hot bongo!

[oli@bass]

Thanks for the insight!!

Dub The whole point of an active bass is that you never dime the gain.

Oh, wow, that's a whole new concept to me!! I never quite understood the idea of the volume knob on the bass, and generally only used it to mute the signal. Could have been hard wired for me... Probably a legacy of playing passive basses for a long time, having crappy amps for a long time, and playing in very loud hard rock bands for a long time...

Thanks for the insight!!

Just wondering, for you guys who have been diming the volume on your bass, what do you do when you need a little more oomph? Walk back to your amp?

Generally, yes. I do all of required the dynamics with playing intensity, and with arrangement within the band. That way I'll give a consistent volume to the FOH. Was my idea. Time to think it over...

 

[Big Poppa]

since we are going into this so deep.......

Lets think of this as a voice and a pa......I just sing harder if I need to be louder....

If your voices tone and timbre was constant from whisper to scream then you are a genius and in the seven wonders of the world museum right next to the perpetual motion machine.

using up all of your instruments natural headroom to make up for dynamics is robbing you of all the little nuances of your basses wide eq......


Also the rare times I get to play anymore it is with un named guitarists that have their names on their guitar that play extremely long solos and I run out of gas on verse 32
of a up tempo train song...I can make it if i dont have to kill the bass for the 20 minute solos....I let my amp work for me because I have a bass that sounds great with the volume on 1 through 10

 

[adouglas]

I must experiment with this to see what happens.

I, too, have always just dimed my volume, and never had any trouble with tone at all. But I do have the trim on my amp input turned down a fair bit.

This is going to affect the behavior of my overdrive pedal.....

And I think I'll have to seat the volume knob on the Bongo a bit deeper in the recess. It's got very little friction right now...love those buttery smooth controls!

 

[Big Poppa]

careful not to bend them.

This will take some time getting used to but you will notice a ton more definition and tone. When you pick harder you are applying NATURAL COMPRESSION. THe secret is that if you want that as an effect...it is still there..just roll the vol back a little and play harder.

The beauty of an active bass is that it is kind of alive..You dont have to strangle it and if you dont you will notice that it is capable of so much more expression....it will react much stronger to picking position...... play a little closer to the bridge for more attack play towards the neck for big round sound Letting your bass work for you along with the increased response with open up a whole lot more for you.

The active eq on theBongo especially is voiced in such a way that it gets in own space in the mix. These days with everyone coming down to our low freq party it just turns to mud...the double kick, the de tuned guitar player the keyboard with the split keyboar and left hand that is stepping all over your turf...if you give the bass its headroom and try to become a better player with it you will notice when things get wild and crazy you will have tone and definition....WHo knew?

Im so far off into this I want to give you another example..take an acoustic guitar......play lightly, play lightly from the bridge to the soundhole and notice the string and its resonance and natural eq...now start hitting it harder it gets louder and to about half way on the attack scale is sounds really good now start digging in to it it gets louder but the harder you hit i the more degeneration of the strings vibration and the resultant loss of naturaleq.....AKA it starts to sound like cat poo....You are doing that when you use your hand and force to our basses to create false dynamics...you are just amplified it the killibng of the strings vibration.

 

[adouglas]

careful not to bend them.

Guess I'll have to get some different tools. I was planning on using these:

 

[Big Poppa]

no other comments or recognition of enlightenment?

 

[mynan]

This is becoming more clear to me now. I was skeptical at first because, admittedly, I have a hard enough time keeping track of other things while playing and didn't want to add "what is my volume knob set to?".

But I recently gave up my fear of looking too old by not having my bass hang below my waist...mostly because it was starting to look like my waist was shadowing my bass. Anyway, besides the fact that having the bass higher is more comfortable for me, I immediately noticed that it seemed to give me a lot more tone control with my right hand and I found some cool sounds that I didn't know were there.

I'm definitely going to try using different volume settings.

 

[T-bone]

This is a wonderful thread!

I, too, have always "dimed" my volume. I guess the thought process is provide full signal to the amp and let it do the work. The only time I use the volume knob is when I have to do a solo (I always turn it down).

Thanks for the great thread and all the insight.

tbone

 

[tkarter]

BP is really a rocket scientist. He uses the CEO title as a cover.

tk

 

[Big Poppa]

Im not bald .....I usually just stand too close to the rocket when lighting it

 

[nicjimbass]

After reading this thread and reading the recommended settings for set up, I realized I've been doing things wrong for way to long. Thanks BP for setting me straight!!

 

[jaylegroove]

This is a wonderful thread!

I, too, have always "dimed" my volume. I guess the thought process is provide full signal to the amp and let it do the work. The only time I use the volume knob is when I have to do a solo (I always turn it down).

Thanks for the great thread and all the insight.

tbone

Same for me. I am completely stunned by these explanations, and I'm going to experiment them as of now. That's a radically different approach to tone shaping, at least different from all I ever thought.

Great, great thread.

 

[adouglas]

Im not bald .....I usually just stand too close to the rocket when lighting it

Bald guys have no hair because their massive brains intercept all the blood before it reaches their scalp.

I'm not there yet, but I'm on my way. Hey, I'm not losing my hair...I'm gaining face!

 

[Big Poppa]

Thanks guys....I just assume that people with active bases knew this stuff.....

If you focus on pretending that your are amplifing an acoustic instrument you will just have so much more definition and expression...you can still play hard but you have so much more inbetween

 

[phatduckk]

why not a center detent on the volume knob pops?

 

[roballanson]

I will definately have a go with this...I usually have the bass flat out volume knob wise but the analogy with the voice has got me thinking. Next practise for sure.

That is if I remember after the Kentucky Bourbon Festival next week (really looking forward to it )

 

[Big Poppa]

Luke just brought up a good point when I was talking to him this morning. the harder you hit the string the sharper it becomes

 

[1Echo]

why not a center detent on the volume knob pops?

I had this same thought. The question is whether center position is the best place to put the detent.

Just to be clear on my earlier posts .... I never dimed my volume, more like 80% so I'd have some headroom when the guitarist started his volume creep. Still, I thought of it more from a perspective of attenuation than gain.

Now that I've turned down, my distortion pedal is a lot less aggresive and much more enjoyable --- just a little grit to the tone.

 

[jaylegroove]

I'm afraid putting a center position on a volume knob would have no technical / electronical meaning. On a tone knob it makes sense (you can either boost or cut), but volumewise, according to BP, you never boost.

BTW, I'm back after spending half an hour in my "bassment" (underground of my house, converted as a rehearsal room), and I just experienced BP's explanations. Quick review :

1/ Tone is definitely better defined when putting volume at 75 or 80 instead of 100 %.
2/ I had been a bit confused by what I found to be some "overload" of treble. This "problem" has disappeared with the cut on the volume.
3/ Pure growl. 'nuff said, uh ?

Tried this on my (currently) one and only bass : SR5, single H.

Once again, thanks BP for this great advice / information !

 

[oli@bass]

Same for me. I am completely stunned by these explanations, and I'm going to experiment them as of now. That's a radically different approach to tone shaping, at least different from all I ever thought.

Great, great thread.

Couldn't agree more.
Thanks a lot BP!