Your Tonal Aspirations?

[Baloney Balderdash]

Not sure which forum belongs to, one could argue for this one, as well as respectively "Bass Guitars", "Effects" and "Recordings" could be argued for being the right forum for this question.

Anyway, how would you describe your tonal aspirations, as in which kind of tone do you strive for that you would call your tone (if you got a such. Guess this might really be more relevant for people who play in original bands than cover bands)?

If you got any recorded clips demonstrating this you would be welcome to post those too.

I would describe my tonal aspirations as punchy with a pronounced attack and bite, which in practice means a Model P pickup wired directly to the output jack socket, with the low/low mids frequency area, around 40Hz to 300Hz, as well as the upper mids frequency area, around 700Hz to 1.5kHz, boosted some (specifically with most weight on the 50Hz to 120Hz and 800Hz to 1.2kHz area, and out of those with more weight on the latter upper mids frequency area).

I'll try to pull myself together to make some recordings of my setup and edit them into this post in the near future (the bass in the video of my signature is not my main tone, and pretty far from how my bass currently sounds).  

 

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[Cuzzie]

I still harbour thoughts of a six pack, however something mildly beyond floppy will do in my middle age

[Steve Browning]

I always ask for Bohemian Rhapsody in the studio. Here's an example (someone else put the images to the song) ...;

 

[gjones]

I go with what the band and the song needs. If it's rock, I'll go with a gnarly tone, if blues a rounder bassier tone, whatever does the job is the tone I go for.

I think you can only really stay with your signature tone if you're playing the same kind of stuff, day in day out.

Geddy Lee's tone is not going to work in Level 42.

[Lozz196]

My ideal tone is Precision/Ampeg, however I’ve only been in one band where it seemed to work. As above I adapt depending on the band as to me it’s far easier to alter the bass tone to a guitarists than get a guitarist to alter theirs. 

[Stonehenge]

It’s all in the fingers. I’ve always sounded the same, whatever bass, amp or desk. Make your bass “Talk”. 👌

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited March 8, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[chris_b]

I used to focus on tone. I thought it was my get out of jail free card. My thinking was, if I sounded good I could get away with the mistakes and when I wasn't playing so well! Then the penny dropped, how you sound is only 10% of your playing. What most people hear and care about is the other 90%, the bit that is what you play and how you play it. Of course the only thing the band care about is, do you get your round in.

[Ed_S]

I discovered a while back that my band associates the ‘Precision with volume and tone full-on through a Markbass with the EQ at noon and both filters off’ tone with me, and they seem to prefer it to most other things that I buy, try for a bit and eventually sell. I like it as well so I certainly don’t see it as a problem if that’s the tone in their head when they think of me as they’re writing etc.

I never set out for that to be ‘my’ tone, but the LM2 was the first amp I was really happy with the basic sound of so I guess it figures. I really like the GK MB200 with everything at noon as well.

When it comes down to it, I give a clean DI to the sound tech at gigs and I give a clean DI track to the engineer for any studio recordings, so I don’t think I count as being too precious about tone as long as they make it fit the mix.