Option anxiety

[visog]

Just to be controversial....

I don't think you need many tonal variations.... just a few good options: a pick-up selector, and a 2-band probably does it.... (I've a mid-range too that I rarely use.) A 2-band gives you a good finger-style tone (bridge + bass boost) and a good treble sound (both pick-ups + treble boost) for a slap/pick-style rock tone).

As an example, check out this Enfield Bass demonstration: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcWbVd36Y0I"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcWbVd36Y0I[/url]

It looks and sounds like a gorgeous bass but here's the thing: I would settle on any one of those slap options... I simply don't need that many choices?

I'm talking myself into a Fender Jazz aren't I?

Wide tonal variations are achievable but simply not usable - discuss....

visog

[Blademan_98]

Yep, a Jazz it is!

The other Jazz thread was getting a bit much for me

[icastle]

I kinda agree.
My 5 and 6 string basses both have active controls with a multitude of knobs and the only ones I ever generally touch are the volume and blend controls.

Ironically (and some would say typically ), I've retrofitted a SD preamp to my JB because I could not get a tone out of it that I felt happy enough to perform with.

[LukeFRC]

Same with that musicman game changer thing, if it was called that, they said it a lot in the promo. Give me one bass that sounds amazing, even if only one sound amazing

[Prime_BASS]

some rep or bass man from Enfield has even said that it's likely that a user would only use one or 2 settings. IIRC

It a nice bass and gives options you don't usually find everyday basses.

[Lfalex v1.1]

Having played some single pick-up basses, I'm not even too sure that you even need two, let alone all the switching and stuff..
We all know the diverse range of sounds available from "just" a P bass... Jamerson, Harris, Burnel, Simonon, Olivieri, to name but a few.
I like the idea behind the Enfield, but they're mighty expensive, and I'd have to try one first...

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1327308361' post='1508957']
Same with that musicman game changer thing, if it was called that, they said it a lot in the promo. Give me one bass that sounds amazing, even if only one sound amazing
[/quote]

Whatever happened to the Gamechanger? 8 million combinations of pickups seemed like a great idea.

[ThomBassmonkey]

If a bass doesn't sound right flat to me, it'll go back on the shelf. EQs are alright for in the studio and tweaking to suit the room but there's so much choice for gear, it seems a bit pointless settling for something that doesn't give you what you want when it's flat (and IMO most natural sounding).

The only reason I could see me needing all these options was if I was in various bands that all needed a totally different sound and I only had the one bass. So far though my basses have been used flat for all kinds of things from folk to metal and between my Bongo and Ray, they've done the job fine with only minimum tweaks.

[lee4]

[b]Lets all repeat the bass players mantra;less is more [/b]
[b]The only time I've seen 3 band eq,multi-pup basses is on videos posted here![/b]

[cytania]

This from the Barefaced site;

"Many bassists think that the neck pickup gives the most bassy sound, the bridge pickup the most midrangey/trebley sound and thus if you have both pickups on you get lows, mids and highs in equal quantities, because it's an average of the two sounds. However, that's not actually what happens. Because the pickups are in different locations there is a phase difference between the two signals, and so instead of getting simple addition of the sounds you get a mix of addition and subtraction. The subtraction happens in the critical midrange area and the further apart the pickups are, the bigger the midrange cut tends to be.[size=1]
So if you want a nice fat grunty sound with plenty of mids, especially lower mids, use the front pickup soloed. If you want a growly aggressive biting and more compressed sound use the back pickup soloed. If you want a mellower sweet round sound that sits back in the mix then use both pickups up full. And then as you roll back the volume on either pickup the midrange scoop will decrease until the sound eventually gets back to the sound of the soloed pickup."

Now the strange thing is on my Spear the mid-blend of pickups is the sound I like, suggesting what is subtracted is musically good to my ears.
Truth would seem to be that live no one really wants to be radically changing settings for every song, even if you did the mix would be upset. Main point of active EQ is the boost it gives and the ability to blend it is useful too.
Anyone seen the Doug Wilkes answer guitar? A bass version would be interesting...
http://www.wilkesguitars.co.uk/pages/the_answer.htm

Edited January 23, 2012 by cytania

[binky_bass]

The 70's Gibson grabber/ripper bass had a similar thing with a movable single coil... Same kinda bass mike dirnt used on the basket case video... Though not sure if that one had an adjustable pick up.

[mike257]

I had a look at the Musicman 'Game Changer' thing, and while the techy geek in me loves the concept, in practial terms I just don't think I'd use it. My two main basses are active, but they're pretty much 'set and forget' for me, I'm not fond of having to overly tweak them.

I think to get any real benefit out of these basses with endless tonal options, you'd have to [i]really[/i] know them inside out to the point of intuition. No sane producer will want to sit there while you muck about trying 15 different combinations of coil taps and phase reversals to get the 'perfect' tone unless you're on a limitless mega-budget - in which case you'd be a top call player already, and we all know they just turn up with a Precision and get it done

[Graham]

I found that when I was playing an Ibanez K5 - two active humbuckers with a 3 band eq which had a semi-parametric mid so buckets of tonal control but really only a few usable tones and tbh by the time I finished with it and swapped to a jazz I only really found 1 tone on it that I really liked.