DTB

Thanks to ALL that took time to reply/post advice. Love you guys.

I got it this morning. I have a copy of an old fender bassman head which is all valve that i used to use for guitar so I stuck some cryo treated valves in it that I was saving for a rainy day, it is actually raining here, and plugged it into a small 2x6 cab with tweeter and hey presto, absolutely nailed the Marcus Miller tone and the Joss Stone song bass tone. Tbh the Joe Dart tone is a bit too distorted for me but the other two I have spot on and without having to buy any new gear or any pedals. It was only after reading the post by @BassAdder60 I remembered i had the Bassman in storage (actually in the bottom of my sons wardrobe as he likes playing with the knobs and switches as he only 2) so it’s back in the studio with new valves and it absolutely ROCKS! So thanks Bassadder for jogging my bad memory. Once again basschat to the rescue of my sanity.

I love the tone of my bass. All 3 of them. I was just looking to get a bit closer to this tone that i also love. where did I say I didn’t want to change? i think i said I’d even try pedals to achieve this change. and why is it an odd ideal? I don’t get your post.

Yes it does,and they do don’t they??

Just got around to fitting these this morning on my Yamaha TRB. Very tight getting the B string through the bridge, even running it under the saddle and then putting it in the correct place after, without ruining the black coating and even though I crimped the strings before cutting I ended up with a dead G string. This lead to me putting the D’addario G back on and the D’addarios have considerably higher output than the blacks and imho a much better tone so have just ordered 2 more sets, the black ones will be off soon. Tension seemed exactly the same as the neck didn’t move at all. fyi if anyone interested.

Or for just a little more Ibanez EHB, coms with gig bag, easily go in the boot, and as already been said, you wont have a redundant roof box knocking around.

Probably the result of that beer.

Also, I get a lot closer with the Ibanez EHB than the Yamaha TRB

I get close with bridge pup and a bit extra mid but sounded like a bit extra going on, but then I not using compression. I used to hate anything but super clean, the guitarist was always asking me to run a guitar amp along side my bass rig for a bit of grit, apparently thats what his last band bass player did, but I wouldn’t. ive got a compressor built in to an old guitar pedal so I’ll try it. meanwhile…….

Last one for now. Hopefully you get the idea……. and thank you

about 7min in Marcus playing and digging in on the high strings before the other bass starts playing.

this one, the clip of Joe playing at the beginning

I’m not a fan of using effects or pedals. When I played guitar I never found an overdrive pedal that sounded better than my valve amp, and just used to use the guitar volume to clean up the guitar sound, normally only using a single channel on the amp. For reasons I’ve already posted I’m playing bass and absolutely love the growl of the bridge pick up when digging in a bit and have heard a couple of bass tones that I am sure are more than just “tone is in the fingers” type of sound. So for this I am more than willing to overcome my pedal phobia, but I don’t know where the heck to start. I think the EBS Sheenan signature pedal might do what I want but I’m not sure. I definitely don’t want distortion or an obvious heavy overdrive just a subtle enhancement of the growl. Any advice / suggestions very greatly appreciated. thanks.

I invested in a set of Genelec 8020 monitors a few months back. My Mordaunt Shorts are great and powered by my vintage Yamaha hifi amp sound better, but hurt my ears after a while in my small studio, hence the Genelecs. I don’t normally like the sound of class d amps but these are ok. Or at least the were until one started rattling very slightly when tracking solo bass lines. I tested all the normal stuff. Made sure it wasn’t the grills, checked the multiple screws on the rear sockets were all tight, and really could not fathom out what it was and thought it must be something inside come loose. So I contacted G4M who were absolutely first class in arranging a return. I got it back a few days ago and no more rattle. There is a metallic type sticker or plate on the back which has the make and model etc on it. This is now stuck down with extra glue so was obviously the problem. How stupid do I feel not being able to diagnose this myself, well extremely I can tell you. still it’s back and my ears are very happy about it.

This exactly the same for me. Thanks for posting. I’m 53 and in a wheelchair due to arthritis and KV keeping me playing and protecting my sanity lol. I love music so much.

It was the sale that prompted me. I think it works out at roughly 90 tracks which will probably never get used up, there’s no time limit on using up the track time. works out about 30 pence per song. It’s also incredibly simple to use even i can do it right first time

Quick update on this subject. I found an app that can split a track into its individual instrument tracks. However my MacBook pro is so old it didn’t meet the minimum hardware requirements to run it, so I carried on searching and I found Lalal.ai which is a similar thing but the crunching of the file is done at a server so it isn’t dependent on hardware being up to date. So far I’ve removed the bass on two tracks and it works very well, not perfectly but very well. I am only posting this today because they have a half price sale and it’s £25 for 360 minutes of tracks. The split tracks are sent via email and are straight forward to download and use. They are not zipped or compressed in any way and the quality is the same as the original track you upload to the server for processing. Someone may find this useful.

Yes. All the time, my brain is broken.

TMI

Street Life and Midnight Train to Georgia. Midnight Train was a tricky one had to play along about 5 times before I got it spot on.

@Phil Starrhas just about nailed this subject. The stand out point for me is what he says about the sound level adding acoustic drums. My ears permanently ring due to sound levels playing with acoustic drums and standing near the cymbals.

I forgot my current studio set up is Tube Preamp straight into mixer then power amp and Mordaunt Short Hifi speakers or Genelec monitors. fine for studio volume.

That’s the thing right there! How many people have an expensive instrument that sucks but don’t realise or refuse to accept that it’s crap because it was pricey. “It can’t be crap because it cost me a zillion bucks!!” I was guilty of that and a luthier pointed it out to me and I took the instrument back and got my money back.

I think once you’re in to the £300-£400 bracket, you then have to spend considerably more to get not much gain in sound/tone/feel. I used to play acoustic guitar as my main instrument. I had a few nice examples all of which I’ve since sold. Two that stand out were an LA8 by Yamaha, and the Clapton signature model by Martin. The Yam was a fine fine instrument. Build quality was faultless. Sound was superb. The Martin was just a little better. Not 3 times the price better, but better nonetheless. Same with Saxophone. Yamaha alto I had was fantastic, the Albright sig model was just a little better and again 3x the price. Once you get past the absolute budget option then any increase in performance comes at a massive price increase I think, and once it is in the mix at a noisy gig then not a single person including the person playing it would hear that slight improvement in tone. Imho.

I tried all sorts of set ups in the past which were mainly driven by the need Not to lug around too much gear. ultimately the best sound I ever got was through a Trace Elliot 4x10 cab with hf powered by proper bass amp head. The pa speaker option sounded ok but I always preferred the tight and fast sound of the 4x10. It was always the cab that made the most difference to the feel I think, and nothing got that great punch and clarity of the 4x10. It is hard putting it into words but back to back testing at a couple of venues really showed the difference. If I had to put a rig together now it would be the little tube amp preamp I use now, together with a class ab power amp of around 600 watt and 2 2x10 cabs, one each side of the stage. Like I say I tried all sorts of rigs in search of tone and then portability. If pa speakers or full range or whatever were best for bass then why would we have manufacturers spending lots on developing bass cabs etc etc, I’m not saying the op is wrong, and the rig they have may well sound better than anything I’ve ever plugged in to but from my own fairly extensive experience I’d go bass cab everytime even if nothing else in the signal chain was meant for bass.