How can I keep my low end level constant across my strings?

Question

I'm a bassist. I play a Warwick Corvette std 5 string with MEC pickups. I use D'addario strings.

Ok now my problem, I play in a band and we play progressive thrash metal (kinda like Metallica meets Led Zepplin) and I have serious trouble keeping the low end in the sound. When playing the 4th and 5th strings, it sounds fine, lots of low end, but as I progress to the higher strings, the bass just drops off completely.

I have my action set pretty low to get a nice click off the fretboard with every strike of my fingers, and the treble on my Behringer Bass V-Amp is set alll the way down. Not so much mid and about three quarters bass.

One solution I thought might work was to "tilt" my pickups so that they are closer to the higher strings, this solved another problem with amplitdue, but not with amount of low end..

Is there a way I can make the amount of low end more uniform across the strings, so that the low end doesn't suddenly drop off when I'm playing the 4th fret on the a string?

Thanks :)

Answer 1

I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but you might want to turn the treble knob back up a bit. When you play a note, it produces the fundamental pitch you want, but also a lot of overtones that contribute to the tone. You don't hear them consciously; your brain takes it all in and adds them together, perceiving the sum of the fundamental and its overtones as a single note. But by rolling the treble all the way down, you're losing many of those overtones.

Point being: the presence of the overtones can help the notes cut through the dense mix of distorted guitars that's currently drowning out your bass. You'll hear them better, and hearing them better may help to restore that lost feeling of low-end.

YMMV, so no guarantees this will work. Mixing heavy music is notoriously difficult because so many instruments are so completely occupying the same sonic range, and that range is prone to muddiness anyway. But give it a try: turn your treble back up and see if that helps.

Answer 2

Your tone is affected by a number of factors - your bass, your amp, and everything in between. Without going through your whole setup and troubleshooting, I would say find a sound that you like and don't try to overcompensate with eq controls. Set your pickup(s) evenly across the strings. If you are using a cheap bass and a cheap amp, it will only sound so good, but it is what it is, right? :-)

The biggest thing that will help with a consistent bass sound is a compressor. They come in both pedal and rack form. As with anything, you get what you pay for, so if there's one built into your Behringer V-Amp, give it a try, but be realistic with your expectations. A compressor will "squash" your sound a bit and even it out. It also tends to boost the overall low end response. Try to set it where you can barely hear it working on the transients, but not so much that you can hear it messing with your sound continually.