last comment is very telling. I think a lot of players get this thing in their head that if they get a new bass, or amp or pedal then their technique will be better, their musical ideas more interesting, their grooves more groovy etc. I know I have fallen into that trap myself in the past. It is as though we are looking for a short cut bypassing diligent practice, time spent playing with others and listening and analysing the greats.

 

[Gary Raymond]

Having played guitar for 30+ years & then recently switching to bass, mostly because of older age & work has taken it's toll on my hands, I find most bass players are a lot more "hung up" on their tone than guitarists. Guitarists know what their Les Paul, or Strat or Axis or whatever guitar they choose to play will sound like naked through a Marshall, Mesa, Fender etc amp, & then add effects to tweek it ever so slightly. Most bass players I've played with in the past, just plug their bass directly into the amp & hope & pray they get what they are looking for.

I realize it's a lot more difficult to tweek the low end than the high end of a guitar. I always felt that as a guitar player, that as long as I could distinguish your bass from the kick drum, all was well, but it was never that way for the bass player, they were always changing basses, amps etc looking for the holy grail of bass tone. Me, I would just add/subtract a tad of chorus, reverb, flange etc from the Prophesy & there I was.

Now that I've switched to bass, I guess I still have the guitar tone mentality because I don't go nuts searching for the perfect bass tone.

 

[strummer]

Yes, but what is your perfect tone?

As I said, the tone I'm currently getting used to be my perfect tone, but now that i am there I have moved the goal just out of reach again. I can't describe it very well, but in one wort it'd be "solid".

Also that last comment is very telling. I think a lot of players get this thing in their head that if they get a new bass, or amp or pedal then their technique will be better, their musical ideas more interesting, their grooves more groovy etc. I know I have fallen into that trap myself in the past. It is as though we are looking for a short cut bypassing diligent practice, time spent playing with others and listening and analysing the greats.

Put it this way; in the past I have always been able to better my tone by getting better gear, and economy allowing i have done so. Doesn't mean I haven't worked on my technique, but with equipment change you get easily recognizable tone improvements, and I think that is why many of us are so obsessed with the equipment.

 

[DJBenzBass]

I've been thinking a lot about tone recently. Mainly because since returning from Dallas I have been woodshedding like a mad man, spending lots of time playing and listening to bass. It seems to me from reading these boards that most people are never 100% happy with the tone they get from their bass.....

As of right now, I would have to say I am between 93% and 97% thrilled with my new tone. I've had to change my way of thinking in my quest for the ultimate bass tone. I used to try all kinds of gear and was just never completely thrilled, but I really didn't know what I was looking for.

I realized that the tone I hear in my head comes from bass of the 70's, or whatever I grew up hearing. With that in mind, and thanks to MoonDog, I picked up the Ampeg SVP-CL preamp. That has an Ultra Low setting #4 "Ultra Low Classic - Contours the sound to emphasize the low end just like the original SVT". Pairing that with my new found SR5 HH is just outstanding. Vintage 70's + The Beef, Balls, and Clarity of the SR5 HH and I am more excited then ever to play.

That may be a little too specific, and many may not agree with the gear, but the concept of music we grew up on may give a key to "the tone in your head".

 

[NoFrets80]

8:30am reply... beware! haha

Coming from the double bass side of things, the search for the bass with the "perfect tone" is more about finding the instrument and/or amp combo that best gives you the sound that you hear in your head as "you". This sound comes from ingesting and digesting all the great players you like, picking and choosing aspects of their sounds/tones and attempting to replicate and combine those in your head/fingers to come up with that combination that is uniquely "you". It's definitely a lifelong process, but when you approach it as an individual search sort of thing, you think less about it in absolute terms, and more about it as an ever-evolving search. No one can ever say one tone is the perfect one... only that it's perfect for that particular person, given the assumption that person has spent lots of time experimenting and going inside themselves to find what they want to sound like.


...i think i just confused myself. haha.

 

[PocketGroove82]

I think the perfect tone is the one that suits a song/style best. Here are a few.
It's like hearing a Ampeg BabyBass on a salsa classic.
Or Matt Freeman's P-bass on old Rancid albums, or Jamerson's on Motown.
How bout Ray Brown or Mingus playing gut strings on bop.
Edgar Meyer's bow.
Marcus Miller's J-bass playing smooth or Gedy's playing Rush.
Even keyboard/synth bass on hiphop tracks.

Take a listen to any hit, and you're probably hearing a perfect tone...sitting perfectly in the mix.

 

[bassmonkey]

Take a listen to any hit, and you're probably hearing a perfect tone...sitting perfectly in the mix.

Good answer.

I personally am not a fan of the Jamerson tone. I love his lines, but the tone is a little too bassy for me. I like a little more edge. But, it worked for him.

 

[Psycho Ward]

Well, for me the reason I've seemed to have migrated to MM basses is the tone they produce straight out of the box with every thing set flat. A little turning of the knobs only adds icing on the cake. Several of my other basses require quite a bit of eq to get close to the tone in my head, and a few even need outboard help. On my two pickup Bongos I pretty much just adjust the pickup panning.

This is what works for me.

I've said this many times but, if I had bought a MM first I would own a lot fewer basses.

 

[nashman]

It's two things for me ... 1. wanting to get the best sound out of my current equipment 2. wondering what other equipment might be "better". This prompts some to constantly fiddle with their EQ and/or buy/trade gear searching for the Holy Grail. I'm not immune to any of this either and I don't think there is a final destination.

 

[mike not fat]

As pocketgroove stated, there can be perfect tones, depending on what kinf of music you play.

In this way, the perfect tone can be the one that everyone will expect in a kind of music (fat and round for jazz, fat und punchy for funk, clear and dry for pick playing...). But you can also be happy with a sound that is exactely the opposite of what people expected (I use a pick in a jazz tune, and the sound it gives is really interesting).
So the perfect sound is the one that will fit in the song, depending on a subjective factor : what your ears want it to be.

But, for me, what is comon to all those different music styles is that I want to be heard, without covering the others.

So (for me) the quest for the perfect tone means finding the appropriate bass/high/mids...levels, to :
- get the sound fitting in the song style (depending on what I expect)
- be heard in the mix/audience.

I think that the main goal of the evolution of basses, amps, cabs... is to allows us to get this result even in poor acoustic conditions, rather than to get one precise tone that would be defined as perfect.

MNF

 

[Big Poppa]

Bassmonkey asks ann age old question...bassmonkee gives a chops oriented answer

I think that you play around your tone. Great players can make anything sound great crappy players can make the best sound crappy....just not as crappy as a bad bassist with a bad bass..its still an improvement.

How important is tone...how important is taste in food? Why can one chef make a simple pasta sauce that is beyond belief and the next using the same ingredients make one that is like swallowing brussel sprouts whole? TOne is the integral ingredient that inspires performance coupled with a command or at least a knowledge of what you can do with the instrument.

In Dallas I hated my marshall amp and hated how far away from the drummer I was....My playing suffered as a result. My best gigs have been in rooms too small with too many prople with a stage that is tight.

I go to every gig not knowing what bass or guitar they will have for me. Sometimes the silo works sometimes the axis is magic. Same with basses except thet the Sterling and Bongo single H have never let me down.

Bassmonkey...remember that I told you in Dallas that the Anniversary 5er would be the one? Ii know that Bassmonkee remembers.....

 

[bassmonkey]

Bassmonkey...remember that I told you in Dallas that the Anniversary 5er would be the one? Ii know that Bassmonkee remembers.....

You did. You also said the single H Bongo would be good for me too. I have a date with DaveB in the New year to try the various configurations out. I'm looking forward to proving you right.

 

[drgroovenstein]

Grass is always greener......

 

[Slim]

Coming from 6 string guitar playing I also searched for the perfect tone many many years and now days I feel that I found the perfect tone for my guitar playing. It comes from my 1996 Fender Stratocaster Relic model with Seymore Duncan Antiquity pickups. Since I was young I had many Stratocasters, Les Pauls and other brands including 50's vintage Strats and Les Pauls but I found in newer guitar I purchased four years ago on eBay. I can get perfect tone from any amps I own from this guitar and I own nice vintage Fender and Mesa amps. My gig amp for guitar is Fender Cyber Champ which I got on eBay for $200.00 and it gives me the same perfect tone as other more expensive amps I own. So to me the tone comes from the guitar or the bass you play. When I play my new Bongo I feel the tone of Bongo is perfect tone to my ears. I used to own pre EB Stingray but Bongo's tone can not be compared to that old bass. I use Ampeg B2RE with Ampeg SVT 410HLF cabinet but I put Electro Harmonix Tube EQ with two 12ax7 tubes in effect loop to get very nice warm tone from Mosfet amp. Still the bass or guitar must be in perfect intonations in all fret or it is not good. Most of guitars that I had no matter how I adjust they refused to be in perfect intonations until my current guitar. Once you find the right instrument your perfect tone is there already and in my case "BONGO 4HH"

 

[Psychicpet]

where to start?
alot of your TONE is wrapped up in your fingers and just exactly how you're fingers attack the strings... then from there it gets all weird , strings/bass/amp/effects/etc. but typically, you will hear the differences between radical models but I've seen and heard great players with very distinct "tones" of their own pick up a whack of different models of bass/guitar and still sound like them. I think that part is definitely the way the player physically approaches the instrument. aside from that, I think my perfect tone is one that's full like Jamerson but yet precise and well defined, not as round as a flat-wound equipped P-bass more like a Slinky equipped HH Bongo and/or single H Bongo and/or 20th anni SR5 (ok, that last one is just positive visualization and getting the metaphysical ball rolling for 2007) hehehehehe

so ya, for me, preferrably an alder or basswood body, rosewood or purpleheart fingerboard, nickel roundwounds, and a PJB amp (that really has been the final link in my tone search, I'm loving the MarkBass test drive right now but the PJB just does it for me) to get the sound I like.

...and as mentioned previously, I think that Alnico p/u's and mahogany tone blocks will factor into my "perfect" tone