How To Adjust Your Bass and Amp Sound

[eric.kiser]

Helping people figure out what to do with all those knobs.

My most basic process.

1. Set amplifier EQ (bass, low mid, high mid, treble) to noon (50%)
2. Turn off tone controls (bright, contour, vintage, etc.)
3. Turn off effects (drive, compression, etc.)
4. Dial in Bass
5. Dial in amplifier
6. Turn on tone controls as desired
7. Turn on effects as desired

Some things to consider.

• We have lots of options for tone control. As @howard has said, it helps to think of them like this

1. Bass controls are for manipulating the tone of your bass
2. Pedals controls are for manipulating your effected sound
3. Amp controls are for adjusting for the room

• If you’re having trouble dialing in your sound, try using headphones to get the base sound. Then unplug and fine tune from there.

@BassFaceDisgrace

Knobs are made to be fiddled with, and within your practice space there are no right or wrong answers, only sounds you enjoy and sounds you don’t.

[howard]

@eric.kiser

Bass controls are for manipulating your sound

I’d say - “for manipulating the tone of your bass.” But otherwise great post!

[eric.kiser]

Reference here… Show Us Your Basses (Part 1) - #3046 by Brian.RichardS

@Brian.RichardS

On the Vox there are various settings.

Step One

Drive: off
Bright: off
Treble: 50% (set at noon / 12 o’clock)
Bass: 50% (set at noon / 12 o’clock)
Volume: Whatever sounds comfortable/good

Step Two

P Pickup Volume: 50%
J Pickup Volume: 0%
Tone: 50%

Step Three

@BassFaceDisgrace

Edit to be slightly more helpful: A good place to start on a PJ bass like yours is turn your P pickup to the desired level, and slowly turn up the J pickup to add some of that qwackier flavor until you find something that sounds good to you. Play with the tone knob from there to mess with it some more.

Step Four

@Brian.RichardS

As a beginner is it best not to use the Drive and Bright settings

Leave them off till you find the basic sound you like on the bass.
Then use them as needed, as you like. Don’t think you have to ignore them because you’re a beginner. Especially that drive knob. Overdrive is a lot of fun.

Part of doing all this is you finding a reference point to work from. Usually the 50% mark on any given knob. This way you can return knobs to that position and start over if you start to feel like you’ve lost track of what knobs are having what effect.

[eric.kiser]

Good call - Edited. Thanks.

[alanjans]

Thanks, Eric. I’ll experiment along the lines you’ve outlined.

[howard]

The concept you’re chasing here is called “unity gain”, and basically it means that all of your pedals are set such that the volume is the same whether the pedal is bypassed or not.

Unfortunately I don’t know a better way to do it than adjusting all pedals to do this. And this is tricky when it comes to pedals with no separate output level knob, or when you want to change settings.

One thing you can do is put a preamp last in your chain and control the overall master level of your board with its volume knob, before going to the amp or audio interface. At least then it’s mostly one knob. But that doesn’t solve the whole problem (as different gains in the chain itself will change how subsequent pedals sound.) But that’s what I did before selling it all and moving entirely into the DAW.

[eric.kiser]

@Gio

For settings -

Ignore all pedals and things in the chain.
The pedals should all work with the sound you like which you will get and dial in with only bass and amp.

There is no single setting that works for all songs and styles.
Set up for a good majority-of-the-time sound and set your amp sound to that.

The amp will not be tweaked during a live set (ideally).
The song-to-song adjustments should be done with your pickups and tone knobs on the bass.

The pedals then should be dialed in to the sounds you like on your bass and amp.

That’s my wise(maybe) and experienced (yes) advice!

Thanks @Gio.
Quoted you here for future reference.

[eric.kiser]

@Gio

Goofing around with the knobs is real fun.
I made a little sheet to, hopefully, help get you started on trying out different combinations and listening for differences in what the two different pieces - bass and amp - can do with each other.

This is NOT by any means a reference or bible or rule for how to set things up. It’s just some beginning suggestions.

The take away is (as has been nicely covered by these rad other folks here):

The bass can change the most, and can change song to song.
The amp is something you adjust - hopefully once - per situation (gig/rehearsal) to set it for the best possible sound to accommodate the music and the room, and to get your sound and volume to work with the rest of the instruments and environment.
Bass adjustments might be drastic - things all the way up or down depending on the song or the vibe - amp adjustments are usually moderate - between 9 o clock and 3 o clock on the dial, and usually hovering around 12.

Try some of these out, and see if you connect to the controls and the different things they do to the sound.

Thanks, again, @Gio.
Quoted you here for future reference.