Can my Bass have changed tone?

[Grangur]

Hi All,

Sorry if this is a noob question... but when I bought my Warwick Streamer Stage 1, to me it sounded like a nice deep growl. It was all I wanted, I called Mrs G and told her I was in love with a beautiful blonde.

Move on 6 months or so, an a tweek or 2 on the set up, and now to me the instrument sounds more "metallic", some might say punchy. In any case the "woody" growl has scared its self off and gone.

The pups, for those don't know the instrument is a P-J set up, with 3 band EQ.

From day 1 I preferred the neck P-pup and I tend to play it in passive mode. So, in theory, nothing's changed. But I may have raised the pups a bit and tweeked the neck relief. I've not changed the strings, but I tried changing one yesterday to a Rotosound and it got worse.

Any ideas?

BTW the amp is the same one; Roland 100w Cube

Thanks

Rich

[Phil Starr]

Very few strings will maintain their sound for six months, corrosion and the build up of dirt will change the way they resonate. New Rotosounds are very bright sounding, you don't say which string you changed either and we don't know what the original strings were, Rotosounds are out to one end of the sonic spectrum.

I'd expect adjusting the pickups to have a more subtle effect unless you've cranked them so close to the strings that the magnets are significantly damping the string movement.

You say noob? if you are new to bass you may also have changed the way you play, a lot of what we describe as tone is in our fingers.

[charic]

Raising the pickup is probably whats done it

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1369203553' post='2086133']...Move on 6 months or so, an a tweek or 2 on the set up, and now to me the instrument sounds more "metallic", some might say punchy. In any case the "woody" growl has scared its self off and gone...[/quote]

Good morning, Rich...

A bit late for moralising, but this is an illustration of the old saw "If it ain't busted, don't fix it..!". The simplest suggestion would be to reverse whatever you've 'tweaked', setting it back to as it was before. Theoretically you'll recover the original sound.
6 Months on, you say..? If that's 6 months of intensive playing, the strings could be in for a change, anyway. That's less easy to define, as the string type, manufacturer, your playing style and more are all strange factors; we all have to find our own way through that maze.
Not much help, I'm afraid...

[steve-bbb]

strings it is

i just recently changed a manky one year old set of steel swingbass for a nice shiny new set of nickel swingbass and it was so big an increase in output and improvement in tone that even the guitarists in our band noticed

[Grangur]

Good morning and thanks for the feedback guys.

The string I changed was the "E". I'll change all of them tonight and lower the pups a bit and see what happens. I think the existing strings could be the original Warwicks, so they could be quite old. They're still a good bright colour, but my fingers do get grey when playing.

I've got a set of Elite strings, I'll give them a go. Maybe their less bright?

You've all been a great help.

[geoffbyrne]

You should try flats - new roundwounds are all zingy to begin with - some longer than others. If your fingers are going black thenn those are nickel-coated strings - they do that to my fingers too.

I've just put GHS Brite Flats on one of my basses - they are actually roundwounds ground down to feel flat(ter) although they don't feel like roundwounds - or flats. Not as bright as roundwounds, not as dull as flats.

The Fender flats are pretty good these days - I believe D'Addario makes them now, but I may be wrong.

G.

[Greggo]

Its probably tweaking the relief thats done it. I lowered relief ona new bass I acquired and it went from sounding nice and lively to dull with just one quarter turn of the neck. Reverted it back and it sounds better again. I've learned thanks to the people on good ship BassChat that a neck too straight can rob a bass of its tone if strings dont have enough room to move!

[MiltyG565]

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1369206602' post='2086156']
Raising the pickup is probably whats done it
[/quote]

That was my first thought too. Bury that pup again!

[Lozz196]

Raising height of pickups, change of strings, raising height of string-saddles, adjusting neck-relief, all will have an impact on the tone, but for me the mains are pickups & strings.

[Grangur]

Many thanks guys. The tweek I'd done on the neck was to release it to get rid of fret buzz. So I have already given the strings more room to move.

I've now lowered the pups and it sounds better again. I'm still not sure about the strings. They sound good now and look fine. I'm clearly on BC too much and not "giving my strings hell" enough.