Improve Your Bass Tone With One Simple Fix
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ค. 2024
- So I get asked quite regularly over at the Talkingbass live hangs about tone. The questions are quite varied in nature so people might complain about getting a slap tone, or they might find it hard to hear themselves on stage or the bass might be farting out as they increase volume but most of the time they all boil down to one general question about how to set the tone controls on a bass or an amp. Well, today I’m going to give you one simple answer that can then act as a foundation for everything else going forward and it’s something I wish I’d learned much, much earlier than I did.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:35 The Basic Fix
0:56 The Biggest Mistake
2:11 Importance Of The Instrument
3:13 Amp Consideration
4:42 Technique
5:08 Setup
5:29 Tone In The Hands
5:53 Technique/Position Examples
8:20 Tone Controls
10:17 Frequency Examples
13:05 Tone Advice
13:56 Slap Sound
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Just for clarification: Flat eq means 12 o'clock on most tone controls. It means no boost and no cut. Mid way on a tone control (12 o clock) is the natural sound received from the bass. Below 12 o clock will cut and above 12 o clock will boost. I've noticed some people thinking I mean totally cut.
I understand that on the amp. But what about on the bass. Surely those should just be fully open? Also thanks so much for the demo of the different frequency ranges. I'll never forget that.
Hi, So if I have three knobs for Low, Med, High. They each should be set on five?
And same w tone knobs on bass? All at 50%? I also have 3 knobs for tone on my Ibanez SDGR. Thank you in advance. This was such a good tutorial.
@@MinhPham-ly7yp I'm wondering something similar. Or, assuming that, no, that can't be right. AIUI, the knobs on the bass should be full open, because that's the full bass sound. It's not boosted, at least in my passive pickups. It's just the full sound. One pot for each pickup and one for overall volume. I have to cut a little bit of volume because the top just seems to be buzz.
@@MinhPham-ly7yp The knobs on the bass itself operate slightly differently. You will want your bass knobs set to fully open/100% using the method discussed here. If you have multiple pick-ups similar concepts to finger placement affecting tone apply.
That's exactly what I understood: totally cut. Happy 2 be reading this while still watching the video.
Dude. You are THE GOAT. Low ego, low spam, just quality.
I've been playing for years, have a music degree and this video was still humbling to watch. No BS 'Hacks' just good advice. Thanks Mark. 👍
Same
Newbie. Awed. This is some stellar starter advice. Subscribed.
Same, music degree, been playing guitar 25 years, and I still never really understood what the tone controls did. So usually I never messed with them too much, haha. This was a great video.
It’ makes so much sense what Mark is saying 💯
Marc is really a Master in Teaching! Learned so much i loved to would haven know back in the days, playing bass for almost 30 years.
damn the isolation of frequencies part of this video is MINDBLOWING
aaaaaaah
Great lesson. Please send this to me in 1991, when I first started 😆
I spent so many years dealing with engineers who thoguht that bass meant "low end." And then guess what happens? The bass wound up booming out and consequently, they mixed the bass lower and lower -- until it was gone.
Been playing for more than 30 years and I learned as much today as if I'd just picked my first bass guitar ! I am pretty sure many musicians I played with thought at some point that I boosted way too much certain frequencies and then some. Even though I always began by setting everything at 12 o'clock I probably should have been a little more aware not to crank my bass control too much and use more midrange. Thank you a ton Mark !
This is great advice for audio engineers too! Most bassists way overshoot the low end in their tone and it can make mixing the song a nightmare if you don't know how things work down there. It's definitely a trap for young players. I fell into it, and got stuck there for a while. Until my ear became a little better trained. But then I wished I had taken the blue pill because I knew my mixes sucked and I knew it was because of the bass, but on the list of things I knew there wasn't anything written after that. I tried thousands of EQ and compression settings until I got fed up and decided I needed to hear exactly how pro-mixed bass sounded. Soloed. If I could find a couple good examples of that, I could compare them to my soloed bass tracks and hopefully the problems would reveal themselves. That ended up being a pretty good idea and I didn't even need to A/B them with my tracks because the difference was so clear. The pro tracks all had A LOT less low end energy. And by a lot I mean A-fucking-LOT. I remember saying "are you kidding me?" and re-playing them over and over. All 3 bass tracks I chose sounded so tame and not aggressive outside of the mix. They sounded like... just some dude playing bass, not the enormous bass flamethrower that it sounds like in the mix. It was difficult to wrap my head around but it started to make sense because I had always heard my mentors talk about how low frequencies carry a lot more energy than mids and highs but I didn't realize the degree of truth behind that statement until then. It's like putting drop of ink into a 5 gallon bucket of water. It definitely won't go un-noticed. If you're an engineer and you can't get your low end right, definitely listen to the guy in this video, and also do what I did and listen to isolated bass tracks. If you're interested, the 3 tracks I used were Incubus - "Stellar" , The Beatles - "Hey Bulldog" and Nirvana - "In bloom" . Just add "isolated bass" to any of those in the search and you'll find all 3 here on TH-cam. Out of the 3, the one that drives the concept home the most is the Incubus one because that song is like THE BASS AND VOCAL SHOW all day long. The bass is a huge commanding force in the mix but then you hear it by itself and it sounds like he's practicing in his bedroom. It's insane. Listening to the finished song and then thinking back on how that bass sounded soloed is very educational. I highly HIGHLY recommend it.
Great advice, I'm in year 43 of gigging and the best sound I've ever had was using my original 1969 Marshall Superbass 100 watt valve amp, the tone controls did very little if anything when it was at gig level. Sounded quite horrible on it's own but once the band kicked in it was perfect. The mids were INSANE, I remember doing a gig supporting Leo Sayer, bizarrely the Fourmost were just below us on the bill, Billy said 'can I use your amp, it's the best I've ever heard'. I stood out front and the mic'd up sound was astounding for 40k people. Mids are where its at
I had a super bass and agree about the sound everything made now has so much in effects that I don't think you need
Yep, I've played with flat EQ on both my bass and amp for over 25 years. Always use just volume to balance out with rest of band. Nice one Mark. One of the best bits of advice for bass in a band mix.
I've been a bass player since 1970 and I learned a lot from watching this video. I play in a band and will apply this advice immediately.
Man.. Your videos are always my favorite. Always providing clarity in a musician's world of convoluted "tips and tricks"
This is so helpful for my stage of development and I’m currently playing in a band, thank you Mark. I laughed at myself when you mentioned boosting the lows and mids at low practice-type volume, that’s exactly what I do but I’m carrying that setting forward to band practice and after viewing this video I’m going to set them flat and do what you suggest. Here is a suggestion for a future tone video: discuss how overdrive/distortion/fuzz emphasizes certain frequencies and how to best use in a band setting. I own several of your courses, they are great, thanks for all you do!
This is a brilliant video with simply the best advice on setting the bass tone I’ve heard throughout my long years of playing bass. Thank you, Mark!
Man, I've been playing bass for 35 years and never "got" this! Thank you!
I’ve been playing bass as well as guitar most of my life. I’m 49 now and have been thinking and dwelling on tone and sound like never before. This has been very helpful on my sonic journey. Thanks!
Fantastic Video. I'm a sound engineer, not a bassist, but this gives me an understanding of where the bassist should be in a live setup. Such well presented information. Thank you!
Great info. Been playing for three years now and you have held my hand while I kicked an screamed, multiple times I have thought of quitting and now all I can say is thank you for your laid back approach and easy to understand teaching methods. All though I still have alot to explore I now feel competent enough to play with others or just improv to my hearts content. One of the best things I've ever did was pick up the bass. Also one tip I'd really like to throw out to the community that alot already know but a healthy mindset is a huge component for music and life! Thanks Mark.
When I started playing slap bass in 2022 there were a lot of TH-cam 'experts' saying you needed a scooped tone for slap. Now I leave everything flat. Great advice, Mark. I work regularly on what I call your 'Thumb Accelerator' exercise and I really notice the difference when I come back to my slap riffs.
Excellent! I am a 61 y.o. beginner on the bass (though also a professional singer since forever) who started playing acoustic bass guitar last september. After plugging into a few amps recently, I now am eagerly awaiting my first (small) amp. This video already answered so many questions that arose in those few amplified session, I am super grateful for the info. THANK YOU!!!
Amazing advice I wish I had received years ago. Much of these points I have figured but only after many years of playing bass in live settings. Great tips!
This lesson was super helpful and saves me wasted time trying to “dial a tone in” while I practice. I actually love the sound of my bass with the preamp eq flat.
Thanks Mark, very helpful. There are so many convoluted opinions on this out there and this cuts to the heart of it.
Fantastic lesson Mark and such good advice. As you said, the first thing most new players do is turn up the bass. I have heard similar advice about keeping everything flat and if you need to sculpt the tone, cut the bass or highs or mids and don't increase them. Thanks for sharing this good advice.
Very clear presentations. You are never too old to learn.
Excellent video Mark. That's probably the most productive 15 mins I've ever spent on TH-cam! :)
Well done! My #1 bass is a Fender Jazz American Elite. Run the bass controls flat into an Ampeg preamp with all the settings flat into a mixing board for the house and my in-ear monitors. 90% of the time it sounds like a perfect Jazz bass sound blending perfectly with the mix. If it's not cutting through I adjust my picking hand first. If that's not it then it's always the mids that need a little boost.
Thank you for breaking down the EQ in such an understandable way. So helpful.
Room size, acoustics in the room, volume and live mix are all critical for bassists. I use a 400 watt Ampeg with 2 10's. I use my fingers and a pick for some sounds. This is a great video, good stuff.
I forgot how long I've been playing at this pointed, 72 years old, gigging and recording every week still.
Los Angeles
I've been playing bass for 33 years, and I can say this vid taught me some stuff and also reminded me of some stuff I'd lost along the way. Thanks, fella!! :-)
Almost 60 years of playing and this advise is priceless. Thanks
Wow, the part where you isolate the different frequencies was really eye-opening!
Excellent video that's easy to understand. Isolating the different frequencies made it all so clear and demonstrated the concept w/o getting into audio fundamentals that would have caused most folks to move on. Well done!
Absolutely the best explanation of bass tone I have found. Thank you.
Thank you so much!!!
This video is extremely interresting and useful!
Excellent teaching point. So often overlooked Thank you for your insight.
Fantastic advice. Took me a while to learn this myself
Thanks for best advice I have heard. I was constantly frustrated, searching for a tone and then being annoyed that it was not ''right'' for the situation.
I've only picked up learning how to play the bass a couple of years ago and one game-changing adjustment was something that I didn't even know was a thing at all, because I've never had to deal with it on guitar/electric guitar in 15 years: String action - which has been way too high for the kind of playing I like (mainly writing video game music and covering RHCP stuff and similar). This, combined with nice and thin bass strings made a bigger difference on my sound than any amp or pre-amp etc ever could.
What a marvelous demonstration. Thank you!
Thanks, mate. This was a very, very useful video, especially the part where you notched the various frequencies. I'll be putting it to practice at a jam session tomorrow.
I have been preaching what you said here for over 30 years! (Sound check magazine readers will remember) Thanks for making this video, i hope a lot of Bass players follow your advice.
Fantastic advice Mark . Thank you
I have been applying this for years and I 100% agree..
Your so right it took me 20 yrs to learn that very concept thanks for the education 👍👌
Explanation through isolation was worth the price of admission. Thanks Mark!
GREAT advice. Thank you.
Best tone advice and explanation video ever. Bang on 👍
"...that all comes from technique not from gear"...this sentence sums up the whole lesson.....Txs for teaching! :)
I've spent years trying to improve my bass tone, and thanks to your videos I discovered that 1. I don't like the natural sound of my bass, therefore it's going to be difficult to found a tone that I like. 2. By leaving every setting flat that really helped me get a useful tone out of my bass.
Thanks a lot mate you've really helped me.
This video is just what I needed. Thanks for doing this.
What a fabulous video, so helpful, easy to understand and incredibly useful, thank you Mark.
Great lesson. I especially love that you gave the specific frequencies instead of general terms like most. I’m a subscriber and of course I “Liked”
These were some great tips. Learned some new things. Thanks.
dude, i love all of your videos. very informative. thx!!
Brilliant explanations. Well done!
The note and frequency demonstrations were very helpful, really drove the point home.
That was the best part for me a s well!
I found this lesson to be extremely informative. Will try this at my next gig because it seems that I am always adjusting everything differently. Each time I play out live
Technique over tone control: very liberating. Thank you.
100% agree with all points. Great video!
I think your lessons are the best online bass lessons. Thank you!
Best way to show the frequencies so good. I do love using my 3 band eq and passive tone for practice and pickup blend
This is very informative, thank you so much
Very interesting! Thank you for explaining and presenting this valuable information. I really appreciate your insight.
Great advice thanks, I’ve always sculpted my tone and always had problems getting my tone where I need it 👍
So glad I clicked on this!
Getting my Bass in a couple of days and this is the best advice ever. Cheers mate.
Excellent video. Understanding the relative audibility of the different harmonic areas that make up 'bass tone' is really important. Ironically, producers and engineers are more likely to be aware of this than actual bass players. Too many bass players think that there are only two things you can do: 'more volume' and 'more bass'.
man I needed to watch this years ok. I just learnt so much, thanks heaps Mark!
You are a blessing to the bass community.
This was a very useful video for me as a beginner. Thank you!
A very good practical video. You have really clarified the fundamentals of the bass sound. Thank you.
An effect every bassist should learn how to use is a compressor. Buy the best compressor pedal you can afford, it will make all the difference in the world.
@@marioduron4376 save your pennies and buy a high end compressor you’ll thank yourself someday. It’s one of those effects that you don’t notice but makes a big difference in a band setting. It’s not the easiest effect to use, takes time to dial in correctly. It’s also used on practically every recording.
I don't care for them for live playing, it screws with my dynamics
I agree. Besides a tuner, the only pedals on my board are a compressor and the Big Muff fuzz pedal (which I only use for a few songs). I have the Darkglass Hyper Luminal, it really helps my tone. I know I have more to learn about it.
Sort your basic tone and technique out first, and then add effects. I’d agree, a compressor is a great pedal, and worth putting the effort in to learn to use it properly. Decent compressors aren’t cheap though, but they are worth it IMHO.
@@marioduron4376 Cali76, Empress effects Bass compressor, Omnicomp by Broughton are a few handmade ones. These are really fine pedals. I own all 3.
I been thinking about getting a EUB but can’t decide on which brand to start off with.
What an eye opening lesson! Thanks for rhis.
Awesome!!!!!!! You are so right, Mark! All is said, nothing left to add!
Brilliant video, the flat tone with mid boost worked a treat on my Rickenbacker 4001, really improved the sound, I also discovered I could add an extra clank by using a distortion pedal with a clean sound and a boosted treble on the pedals tone control.
Thanks great video. I learnt a lot
This is great advice and is generally true in many situations. It's probably worth pointing out that some (especially passive) tone controls aren't simply volume controls.
You are very knowledgable and a very good teacher. Thanks for a very helpful video
What an outstanding video, Mark. The manner in which you give instruction keeps my attention. I actually took notes....(wish I'd done that in college).
Respect from a LONG time bassist in Jersey.
The videos on this channel are excellent 👌
This is so good! Thank you!
very valuable info !!!! THANK YOU !!
Another thing to consider is the gain and master settings if the amp has both. You don't want the gain too low and master too high. If you do, you reduce a lot of the signal from the guitar. set the gain appropriate.
Thx Mark, great video, very educationnal !!
Great advice great video. I’ve been playing live since early eighties. I’ve gone through a ton of different basses but my main amp has pretty much been an ampeg svt I’ve recently switched from rack mounted svt 4 back to original tube head always with 8x10 cabs. Love the fenders with both p&j pickup configuration. Best of all worlds. Always have fresh round wounds on use my picking hand to adjust tone floating between pickup positions.
whats amazing is that most tones that we try to emulate were from the time when speakers and amps had to be hauled on stage and PA systems struggled so only vocals got in them and backline was the main band sound. so bass players had to distort their amps and play really loud to get through...
Great as always. Thanks.
I started on electric guitar and I remember learning quite quickly that adjustments to EQ were best made in small increments. Back in the day, I remember reading about the "scooped mids" tone. It was the early 00s, Nu Metal was popular and people still raved about Metallica's Black album tone, Mesa Boogie were all the rage and super scooped sounds were de rigeur. I tried scooping the mids on my amp and while it did sound fat and heavy, playing at home alone, I quickly found that it sounded harsh, fatiguing on the ear and it make leads, chords and arpeggios sounds extremely muffled.
My young and inquisitive mind tried a change of direction and I boosted my mids - what a revelation. But with that, I quickly learned another lesson and that is what you talked about here, that you only need small adjustments to get what you want. Maxing out the mids just makes a really harsh tone too, but in a different way to scooped mids.
Never ever look to Metallica for good bass tone reference LOL
Super helpful. Thanks Mark.
Lots of awesome advice demonstrations .
I Thank God for your help excellence...
Super helpful! Thank you very much.
I 100% agree! Playing for almost over 50 years I almost never use the tone controls on my amps. Only if there are resonances in the room I use the parametric EQ to eliminate them.
On my JBs I only use the tone control with the bridge PU to get that nasal 'Jaco' tone. Most of the time the EQ on my Glock is off. On some active basses (esp. my Yamahas) I have a minimal boost in the mids and that's it. Even when playing with very loud metal bands (2 guitars w. 2 Marshall stacks each) I only had my 350 Watts Glock BassArt with very clean cabs and always cut through the mix.
The worst one can do (and I always see/saw it out there when I work as FOH engineer) is having a 1000 Watts amp with monster cabs, bass at 4 o'clock, mids cut and it's guaranteed the bass is not to be heard.
Great video, thanks!
Most live gigs have front-of-house support anyway. The amp is really just so you can hear yourself on stage. The sound engineer at the venue is going to do his best to make it sound good out in the crowd. That's out of your control, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Also, your bass cabinet makes as big a difference to your tone as your amp does. And then there is the tone knob(s) on your bass. And then there's all the technique elements you mentioned.
So well explained. Thank you.
Very useful advices… thanks a lot Mark!
Some really good advice there. Excellent stuff Mark.
Really useful video Mark thanks
Thank you so much.. I've always had an issue with getting the right tone.
Great lesson!! Great teacher!