The reason I'm preaching about growl all the time is it's incredibly important. That's the part of the tone that shows up when a given song is played on say an elevator speaker. If a bass tone is all low or "ghostly" it will not be heard on small play back systems. The growl is like setting a "marker" that tells the listener that the bass is there on these limited low end systems.
No "pretty boy" basses!, I've had a warwics, alembics, all the "bics", its like showing up to a gang fight with a scalpel! Now my main rig is an ugly 72 jazz/svt! ahhhhh...MURDER! An old jazz, p, ricky, or music man will be aggro in the hood all day long, the other "pretty boys" have their place,...at the country club with the other gents, where they won't get hurt!
Not to be rude..(seems to be a net trend, rudeness) but old thread or not, it's the most asked question I get from guys starting a career. 1.5k added from an eq or whatever might work in isolated cases.. That's not the answer to this question..
No rudeness taken. I'm not a bass player, so 1.5k is where I start, and it's usually (in my mind) where growl lives. But obviously there's a lot more than that, and has a lot to do with how the 1.5k or whatever 'blooms' in the attack.
We all know that bass is entirely in the fingers, as the countless examples of DI'd bass in all their tonal variations demonstrate. A fretless will get you there, because you can sort of squeeze the attack a bit. Where do you go on a fretted bass, like a MM? (My "MM" is a G&L L2000) Do you straddle the fret a bit to dampen the high frequencies? Where are you plucking? Close to the bridge or up at the "p-bass thumb rest"? Give me a lesson, man. I need some growling!
__________________ - It looks just like a Telefunken U47 - with leather. You'll love it ... - Jazz is not dead - it just smells funny.
- It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.
While there are many factors that can make a bass "growl", I've noticed if you change the height of the pickups, you can often effect the level of "growl". The height of the pickups will effect more than just the output. Too high, and you'll lose clarity, too low, and you'll lose punch.
While there are many factors that can make a bass "growl", I've noticed if you change the height of the pickups, you can often effect the level of "growl". The height of the pickups will effect more than just the output. Too high, and you'll lose clarity, too low, and you'll lose punch.
One of my great revelations about guitar setup so many years ago was in the adjustment of the pickups, and the tweaking of individual pole pieces to balance response. A lot of times, output is just too hot, and you get a much more lively sound if you reduce the drag on the strings by lowering the pickups.
I guess I woke this thread back up.. I really can't disagree with most I've read here.. I do take exception to the use of a Warwick or Rick.. I wouldn't use either.. Do they have a hi mid growl? ..yes. However, Ricks have always had neck issues (intonation problems). As for the Warwick..it's just not on my radar as a usable guitar where I work. Today's commercial tracks are so in tune a Rick would be a nightmare not to mention the quick "what the hell!" that would come screaming from the producer.. I've put it up on this forum several times.. The bass to have is a NYC Sadowsky. I do play a custom shop J V. But everybody want the Sadowsky tone, growl and precision. I work in Nashville but I also know that bass is the bass to use in NYC.. That's my opinion based on over 35 years of playing for a living.. Now I'll brace myself for all the slamming.. That's more than fine..I have nothing to prove. I do like to give my opinions and advice. And I pick up a lot from here as well.. Again a quick run down of my definition of growl and what producers are usually looking for when they say more throat or growl..and that is..a great guitar (almost always a Sadowsky over the last 2 to 3 years) a great pre (converted Neve strip, Vintech or what I use almost constantly-LA-610) push the pre, a great set up and a great touch. That's how I get it and I'm what I guess outsiders call an A team player. That term actually is saved for the group of players that came in the 50s under Owen Bradley..we're referred to as first callers these days.. But that's my opinion..and it's a fairly valuable one.. Blast away..slamming people on the net seems to be the norm these days. Civility from some seems to be fading from forums..just sayin'.
I think a lot of us have different definitions of "growl," here. I have a lot of growl in my tone to my ear, and I get it like this:
Gibson Thunderbird, strung with Rotosound 66's (45-105) and played with fingers above a solo'd neck pick-up. I keep my action low and I play HARD, there are actually very visible grooves in my pick-up from where the string has bounced off it when I get excited.
BBE OptoStomp compressor, fairly subtle, mostly there to even out my playing a bit if I'm throwing my bass around.
Aguilar Agro pedal, lots of presence, mids pushed, noticeable break-up of the signal when I dig in. This is on 90% of the time and what I would describe as "my tone."
Wren and Cuff Pickle Pie B, mixed blend of wet and dry signals, fuzz pushed very over the top. Only used in certain songs where I can be a bit silly.
Ampeg SVT3-PRO, I love these amps and don't understand the flack they get from some people about not having enough power. More than loud enough for any non-stadium gig, very close to the classic Ampeg tone, doesn't weight 55kg and require re-tubing every two years and has an absolutely fantastic DI for studio use and gigs.
I've been playin bass for over 10 years now, and I've found that it has much more to do with the way you play than the gear you have imo. Yes, the gear definitely helps if you're seeking that certain growl every rock bass player wants. Every time I think of a nice "growl," I think of Geddy Lee's bass tone. Ofcourse more than just him, many bass players resort to the sansamp bass driver pedals, or the rbi and rpm rack units (even I have a sansamp bass driver laying around somewhere). But in my opinion, you can only go so far in experimenting with gear before you realize that the majority of it has to do with how you're playing the bass. And don't get me wrong (gear IS definitely part of it!!!), but I have found that the times where I really find a pleasing bass "growl" is when I play the strings with some intensity behind my fingers. Really digging into the strings with your fingers helps out a ton when you're trying to achieve this sort of tone. I've also tried growing out my finger nails a bit just to get some of that "pick" sound in my tone (more-so for the metal projects I work on sometimes). My point is that your tone starts with how you play the bass. I used to be very skeptical of that idea, but it is the truth.
And good lord, you don't need a warwick or rickenbacker to achieve this sound.
If you ask me it's definitely going to be a combination things depending on the bass player and performance; I think it would be tough to come up with an iron-clad recipe because there's lots of different flavors of growl. In this case it's a Versatone bass amp, semi-hollow body Guild/Alembic bass and percussive technique combined. Pretty lousy recording, but it's a nicely isolated example of growl.
I've been playin bass for over 10 years now, and I've found that it has much more to do with the way you play than the gear you have imo (...) In my opinion, you can only go so far in experimenting with gear before you realize that the majority of it has to do with how you're playing the bass.
+1. The old "performance trumps all else" adage is used to exhaustion on these pages, but it definitely applies here.
It's hard to explain how the "growl" is accomplished exactly, but it's more to do with hand position and playing technique than anything else.
You definitely need your technique right for any instrument. Apart from that, the Bass has a lot to contribute for that exciting 'Growl' we all love!
For me, it's always been the Musicman StingRay5...it's simply an awesome bass. I know Fender Precision and some other basses has that growl as well. All the best and welcome to the Grooviest part of the Band!
I think it has got to do with playing fast and tight.
My Gibson SG EB-3L had a nice growl, my warwick thumb nt4 has it too...AND my first bass, "some fernandes", had it also.
The growl mainly happens when playing with a plectrum...
At mix, the Decapitator can really help a bass guitar.
During tracking a Sansamp and P-bass is all you need, sometimes its cool to run the bass through a guitar amp.
Just for funzies, here are two samples that are the same bass, but just set up differently. You can hear how one is very rounded and soft. The other is very aggressive and growly/grindy. It would be more so through an amp with a little overdrive I think. This is DI'd straight in with no processing. Not say the grindy one is necessarily a perfect example of growl, but just to show how much setup and playing style affects the tone.
One is a higher string height setup, and played in a more 'parallel to the fret board' sort of way, which minimizes any contact with the frets. The other is a low string height setup and is bring played more 'down through the string' to force maximum contact with the frets. You'd think that the latter would be very, very buzzy, but in fact what happens is that it smacks into the frets and settles very quickly. You get an initial nice buzz, but it damps down almost like a compressor but totally naturally.
You can also hear how there's much more upper lows/lower mids in the more traditional sound, and it actually sort of blooms up sometimes as the string vibrates up to its maximum travel. The more aggressively played one sounds actually fairly scooped out. The string never 'spins up' and gets to vibrating very much. A little of that is pickup selection but not that much. Both are being plucked in about the same position about over the kneck pickup, so it's not hand position doing it either.
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Dean Roddey
Chairman/CTO Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd www.charmedquark.com
Those of you in the know already get it.
There are SO many things you can do on a bass that rely on your fingers/hands that guitarists dont even know exist and probably would have to be forcibly pointed out to them.
Back in the day I stayed pretty busy at a decent level and I have to say you DO improve after a few years of endless gigging and recording.
And growl or anything else you want to get out of a bass is always there, YOU just have to figure out how to get it.
But of course the guitarists and the engineers will continue to compress, filter and generally screw around with our shit, as usual.
I don't know if you ever heard the Serge Gainsbourg album "Melody Nelson". It's full of mysterious semi-acoustic GROWLY bass sounds. This album does not have a single bass drum kick ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIDuE4U_fZg
Its in the hands and then refined with some drive and a slight boost at around 900-1k.
I am getting some serious grind out of the lakland I have been using. What a bass..not the "smooth jazz" clean tone you would expect from a higher end bass. They fused jazz and MM bass pickups together for a tone monster.
There are tons of great options for a nice present bass tone..a lot of folks posting here are engineers and will just repeat PBass over and over, but you can convert them if you have a great alternative and real bass skills.
But then his wife the tuba overheard, grabbed him by the E-tuner and dragged him on out of the Lyons' Club and back to the trailer park as he made little whimpering noises up by the 20th fret...
i think everyone may have a slightly different idea of "growl" on the bass, so it makes it hard to be sure we are talking about the same thing. for me growl happens when the string is real close to the pickup, its almost like the string distorts the magnetic field and changes the sound very slightly. another thing i would call growl is when you have a neck with really flat relief, and low action. when you play hard, the strings rebounding off all the frets sounds really smooth and nice (i always thought this was how geddy lee got his sound. when i adjust a bass this way, its very close) but on a normal action bass the strings only rebound off a few frets, making it sound "clanky" or "clacky". then also there is the distortion growl too.. johnny a., bassist/staind
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, I've had a warwics, alembics, all the "bics"
, its like showing up to a gang fight with a scalpel!
Now my main rig is an ugly 72 jazz/svt!
ahhhhh...MURDER!
An old jazz, p, ricky, or music man will be aggro in the hood all day long
, the other "pretty boys" have their place,...at the country club with the other gents
, where they won't get hurt!
