Search for Sound -- How do you set your preamp controls?

[Psycho Ward]

Some of you guys set the bass "all the way up!!!" on a SR5!!!

I just tried that on my Ashdown with the sub harmonic set on abour 5%, I soiled myself, the cat crapped on the carpet and all my neighbors' motion sensor lights came on!!!

I don't feel so good... I'm going to bed...

Psychooo

 

[bovinehost]

I just cut some treble.

Dayum, I was hoping someone would say that.

I leave everything flat except the treble, which I generally turn ALL THE WAY DOWN.

Picture that - plus I use flatwounds.

I also leave my amp fairly flat and my EQ relatively flat.

Then I listen to the ROOM and the MIX. Do I need to boost mids a little? Do I need to bump up the bass if I'm playing a Bongo and only using the bridge pickup?

There is no "one way" I do things. It all depends on where I am and what I'm doing.

Or, as I often say, "I turn the knobs until it sounds good, and then I stop."

 

[bassmonkeee]

Dayum, I was hoping someone would say that.

I leave everything flat except the treble, which I generally turn ALL THE WAY DOWN.

Picture that - plus I use flatwounds.

I also leave my amp fairly flat and my EQ relatively flat.

Then I listen to the ROOM and the MIX. Do I need to boost mids a little? Do I need to bump up the bass if I'm playing a Bongo and only using the bridge pickup?

There is no "one way" I do things. It all depends on where I am and what I'm doing.

Or, as I often say, "I turn the knobs until it sounds good, and then I stop."

I'm with Mighty B on this one. Start flat, twiddle, twiddle, twiddle. Sounds good, stop.

Generally, I'll cut a teeny bit of treble with new strings, and then leave it flat once they've mellowed a bit. I only add treble when I play with a pick and pretend I'm Lemmy from Motorhead. I try not to do that too often cuz I'm scared my face will stay that way, and then no one wins...


Oh, and you people who turn the bass knob all the way up on any MM bass are all completely mad.

 

[bovinehost]

I only add treble when I play with a pick and pretend I'm Lemmy from Motorhead.

Someday, and I suspect I will have to become a heroin addict to truly appreciate the event, I'm going to try that.

 

[Aragorn35016]

I guess im a wierdo. I leave my mids flat, boost bass about 80%, and treb about 60-70% when I want an aggressive sound, and for a mellow sound I just reverse the treble and mid settings. Ahh tone and all its subjectiveness .

 

[phatduckk]

wow ... im the only one that doesnt cut the treble. i guess im "special". i like the "bling". hell i love news strings. when im gigging i change them like every 2 weeks!

ya i like new and bright strings, crank everything up on the bass' eq.
on the amp: i up crank the bass, crank the treble and leave the mids flat. i even press the high-boost button on my svt cl. oh ya, i use a pick too

 

[cgworkman]

See that's funny....I do the opposite(amp EQ flat) because I don't want my amp coloring the SR tone. I just find it easier to control my tone from the onboard preamp/EQ....different strokes I guess.

Your preamp is going to 'color' the SR5 to one extent or another regardless of your amp settings. You have a good theory there, but my SR5 sounds good. Period. I use a BBE Bmax Preamp. It's a pretty 'transparent' unit for the most part.

Providing you have decent equipment, your preamp should be a shaping tool, not the end-all deciding factor.

 

[whamonkey]

Your preamp is going to 'color' the SR5 to one extent or another regardless of your amp settings. You have a good theory there, but my SR5 sounds good. Period. I use a BBE Bmax Preamp. It's a pretty 'transparent' unit for the most part.

Providing you have decent equipment, your preamp should be a shaping tool, not the end-all deciding factor.

I should've been more clear...you're right about the amp coloring your sound regardless of the EQ settings, that's why I bought an Eden. I gues I'm saying that I like to have the EQ from my bass as the one I can control as it gives me the most flexibilty on the fly. I actually don't change the tone much once I dial in a sound I like, as too many changes give the sound guys fits if they're chasing your tone all over the place song to song. It's my opinion that too many guys end up over EQ'ing...you know the typical signal chain: Bass EQ, Sansamp, Amp, out to the house (where they're Eq'ing it as well)....all those spots where a lot of time you're cancelling frequencies out. It's a lot easier for me to find a tone I like if I can flatten out some of those EQ's, particularly the amp in my case. I used to go out from the Metro DI to the board, now I go into a Sansamp out to the board and the parallell out to my amp. I may experiment with the "wet" out into the amp, we'll see. Anyhow, good point about the Metro preamp....it does add a certain flavor to the Stingray. (A flavor that I love BTW)

 

[jamesattard]

I connect my stingray to a Boss GEB7 and the latter to a Behringer rig. I flat both the Stingray and the Behringer. However I color the sound through the Boss GEB7 as follows:

50Hz: +10dB
120Hz: +10dB
400Hz: +2.5dB
500Hz/800Hz/4.5KHz/10Khz: 0dB
Level: 0

I get a good punch and a nice growl like that and I normally leave it like that. If I want to scare the crowd and make their beer rattle inside their belly (followed by a visit to the toilet to throw up) I boost a bit the bass and mids on my Stingray.

Note that this way I don't overdrive the amp, although I get that aggressive growl and solid punch which is a characteristic of Stingray. Even when you boost the bass and mids from the Stingray, make sure you don't overdrive anything. If you want more volume, crank the amp not the pre-amp (Boss/Stingray).

 

[JB1]

Depends on the song, but usually, treble just above flat, mid half way towards full, same for bass. Might bring mid & bass right up if reqiured.

 

[Figjam]

Bass: 7
Mids: 10
Treble:5 (or 6 when strings get dead)

 

[adouglas]

bongo HH/piezo...

FWIW, which is exactly nothing:

Bass, treble and hi mids flat, lo mids boosted to about 70% (if "flat" is 50%)

About 30-40% piezo mixed in (this makes a significant difference in tone)

Usually the magnetic pickups 50-50.

Amp settings...this is IMHO a meaningless question, because SOOOO much depends on your choice of amp and cabinet.

For that matter, your overall sound is a combination of the bass and the amp. So replicating the settings of others will not produce the same tone unless you have the same amp and cabinet.

Even then, it might not float your boat...it's all personal preference.

 

[prickly_pete]

I try to run everything on the bass flat (center), and I start with the amp flat and tweak it for the room. I never cut the treble, and I love brand new round wound strings (EB super slinkys of course) This is for my fretted SR 4s and 5. On my fretless SR4 (w/piezo and TI jazz flats), I generally run the eq on the bass flat (boosted mids sometimes) and play with the pan pot for the pickups.

 

[MingusBASS]

I set everything on my amp and bass flat, usually mix from my bass for the room. At most gigs it has been so plug and play its funny. Although this weekend my band played at a huge all glass building for a Christmas ball and the acoustic were insane. You'd play a note and it would just live for days and the more bass you boosted it got worse so I boosted the low-mids a bit and everything sounded great.

Andrew

 

[strummer]

1. How are your on-board controls set?

2. How do you set your amp's EQ?

1. Flat. (for slap, which I don't like to play, I scoop the mids a bit, maybe 1/8 from center on both.)

2. Flat.

 

[Father Gino]

Assuming the room isn't too weird, I usually set my Sterling flat with a tad of bass boost and the amp (Alembic F1X/Stewart/Aggie2x12). I dont't know if any of this means a heck of a lot as different player's fingers (or picks) are going to have an emormous affect on the sound.

But I can't believe anyone can crank the bass all the way up on a SR5! It's gotta sound like: "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM". I'd think you'd prefer organ pedals. Of course I can't believe Jack really puts the treble all the way down either which is sorta like turning the bass & mids up. Go figure.

And while I'm at it, for you guys that max out everything, have you ever tried setting it flat and turning the volume up? I don't know what the wave form would exactly look like, but I'd suspect it would be sorta flat with two valleys in the lower and upper mids.

It would be interesting to see if cutting treble and adjusting the volume instead of boosting the bass would get you to the same place. Jack and you big bass boosters may be getting a very similar result.

I find the three band MM EQ quite powerful and use it with caution personally. I always try to adjust EQ in general to have the least amount possible. In other words, if I find that I'm boosting a lot of low end, I'll drop some highs & mids instead, then adjusting the volume. Boosting the bass yields the most noticable volume difference. Turn up the bass and it always sounds better just because it's louder.

 

[TSanders]

I usuall run my SR5 with a slight bass boost over flat, the mids most often vary, and usually s slight trble cut, to a big treble cut.

 

[Randracula]

wow ... im the only one that doesnt cut the treble. i guess im "special". i like the "bling". hell i love news strings. when im gigging i change them like every 2 weeks!

ya i like new and bright strings, crank everything up on the bass' eq.
on the amp: i up crank the bass, crank the treble and leave the mids flat. i even press the high-boost button on my svt cl. oh ya, i use a pick too

I'm with you,I open the treble up a little bit past the half way point same with the mids and mabye a quarter turn past half on the bass...........

 

[pattiejay]

on my SUB - which doesn't seem to be represented yet - i like treble flat (ie. 50%)or slight cut, with bass slightly boosted

my amp and sansamp BDDI does the rest...

as an aside - just had a Christmas gig - 'Carols by Candelight' - and i have to say -WOW! - call it budget, call it a stingray wannabe...heck call it wateva you want...but let me tell you the SUB peformed beautifully, with all the sounds i could ever want just from the 2-bander alone, from mellow to down right funky, with lotsa compliments on my sound :

Merry Christmas all...!

 

[Figjam]

Just had a mini epiphany. I noticed i boosted practically everything, and this resulted in me having the input volume of the amp really low to avoid peaking.

I was like, hmm, lots of guys set their sterlings nearly flat, with just a small bass boost,and get the tone they want.
I set the amp and bass flat.

Plucked a note. Added a little bass. Got a nice tone. Added a litttle treble, awesome fingerstyle and slap tone.

Now everything is flat except for a slight slight bass and treble boost.

awesome. That was easy.