The bridge pickup slap is a cool unique sound too, like on “thank you for letting me be mice elf” by Sly Stone. Of course, neck pickup slap sounds awesome as well. That’s for another poll…
Both pickups on jazz and BB. Tone controls were 100% up on Jazz and BB. Treble and bass on the Ray4 were slightly past middle position I would say. Ernie ball slinky strings on all three, The Ray had the oldest, and the Jazz the newest. But no string set were too old or brand new out of the package.
I think the position of the pickup is a very big part of the sound. A Stingray pickup for example is placed a bit further from the bridge as well as being a humbucker. Check out some Sandberg demos, they have a humbucker in the J bridge position.
I made another one, this time with the Ray4 preamp boosted just a bit (bass and treble just a tiny bit boosted). Also threw in my P bass because why not?
There is quite a weight range on Fenders so look around for a light one. On a side note, my Sterling Sub Ray4 is very light and it seems most of the new ones are, so if you like that sound there is hope there as well. Also if balance is an issue light jazz basses balances a bit better than P’s due to the offset in my experience.
A jazz type bass and the wal actually sounds almost exactly the same through a gk like amp setup. Check this sound test between wal and yamaha bb604 basses playing a Flea bass line: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/wal-tone-for-320-the-answer-is.1475984/
It sounds much more similar than I would have thought but there it is. I think a big part of the BSSM sound is actually the amp.
Which tone do you guys prefer? The jazz, wal thing or the slightly “tighter” ray or modulus sound? To me he sort of goes back and forth between them on different albums.
Pros use the same stuff everybody else uses in my experience. Everything from really cheap to expensive stuff. Sound wise it does not really matter in the end.
The Ray has more high end on tap if you boost the treble more though, but yes the jazz sure has a lot of high end going on. And I did not even have the tone all the way up!