"Core Tone" isn't very important in your bass.

[Sibob]

[quote name='silddx' post='735258' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:01 PM']Understood, but what if you need three very different tones for one song, live? That's the sort of thing you may do in the studio all the time, but live?

At one point last year I had up to five patches per song per set, with different eqs and effects. One bass all the way through, with onboard eq/pup tweaks too. There is nothing at all wrong with extreme eq. Bootsy doesn't seem to think so anyway.[/quote]

If I need different sounds within a song, I'll use finger dynamics and hand placement, this is on a fairly standard pop/rock/funk gig that is. If I need a bassier/dub sound, I'll move my picking hand towards the neck, perhaps use my thumb. Need a tighter, more mid sound, play near the bridge. If I need some bite/overdrive, I'll play a lot harder over the neck pickup as I have my tube on my ashdown at 3 o'clock. This allows me to sound clean when I want to, but breaks up beautifully when played hard!. In my personal experience, any different sounds and tone further to that are generally so subtle that they'll be lost in the band mix or over the PA.

I have started messing around with my Boss Multi-FX again because I'm going to start playing for a hip-hop/electonica band soon (first rehearsal tonight actually), just some chorus, wah and octave sounds going on.....but I've got a feeling that over a large sound system and with the other warbly noises going on in the mix, I'll find myself playing straight into my amp.

Si

[xilddx]

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='735267' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:08 PM']I'm staggered that this has remained on-topic for so long, and I will immediately rectify this by pointing out that playing bass in a covers band makes versatility WAY more important than core tone.

In the space of 10 minutes I may need to sound like McCartney, Wyman and Watt-Roy.

For a given value of "sound", of course.

YESSSS!!! Covers -v- Originals topic introduced. Now, what about jazz ...[/quote]
Shut up, you!

My bands are originals and i still need loads of versatility in two of them. The other one is fine with just a tweaked Jamaican 360 model for the whole gig

[oldslapper]

Not bothered about looks.

Ideal bass: Jazz body, status groove flat neck profile, Warwick wenge/ovankol neck & fingerboard woods, G&L humbuckers & preamp.....as I said not interested in a looker!!

This would give me comfort, reliability and some diversity of tone control, but ultimately it's me fingers and fumb that is more important to me in getting what I want at. I don't use FX, I'm confused enough as it is.

Didn't reply to the above posts coz I don't understand what you're on about.

[51m0n]

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735233' date='Feb 4 2010, 04:44 PM']Ha ha, well. yes. I am.

no. No I'm not. My "Hi-Fi" cost about £220 from Richers in about 1989. I added a CD player for a further £80 in about 1997.

However, if you hear a CD through a really good valve Hi-Fi, you can tell the difference immediately. Even if you A/B it with other really good SS audiophile amps.

They're much easier to listen to at higher volumes (too much volume for my semi-detached )

And they sound better, richer bass, crisper highs, rounder mids at lower volumes. There's no need for a loudness button for instance... the response is the same across all frequencies (well all the ones you'd want) at all volume levels.


I do agree that an amplified signal is always going to be weakest at it's weakest point, but why just let the weakest point be so weak?[/quote]

Hold on, what are you comparing here?

Are you saying that tube is better than SS, or that digital shouldnt go near tube?

As previously stated tube amps when pushed produce a more pleasant breakup than SS.

Couldnt agree more.

But in your fat ole tube hifi you arent going anywhere near breakup anyway, cos that would start to make the sound less crisp everytime, and more and more compressed. Thats exactly what happens when you push bass hard into a big lead sled tube amp. Great for rock bass, rubbish for hifi!

So the tube hifi definitely does not impart its magic 2nd order trick to spice the sound up a little.

In fact any tube circuit adds measurably more distortoin than its SS counterpart. It is LESS tru to the input in other words.

A loudness button? What hifi kit were you looking at? I havent seen a loudness button on a serious bit of hifi kit (SS, tube or plasma ray gun powered) for decades! A loudness button was never there to make up for a deficiency in the hifi anyway, but rather the fact that the human ear doesnt respond to bass as well as it responds to mids. So if you turn everything right down it can help your listening experience to boost the bass a little. Not because of the hifi, but because your ear doesnt do so well down there. They are still completely valid. If your tube amp doesnt need one then it is definitely putting out added bass at low volumes, so making things even more distorted. Sounds pretty rubbish to me.

In actual fact the point in the signal chain that adds by far the most distortion to the signal is the speaker itself look up the %age thd on some kit, fact is that speaker tech hasnt really moved very far since its inception, a paper or metal cone is not a very accurate transducer. A tube amp running within its tolerances will add orders of magnitude less thd. And

Your ears can only detect whats there, the actual pressure wave hitting them.

Unfortunately your brain is a very malleable thing, given to believe all sorts of things are better because you want it to, or have been told that is the case.

[Sibob]

Silddx, I'm playing in Ealing on 12th Feb if you're about!

Si

[51m0n]

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735263' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:05 PM']I agree. Valve power all the way!

Well, that's the thing isn't it. Where do you draw the line? For me, any compromise I make on sound quality (equiv SS vs Valve) is going to be about price and transportability. If the last two were non-considerations then I wouldn't have a solid state power amp in my rig. I did have a digital one, which was OK, but not as good as the mosfets in there now

Digital models schmodels. It's all subjective.[b] I bet on average though, more people would prefer the sound of a true valve amp than a model, even if there are a few that prefer models[/b]. There are people that don't like strawberries that eat strawberry flavour ice cream.[/quote]

A test was done here or TB over this and the results were inconclusive.

Similar tests were done between an Ampeg B15 and a MB LMII on TB (by JimmyP IIRC) - masses of votes taken as to which was which, and guess what the split was utterly inconclusive. This is on a bass forum listened to by bassists (often with an agenda one way or the other) and even then solo'ed they couldn't be relied upon to tell the amps apart.

How can you possibly expect the public to?

What about in a mix?

Sildx, if you need that kind of tonal control, and it works for you go for it, more power to you.

Anyone else, if you can get what you need out of you hands and bass and amp, brilliant! Really pleased for you.

If you can do this, why are you even looking at more gear, none of you need it - go procatice

[Sibob]

[quote name='51m0n' post='735288' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:19 PM']Sildx, if you need that kind of tonal control, and it works for you go for it, more power to you.

Anyone else, if you can get what you need out of you hands and bass and amp, brilliant! Really pleased for you.

If you can do this, why are you even looking at more gear, none of you need it - go practice [/quote]

+1

Si

[bigjohn]

[quote name='51m0n' post='735256' date='Feb 4 2010, 04:58 PM']And I've yet to see any really hi end hifi (please site some evidence) that wont accept high end CD as an input. Really good CD is very very good indeed these days. SACD is staggering.[/quote]

I never said anything about anything not taking CD as an input.

[quote name='51m0n' post='735256' date='Feb 4 2010, 04:58 PM']All valves do is degrade the signal in a measurable, gentle and acoustically pleasant way. They impart no magic other than even order distortion. They are not a Holy Grail, just a different way of treating a signal. If you push them hard they dont sound harsh because of the nature of the way they break up. If you dont push them hard the effect is less obvious. If you drive them well within their limits the degradation is unnoticeable, and unmeasurable. Just like a transistor in the same circumstances. That is an absolute fact.[/quote]

It's is also absolute fact that people who design and build hifi where the brief is to "make the best possible" use valves. They don't use transistors.

If you A/B a top end transistor hi fi and a top end valve hi fi, you can not only hear the difference, but the differences between them are detectable through spectrum analysis. So it's not "immeasurable".

[quote name='51m0n' post='735256' date='Feb 4 2010, 04:58 PM']As for needing a super computer to model a tube, that is a complete myth. Please site a study to support this. It just is not the case![/quote]

You'd need a pretty powerful computer to completely and accurately model a specific valve and it's habits foibles and responses at different levels of heat and voltage. That's what I was alluding to. It would be like modelling the weather.

I'd like to see / hear of someone who has successfully (with or without a supercomputer) recreated a specific valve amp which stands up to aural and spectral scrutiny.

[bigjohn]

[quote name='51m0n' post='735288' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:19 PM']A test was done here or TB over this and the results were inconclusive.

Similar tests were done between an Ampeg B15 and a MB LMII on TB (by JimmyP IIRC) - masses of votes taken as to which was which, and guess what the split was utterly inconclusive. This is on a bass forum listened to by bassists (often with an agenda one way or the other) and even then solo'ed they couldn't be relied upon to tell the amps apart.[/quote]

Though I'm sure that was fun for those involved, that's a pretty loaded test. So people can't tell the difference between how one player sounds using two different amps EQ'd to sound similar. It hardly proves anything other than that does it?

[quote name='51m0n' post='735288' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:19 PM']How can you possibly expect the public to?

What about in a mix?[/quote]

To be honest, I don't. But I don't come at playing bass from that angle really. I play for myself, and if I can hear the difference, then that's enough. I hope somebody else can / will / does, but so what if they don't? At least I tried. :brow:

Edited February 4, 2010 by bigjohn

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']I'd like to see / hear of someone who has successfully (with or without a supercomputer) recreated a specific valve amp which stands up to aural and spectral scrutiny.[/quote]

As has already been said though, spectral analysis is pointless - who looks at music? If it sounds ballpark then it's fine, especially on bass. We're the only people who listen to bass guitar sounds critically anyway.

[bigjohn]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='735311' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:39 PM']As has already been said though, spectral analysis is pointless - who looks at music? If it sounds ballpark then it's fine, especially on bass. We're the only people who listen to bass guitar sounds critically anyway.[/quote]


Yeah I know, I'm just being pedantic. My original point was it's a mistake to think the tone of an instrument no longer matters because you can dial in tone, when "good tone" (ie the tone you want) is about maximising the quality of the signal from start to finish and taking control of it through whichever means are best. It's not about thinking "Well, I can't tell the difference, swap it out for an inferior substitute", because, that is the road to sh!t tone.

[budget bassist]

as always, i can' t be arsed to read the rest of the thread, but i had a corvette $$ which to my ears sounded amazing, got rid of it for a stingray HH (don't ask me why, i don't know either) which i reasoned should sound similar. Similar pre, similar woods, similar pickup config, but no matter what i did, i couldn't make it sound anything like my old $$, which is why i now have another one!

Edited February 4, 2010 by budget bassist

[51m0n]

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']I never said anything about anything not taking CD as an input.[/quote]

Sorry, I interpretted this:-

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735209' date='Feb 4 2010, 04:26 PM']What I was saying about hifi though... if ever you get the chance to speak to people who design really high end hifi (not the hifi know nothing buffs ) they'll not hear of [b]digital coming close to valve[/b]s. You'd need a supercomputer to process the response of a valve and it's audible on both subjective (aural) and objective (measurable) levels.

Even if you needed the flexibilty of digital effects on your front end, ideally you'd be using a plain vanilla valve power amp. We've only got used to the other way around (valve preamps and SS power) because that way around is lighter.[/quote]

As suggesting that high end hifi designers wont have digital media plugged into them. Since Sildx is taking about using digitally modelled bass signal (media) through an SS amp.

You seem to be arguing at odds to me on this I think....


[quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']It's is also absolute fact that people who design and build hifi where the brief is to "make the best possible" use valves. They don't use transistors.[/quote]

Tell that to Musical Fidelity, their Titan power amplifier is about as good as it gets at £30000 a pop it ought to be, and its solid state.

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']If you A/B a top end transistor hi fi and a top end valve hi fi, you can not only hear the difference, but the differences between them are detectable through spectrum analysis. So it's not "immeasurable".[/quote]

Yes if you compare any two circuits there will be measurable differences if you measure closely enough, you got me. but measurable != audible by any means. If you take a decent bit of sensible speaker cable and measure the output off the end the difference between that and an $8000 a meter cable is barely measurable. A fact proven to me by one of the best educated and longest serving analogue elctronic experts in the country today, who as a day job used to design the analog test beds for CPUs. He is a certified genius at analogue electronics, and if he says it cant be audible, and can demonstrate it cant be audible, I believe him. Again you have to consider the tolerance you are measuring at, since the thd of a speaker is so much poorer than the difference between a speaker cable or an amp running within its defined tolerances.

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']You'd need a pretty powerful computer to completely and accurately model a specific valve and it's habits foibles and responses at different levels of heat and voltage. That's what I was alluding to. It would be like modelling the weather.[/quote]

No it wouldnt. Thats just not true, the weather as a system is infinitely more complex than a tube, dont be silly. You can far more easily measure input/output from a tube at varying temperatures and voltages, and frequencies than measure the weather system on a planet. I hope you are joking.

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735299' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:29 PM']I'd like to see / hear of someone who has successfully (with or without a supercomputer) recreated a specific valve amp which stands up to aural and spectral scrutiny.[/quote]

Again its been done well enough to fool a forum full of bassplayers (and many others too I hasten to add) looking for the truth, its just not as hard as you are making out to model a tube closely enough to fool the human ear. Sorry, but thats the case. All those who want to dispute that, claiming unbelievably powerful senses akin to electronic analysis equiptment take a big step forward. You have not yet done a true double blind test, so you havent been proven wrong conclusively yet. If you did you would be wrong on average 50% of the time. Accept it as unpalateable as it may seem. The geeks have achieved that much.

Fact:- the human ear/brain in combination isnt designed or required to analyse at this level of detail, its designed to hear a noise of a predator in time for you to get out the way. Millions of years of evolution have occured to specialise in that skill. Thousands of years have been spent making and appreciating music. Tens of years have been spent discussing amps. You gotta love Darwin!

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735319' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:47 PM']Yeah I know, I'm just being pedantic. My original point was it's a mistake to think the tone of an instrument no longer matters because you can dial in tone, when "good tone" (ie the tone you want) is about maximising the quality of the signal from start to finish and taking control of it through whichever means are best. It's not about thinking "Well, I can't tell the difference, swap it out for an inferior substitute", because, that is the road to sh!t tone. [/quote]

Well I kind-of agree with you there, and I wouldn't want to piss about with digital modelling if I actually needed a ton of different sounds. Fortunately I don't - I never need more than two or three different bass guitar sounds (not incl. effected sounds, fretless, etc.) so I keep one bass strung with flats and the other with rounds, job done, no more gear required.

[bigjohn]

[quote name='51m0n' post='735334' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:58 PM']You seem to be arguing at odds to me on this I think....[/quote]

Aye, to be honest, no-ones right or wrong when it comes to what they think they can hear...

[quote name='51m0n' post='735334' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:58 PM']Tell that to Musical Fidelity, their Titan power amplifier is about as good as it gets at £30000 a pop it ought to be, and its solid state.[/quote]

It's a bit tinny. I prefer my Sansui

[quote name='51m0n' post='735334' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:58 PM']If you take a decent bit of sensible speaker cable and measure the output off the end the difference between that and an $8000 a meter cable is barely measurable.[/quote]

I didn't think it was measurable at all. In that you can measure the difference between two different wires, but the wire wouldn't be able to tell you which one was $8000 a meter. Didn't this audiophile speaker wire thing start off as a con with some bankrupt stock? I'm sure I read that somewhere.

[quote name='51m0n' post='735334' date='Feb 4 2010, 05:58 PM']Again its been done well enough to fool a forum full of bassplayers (and many others too I hasten to add) looking for the truth, its just not as hard as you are making out to model a tube closely enough to fool the human ear. Sorry, but thats the case. All those who want to dispute that, claiming unbelievably powerful senses akin to electronic analysis equiptment take a big step forward. You have not yet done a true double blind test, so you havent been proven wrong conclusively yet. If you did you would be wrong on average 50% of the time. Accept it as unpalateable as it may seem. The geeks have achieved that much.[/quote]

I'm still not convinced. Ok - I'm not suggesting that I can tell if someone else is playing through whatever amps. However, I find, that I prefer playing through valve amps... I find it easier to EQ a pleasant tone to my ears. I've yet to hear myself play through a model which sounds like I know I get valve amps to sound like.

A better test would be to get the whole control group to play into two amps, one valve, one solid state modeled on the valve amp and see if they could tell the difference themselves, let them play with the EQ not knowing which one was which.

Edited February 4, 2010 by bigjohn

[d-basser]

A good core tone just gives a better start and means the bass is going to be predisposed to sounding good. They say say you can't polish a turd but if it was already shiny to start you wouldn't have to try so hard.

[waynepunkdude]

I'm sorry Nig but you are being utterly deluded in this instance, everyone knows that pineapple on a pizza is plain wrong.

[riff raff]

[quote name='silddx' post='735194' date='Feb 4 2010, 04:12 PM']It's an interesting point, in fact I was just having a quick ciggie thinking about exactly that before I read your post. I sort of came to the conclusion that my choice of rolling tobacco and papers is much more important to me than my choice of bass and amplification.

I personally think Jaco's sound was sh*t, and most of Geddy's sound was too, until fairly recently and on Signals. I love most of Chris Squire's sounds, along with Vivian Weathers', Scott Thunes', Aston Barrett's, Chi Dai Cheng's .. I can approximate all of them on the POD and I very much doubt you would know the difference unless you A/Bed them soloed. I have absolutely no tonal identity.[/quote]





i think that you are my hero.

Edited February 4, 2010 by riff raff

[Maverick]

Basically, everything's subjective.

[MacDaddy]

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='735373' date='Feb 4 2010, 06:32 PM']I'm sorry Nig but you are being utterly deluded in this instance, everyone knows that pineapple on a pizza is plain wrong.[/quote]
+1

fruit has no business being on a pizza.

and before anyone says tomato is a fruit, I'm with the U.S. Supreme Court who on May 10, 1893 declared that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert (Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304))

[xilddx]

[quote name='Maverick' post='735417' date='Feb 4 2010, 07:19 PM']Basically, everything's subjective.[/quote]
A very objective statement if I may say so.

[xilddx]

[quote name='MacDaddy' post='735423' date='Feb 4 2010, 07:26 PM']+1

fruit has no business being on a pizza.[/quote]
Ah, well now, there's a lot of history to the use of the pineapple with ham, the particular enzymes in it fights bacteria and preserves such things as ham, especially on long 18th century sea journeys to places like Hawaii.

[xilddx]

[quote name='riff raff' post='735398' date='Feb 4 2010, 06:51 PM']i think that you are my hero.[/quote]
Not sure how to respond to that Thank you! Old Holborn and green Rizla?

[TimR]

Ultimately there are only two catagories of people who listen to the bass tone at a gig.

1) The Bass player.
2) A Bass player in the audience.

To most people we're the big guitar at the back.

Other players have complemented me on my tone. I assume my playing sucks, but the piece of wood and other expensive hardware I bought to smash those notes out sounds good.

[Marvin]

[quote name='TimR' post='735461' date='Feb 4 2010, 08:01 PM']Ultimately there are only two catagories of people who listen to the bass tone at a gig.

1) The Bass player.
2) A Bass player in the audience.

To most people we're the big guitar at the back.

Other players have complemented me on my tone. I assume my playing sucks, but the piece of wood and other expensive hardware I bought to smash those notes out sounds good.[/quote]
Can't argue that.