How to Fix Your Sh*tty Bass Tone
???? My full beginner bass course: https://yeah.bassbuzz.com/tone-chain
Your bass tone called—it’s tired of being sh*tty. Let’s find out what gear actually matters for tone, and what’s just marketing mumbo-jumbo.
Thanks to my fellow bassists –
Gio Benedetti https://www.giobenedetti.com/
Ben Burleigh https://www.instagram.com/bassmanburleigh
Ever feel like your bass tone is… meh? Like no matter what you do, it just doesn’t have that sizzle to it? You’re not alone. But here’s the good news: you don’t need a $5,000 boutique bass moistened with tears of the tonewood tree to fix it.
Your tone’s secret sauce can come from anything—fingers, strings, pickups, even how you think about your sound. But do all those things really matter? To crack the case, I blindfolded two pro bassists (no kidnapping involved) and made their ears judge the tone heroes from the tone zeros.
By the end of this video, you’ll know how to sculpt a tone so good that drummers will be begging for your number. In this video, you’ll learn:
– Stupidly simple tricks to fix a problematic bass tone
– Whether pickups and electronics upgrades are your secret weapons… or a waste of money
– The truth about tonewood (I was surprised)
– Two pro bassists may or may not be tied up and blindfolded in my garage
You read all the way through this video description… you must really like bass lessons. Subscribe so you don’t miss the next one – https://yeah.bassbuzz.com/subscribe
#BassTone #BassBuzz
#Fix #Shtty #Bass #Tone
Originally posted by UCeD9_tDVA1wvqv1IF9QyP-A at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b0ShkSBtcU
Insert inflammatory comments about tonewood for the YT algorithm here. ???? ????????
The cheapest, most effective electric bass tone-shaping device to use, for those who play/pluck with fingers, is fingernail clippers.
I could absolutely hear the difference between the tone knobs. The Amazon set was more crisp with the high frequencies. That said I'm definitely not the person that would change knobs when you could EQ it after the fact. ????????
At higher volumes, the tone differences between those four amps would become more noticeable, particularly the all-tube Ampeg SVT versus the Darkglass, TC, and Bugera. The make and model of speaker cab/s paired with whatever given amp head further accentuates tonal differences. I'd rank the total tonal influence of amps and speaker cabinets somewhere between Group A: Fingers/pick technique and effects pedals and Group B: tone woods and strings. In a live concert space how much of a difference this will make to the audience out front is approximately zero, especially with a pro PA system. It's more for the player than anyone else. (I suppose I'm essentially saying the same things a bit differently)
3 sucked…too harsh…you need another bassist behind you in that case.
I enjoyed this video a lot!
Recently I have ordered my first customer bass, and I've spent TONES of time listening to different pickups, electronics, reading about wood etc. I agree that putting fingers, and amps apart, pickups are important, the rest is not (for tone at least).
Active vs passive.. ??
GREAT VIDEO. THANK YOOOOOOOOOOU for NOT doing all the stupid multiple camera angles. So many people eff that idea up. What I believe happens is the content creator turns into Tom Cruise in his mind, and camera vendors sell more cameras. But it does not enhance the experience, in my opinion
Great video and great example! The only obvious question remaining: the difference of the three basses was sooo clear and it was allways your fingers playing, but all the following steps did not seem to make any big difference per se… so why did the basses sound so different anyway? Something still seems to be missing…?
13:01 "Can pedals make a difference to your bass tone?" Asking the real questions! XD
Is this RadRat?
WTF?
The jazz bass sounded a hair better with the original electronics. The second sound was a hair brighter and raw.
Your amp makes a huge difference along with your speakers of course. Took me 20 years to find the right amp while using the same Bass. And more power the better if you want a clean tone.
The most important part of your tone other than your technique. But the other instruments you are playing with. And it’s not mix as much as sound itself. A guitar sound can completely change your bass tone. Same for drums and others.
You forgot an element: the fingerboard wood tone.
You can hear the difference listening of videos with the same bass and strings but different fingerboard wood (for example: maple vs rosewood), mostly when the strings beat the fingerboard.
I did replace the electronics in my J-bass. It's an active preamp with stacked knobs that give me a 5 band eq
The only thing I noticed from the electronics change was the second clip was louder and brighter.
Geo looks like mike dirnt if he was more sociable
Brilliant video, however my wife is talking all over it and she has had a glass of wine, so I will watch it again later ….
Once brought a Mesa Single Rectifier instead of my Rockerverb. It was like bringin a jar of bees instead a pack of hungry dogs.
Well i have to admit you didnt do the ONE upgrade to a single bass that would've probably netted a difference in sound. You should've taken the Squire P Bass and combine the quarterpounder pickup upgrade AND proper Alpha/CTS pots with orange drop cap (potentially varying the value of the cap). This definitely is a way better way to "upgrade" an instrument to get a different tone. Cheap electronics are what come in a squier anyway.
Very good video and presentation, just right!!!
I enjoyed this video very very much! Loved your fellow bassists Gio and Ben! Plse more stuff like this!
Wonderful, quite educational video. The only thing, that could be added, alongside the type of strings, would be gauge, as it's considered as a "tone-changer" too by a lot of people on the internet.
White Pine is the only wood I use!
The cable diatribe has been debunked so much by every tech audio channel that I feel anybody still debating about it must be trolling.
Electricity follows rules; those rules applied to frequencies in the kHz range give basically no difference between different materials/gauges/etc. Your 3 meters copper cable will conduct AC @0-20KHz exactly like your 3 meters solid gold cable (even though gold is a terrible conductor compared to copper).
If your new cable sounds better than your old cable, the old cable was broken.
Bullshit came makes no difference, once had a new cable that made my Rich sound like a P with the tone turned down all the way!
Man I love the colour of Josh's bass. That white body / purple pickguard combo is so clean
I quit “the volume war” with the guitarists by starting to playback when their volumes become too loud.
2:00
“The clack”
That did something to me
I feel like i have the opposite problem of the whispy
I think i push down too much making the string hit the frets or smth to make a clack or whatever
And i don’t understand that do much
Isn’t what sounds good subjective????
It be like “tone 1- sounds horrible
Tone 2- sounds amazing” but they don’t sound better/worse to me just different??
Idk maybe my music taste is just down in the gutters but like it depends on the context of if it sounds good or not
As long as its consistent or strategically inconsistent (like idk doing something funky to add interest to the song)
Great video, but mainly here to highlight how much Gio looks like a young Harrison Ford.
I loved this video and how cool to see it doesn't matter really what gear you have.
Good points but including the difference between steel and nickel coated strings, at least for me those make quite a bit of a difference. Also, I did change the electronics of my old and discontinued ibanez EDB-605 to some Bartolini HR and the tone difference are night and day, but then sometimes you get what you pay for.
Entertaining, educational. Well done. Thank you.
Fender Precision bass (squier) vs Fender Precision (expensive) bass?
I still dont like my tone, diagnosis: skill issue 🙁
Dont misunderstand me, i dont believe in magic cables, but a guitar level signal into the DI box and the line level out of it are two very different creatures.
The guitar signal is technically more susceptible to cable losses.
On the other hand, most cheap guitar cables are more than good enough to not introduce those losses anyways, so whatever.
I disagree about the pickups, as I had an old Korean bass with old stock pickups, after replacing them with the mentioned SD pickups the harmonics and tone were improved! So it does matter on a case by case basis 😉
On the topic of what others do and room etc, is why I have an EQ pedal.
Most of the time I don’t need it, but it’s great to have when it makes a difference.
I don’t use a lot of pedals on bass, but I like a volume pedal for swells, (which I don’t do on every song), and cutting out the volume between songs.
I also often use a chorus pedal on a subtler setting, most won’t notice it, but I find it helps me hear it better, and in a smaller band it can help fill out the sound, although in a larger one it can turn to mush
Agree strings make a difference, but probably not as much as we think.
If you like the strings’ feel, that too impacts your playing along with the comments on wood.
It impacts the player mostly.
Many times we switch stuff and nobody hears a difference, or much of one, but if it makes us us happier with our basses, the it might be worth it.
Fantastic content – thanks mate ????❤️
This is a great video, and matches my experience. The only nit I have is with the electronics section, and it's really just an addendum more than any sort of gripe. The only thing I can add is that changing the capacitor and/or pot values/tapers will change the way the bass rolls off the highs. The capacitor basically sets the absolute lowest frequency for the possible range of the low-pass filter (which is all your tone knob + cap is), and the taper + resistance values of the pot controls when and how much that point changes + how much is applied. So you can do some weird stuff there, like switching cap values to a larger cap in order to lower the low-pass cutoff point even more than with the stock cap value…But yes, like for like, just "replacing electronics" won't fix any issues if everything was functional before.
Thanks for the no-nonsense content
????
(???????? for that quote by Sheldon D. on the subject of tonewood)
nice video !! very usefull !!!
Cable’s quality should be moderated a bit, some are really stupidly cheap and the jack’s quality has to be reliable … so fancy ones nope, good reliable ones, certainly
Josh, love your channel and teaching style, overall big fan. While i agree with the idea to practice more and spend less time wirrying about gear, ESPECIALLY for a beginner, i gotta call BS in some if these tests. You just ran ever So fast and on one setting. Some of this stuff (not all) can make a fairly significant difference but its easy to miss on a literally 5 second test. Add to that, that these changes aren’t usually made in isolation. People don’t only seitch the electrinics, they switch electrinics AND puckups AND cable AND preamp. All that together = big difference.
Though I have been playing for years at this point, I love watching this channel because I notice how beginner-friendly it is. These guys explain things like they are, don't go over-technical or speculative, don't make any bold claims, and I always finish the video feeling like I learned something. Music YouTube needs more stuff like this!!
Tone,Tone,Tone
If it has great sound to it and plays well is ok with me , you can always adjust the Amp and whatnot to get a variety of tones , but yes the strings will definitely give you different examples of tone in some way just like the difference of using a pick or your fingers
Play n have fun doing it , experiment along the way if ya want otherwise….
Just play and enjoy have a blunt rinse and repeat ???????? while increasing the blunt intake ????????????
How about on board pre-amp for active bass ????????????I think it makes huge change