Does bass distortion on low B string always suck?

[colonel_claypoo]

hello people,

i'm new here, just registered, and i'm looking for you input on the following:

i've noticed that distortion, at least on my bass, sounds great on all the strings except for the low B which is tuned down a whole step to A. it just doesn't sound rich in harmonics and just different than all the other strings.

Maybe that's normal, i don't really know but do you have any examples for great distorted bass sounds that feature the low B or do you have any production tips?

i have guitar rig 4 to tweak the sound but couldn't come up with anything great, anything useful.
my bass has an active emg P/J configuration.

thanks for your help and if you need more information, shoot.

 

[Freak Of Metal]

What bass are you using? I have the same problem on my Epiphone Thunderbird because of the cheap electronics, so the pickups just dont react that well to the lowest string.

 

[XnaySaturo]

What's the neck's scale? What's your string gauge? This might affect the sound.

I'm kinda throwing these questions, because I'm looking for the answers myself.

 

[egan.]

I always say this and dudes always disagree, but few basses have a great B string (one consistent with the tone of the E) and hardly any of those hold up very well when drop tuned. My recommendation (which is always the same as well) is to get a set of stiff steels which will bring out the brightness and "wobble" less.

 

[colonel_claypoo]

i use a custom built 5 string, 34" scale with a flamed maple/wenge set-neck (mixture of bolt-on and neck-through) with a birdseye maple fretboard. the body is made of an alder core with a quilted maple top and back. the pickups are EMG p/j with a NOLL 3-band electronic which i don't really use. i prefer to run my bass passive. i must admit i haven't changed the strings in quite some time and that's probably half of the problem. the B-string sounds good to my ear, not killer but good.

do you have any sound clips or examples of bands that use distorted bass on the B-string so that i can have a listen what it's supposed to sound?

thanks.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Like Egan said, getting stainless steel strings is a good idea.
Even better if you can afford it, is to get a 35 inch scale bass. That one inch extra makes a world of difference in the clarity and response of the low B string

 

[~BURNY~]

35" all the way.

 

[AudioPhile777]

Even better if you can afford it, is to get a 35 inch scale bass. That one inch extra makes a world of difference in the clarity and response of the low B string

This.

 

[Axonic Rot]

First of all here are examples of distorted bass tones I've produced. That way you can see where I ended up without blindly heeding my advice:

This one has the best distortion tone I've done. It is two models running at once on my podx3. One distortion(big bottom) and the other is a clean bass heavy and compressed model(sub dub). Distortion starts at 2:23.


This is the same distortion tone above except without the clean bass heavy model behind it. You can hear that it seems ok, but it's not as pleasant and having both styles of tones at once.


The best way to get a good distorted bass tone with digital modeling is to forget using the bass specific models of amps and cabs and use a guitar amp model and cab. Use a guitar to dial in the distortion tone. Look for something with a decent palm muted sound and a transparency that lets the string and pick impact come through some. That keeps the nastiness and character of the bass in place. If you are going to run a clean bass heavy tone behind the distortion, which I highly recommend, you will definitely want to dial that in using the bass using finger style playing whether that's the actual way you or someone else will be using the tone or not. Look for something that produces the type of frequencies that subwoofers operate at and keep higher frequencies completely out of the picture. The sound should be reminiscent of a bass amp with a 15 inch speaker that has no tweeter.

I hope that helps.

 

[wishtheend]

Try splitting the bass track and applying distortion to just the mids/highs. You want to retain the lows as clean as possible so your bottom end doesn't take a shit. If you can find a distortion pedal that has a crossover point, that'll probably be better than just slapping it across the whole signal.

 

[muckypup1]

Those two videos have a kick ass bass tone!

 

[drew_drummer]

Checkout ISIS; dude tunes his Stingray (which is 34") to B-Fsharp-B-E.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Checkout ISIS; dude tunes his Stingray (which is 34") to B-Fsharp-B-E.

Isis is just freaky though, practically anything they do sounds amazing