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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Woram Rules..

8/13/1999 3:40 AM
SpeedRacer	Woram Rules.. ..one of my very favorite books btw! If I ran the world, it would be on the required reading list..

8/12/1999 6:12 PM
Psycho Bass Guy	Re: Psycho: check this out I have never been able to run a bass wide open. My attack is really percussive and lays on way too many transients. As I mentioned earlier, I have to back off the pre-gain of my amp to avoid fuzzy distortion, and I also usually run the volume pot at about 50-65% with the tone on the Fender at about 30%. I know this runs contrary to the popular belief in diming everything, but I have no trouble with note definition or harmonic content. The G&L is an L2500 which has a switch for passive/active/active treble boost, but mine stays passive and I run the Bass boost about 50% and the treble boost at about 35%. This stays constant with both nickel and stainless steel roundwounds. The only time I need to do anything more is when flatwounds come into the picture. I tried diming the bass and lowering my amp's input gain, but couldn't get any volume before it turned to fuzz. This is just my personal style; other people play through my equipment and have to turn it up. What's really funny is I don't beat my bass, and I have never broken a string. As far as "life" in the tone, I think it has to do with the pickups catching the body resonance and sending it out too. Sharp attack=more vibration to be picked up. At the same time I also have a Fender Jazz 5(passive) with nickelwounds that I keep the tone control at 30%, but I play with the volume pots to get different tones. I also have an old Kramer Spector NS2,(passive as well) that I am still getting used to. That thing has such a loud output, I am convinced that it is just plain evil! For recording, I run them all through the Ampeg SVT3Pro and take out the tube direct line (with the eq bypassed) which seems to compress nicely and give the bass a nice round warmth. I stick a 4x10 under the head for monitoring at a much lower volume than I usally play and go with it. (Headphones lie; that's what they do.)It seems to work out nicely. I think you could achieve similar results with a good tube preamp, or even a well designed solid state coupled with a good compressor just gently nudging things. Keep in mind that the bass you hear on most recordings has been through the initial compression of either an amp or direct unit, then compressed again to fit into the mix, and finally compressed one more time in the mastering process. Very little of the actual dynamic range of the instrument makes it to tape. So I always figured that I needed to get my dynamics from tonal differences as opposed to volume.

8/12/1999 6:12 PM

Psycho Bass Guy

Re: Psycho: check this out

I have never been able to run a bass wide open. My attack is really percussive and lays on way too many transients. As I mentioned earlier, I have to back off the pre-gain of my amp to avoid fuzzy distortion, and I also usually run the volume pot at about 50-65% with the tone on the Fender at about 30%. I know this runs contrary to the popular belief in diming everything, but I have no trouble with note definition or harmonic content. The G&L is an L2500 which has a switch for passive/active/active treble boost, but mine stays passive and I run the Bass boost about 50% and the treble boost at about 35%. This stays constant with both nickel and stainless steel roundwounds. The only time I need to do anything more is when flatwounds come into the picture. I tried diming the bass and lowering my amp's input gain, but couldn't get any volume before it turned to fuzz. This is just my personal style; other people play through my equipment and have to turn it up. What's really funny is I don't beat my bass, and I have never broken a string. As far as "life" in the tone, I think it has to do with the pickups catching the body resonance and sending it out too. Sharp attack=more vibration to be picked up. At the same time I also have a Fender Jazz 5(passive) with nickelwounds that I keep the tone control at 30%, but I play with the volume pots to get different tones. I also have an old Kramer Spector NS2,(passive as well) that I am still getting used to. That thing has such a loud output, I am convinced that it is just plain evil! For recording, I run them all through the Ampeg SVT3Pro and take out the tube direct line (with the eq bypassed) which seems to compress nicely and give the bass a nice round warmth. I stick a 4x10 under the head for monitoring at a much lower volume than I usally play and go with it. (Headphones lie; that's what they do.)It seems to work out nicely. I think you could achieve similar results with a good tube preamp, or even a well designed solid state coupled with a good compressor just gently nudging things. Keep in mind that the bass you hear on most recordings has been through the initial compression of either an amp or direct unit, then compressed again to fit into the mix, and finally compressed one more time in the mastering process. Very little of the actual dynamic range of the instrument makes it to tape. So I always figured that I needed to get my dynamics from tonal differences as opposed to volume.

8/12/1999 8:04 PM

Ken Gilbert

quote:
"(Headphones lie; that's what they do.)"

Reaaal hard to find drivers as linear as headphones--No, I don't think they LIE per se, it's just that they're much different than the speakers you normally use. Maybe they just lie differently.

The headphones are so linear because they are so inefficient. Trading that off nets you the incredible frequency response of 20-20K typical of even mediocre headphones.

Just picking nits. My scalp's itchy.

~KG~

8/12/1999 8:22 PM
Pyscho	Yes, but the freq response of headphones belies the fact tha they cannot reproduce that bandwidth throughout their entire dynamic range. Bass cabinets are far from efficient( or any cabinets for that matter), but they have a pretty(subjective here) stable tone. Headphones get louder in the mids (loudest) and highs (to a lesser degree), exactly in the areas humans hear best anyway with increasing volume resulting in the sacrifice of low end. That's why bass speakers are usually ungodly overpowered.( BTW, that is funny coming from me) Headphones and the amps who run them are usually not robust enough to maintain a proper balance. All speakers lie, but I like the lies my 4x10 tells me compared to what eventually comes out on tape.

8/12/1999 8:22 PM

Pyscho

Yes, but the freq response of headphones belies the fact tha they cannot reproduce that bandwidth throughout their entire dynamic range. Bass cabinets are far from efficient( or any cabinets for that matter), but they have a pretty(subjective here) stable tone. Headphones get louder in the mids (loudest) and highs (to a lesser degree), exactly in the areas humans hear best anyway with increasing volume resulting in the sacrifice of low end. That's why bass speakers are usually ungodly overpowered.( BTW, that is funny coming from me) Headphones and the amps who run them are usually not robust enough to maintain a proper balance. All speakers lie, but I like the lies my 4x10 tells me compared to what eventually comes out on tape.

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