Latest
Sound Ideas: Seasoning Your Sauce
Let’s see, a healthy dash of salt — well maybe a little more. Next some fresh ground pepper and a couple of cloves of garlic, then a sprig of basil and a little rosemary. That should just about do it; now for a taste.
Wow, what the heck just happened? That was horrible and those were my favorite ingredients. What happened?
Chances are if you start adding extra herbs and spices to the spaghetti sauce you just poured from the jar without tasting it first, you’re headed for trouble. Why? You could be adding unnecessary seasoning to something that is already perfectly balanced or at least has enough already.
It seems so obvious to taste first, yet we are all prone to do it. For some of us it’s as often as every time we plug in to play bass. How? By going into autopilot mode and adjusting the EQ on our bass, preamp, amp, active DI or integrated head without listening to it first to see if it actually needs any.
We are all creatures of habit to be sure. For some that may mean we dial in the familiar smiley face EQ of boosted highs and lows. For others, it’s cranking the heck out of the midrange to cut through the mix in a loud setting.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this, after all that’s what the EQ controls are for. The problem isn’t that we use these seasonings, as it were, to flavor our sound. The problem is that we do it on autopilot without listening first to see if they are really needed.
A very famous world class bass player called me for help stating that he did not like his tone. I asked him about how he has his EQ set up. He told me that no matter where he plays or what he’s using, he always drastically boosts his mids before he plugs in. I suggested that he set everything flat, play for a couple of minutes and then EQ as needed to taste. (Like spaghetti sauce)
He would not even consider exploring my suggestion. “I have always run my EQ this way; it’s my thing.” He said.
This past week I saw another famous player in a club walk up to an amp and a cabinet he had never used or heard. Before plugging in, I watched as he boosted the lows, low mids and mids, without ever even listening.
Why? “I have always run my EQ this way; it’s my thing.” He said.
Just like spaghetti sauce, what we end up with could be inedible. To find out why, let’s take a closer look at our signal chain.
A large percentage of basses today have active preamps that run on either 9 or 18-volt batteries. The built in preamps boost the bass guitar’s signal so that it’s louder at your amp/preamp/DI. Along with increasing the signal, most active preamps will also have added EQ boosting as well. The most common are two-band EQ, where you can adjust the highs and lows and the 3-band EQ, which adds a midrange control. There are even more elaborate preamps that can enhance many other areas and fine tune things you never knew existed.
Is the added flexibility in volume and tone a good thing? Personally, I love active preamps on my basses because it gives me the opportunity to adapt better to any room or style of playing if needed. However, like most things in life; its best served in moderation. Just because a little is good, more is not necessarily better. As a matter of fact, too much tweaking can quickly ruin a gig.
Next in line is the preamp section in your integrated amp (head) or the preamp in your rack (where you have a separate power amp). In simple terms, it’s a larger, more advanced active preamp like the one in your active bass. They amplify the signal from your instrument as well as allowing you to increase and adjust your EQ. Most give you a greater capacity to adjust your tone than the preamps in your instrument.
Again, is this a good thing? Absolutely! If used carefully.
Here’s where things get really interesting, although many players are oblivious to it. You have an active bass with boosted and modified EQ. That in turn is plugged into a more powerful preamp that boosts your signal and EQ yet again. Do you see what’s coming? You haven’t even tasted the sauce that may already be great and yet you start adding salt (the preamp on the bass) and then even more salt (the preamp with your amplifier).
You have just multiplied what you have already multiplied!
Last night, I watched a Three Stooges episode where they were making beer at home. Each one individually added a cake of yeast to the mix, not knowing that the other two had done the same. What happened next was comedy through disaster with beer bubbling all over the kitchen and them scrambling for more jars. Unless you’re trying to create comedy through disaster on the gig, you need to pay better attention to your multiple active EQs.
There are more potential consequences than just bad tone at stake.
Bob Lee at QSC is not only a good friend and amplifier expert; he’s also a wonderful bass player. In picking his brain on amps and EQ, he said that one of the non-warranty problems they see all too often is where people have added so much bass to their signal that it causes the speakers to have over excursion issues. The driver is driven so hard that its movement is greater than it’s designed. This can result in damage from the voice coil popping out of the core and not going back in the tube. In addition, you can burn up the voice coil from overheating or you can put a crease in the cone. Any of these is the end of your driver’s life.
Many experts advocate that if you want more of a certain frequency; let’s say more bass, that instead of boosting the bass you turn down the highs and mids. You get the same results, but in a safer manner that’s less likely to cause speaker damage.
Another area to be aware of is effects pedals. In watching a player recently, the gain on his amp/preamp was close to its limits and sounded great. However, when he kicked in his wah-wah pedal, you could see the clip light on his amp going off like crazy. Why? His effects pedals boosted the already boosted signal yet again.
Every venue, every room, every environment will have a different impact on your tone as well. We’ve all played in a club or theater with an old wooden stage that made everything boomy. Then there’s playing outdoors where you wonder what just happened to my entire low end.
That’s why I believe the best thing you can do for good tone and peace of mind is to always set your EQ flat on your amp in the beginning.
Plug in and play for a minute listening carefully and then EQ to your taste and as important, to the room. EQ is not a sin, but it can be if you don’t listen first and get out of autopilot mode.
Being aware of how your signal chain works is the beginning of making wiser choices. Wiser choices can lead to fewer component failures and much better tone. Who knows? It might even lead to more gigs.
Let’s recap:
1. Listen carefully before adding any EQ.
2. It’s fine to EQ if needed, but not just out of habit.
3. If in doubt, it may be safer to cut the areas you want less of, than it is to boost areas you want more of.
4. Be aware of multiplying EQ that had already been multiplied.
5. Modifying EQ does not automatically lead to great tone, so don’t go into autopilot mode.
6. Start with your EQ set flat and after listening, EQ to your taste and to the room.
Do you think there’s too much seasoning in your sauce? If so, it’s an
easy fix.
Gear News
New Gear: Esopus Guitars Launches New Acoustic/Electric Bass
Esopus Guitars Launches New Acoustic/Electric Bass…
Esopus Guitars is proud to announce the new “Tailwater” bass guitar, from legendary bass luthier Stuart Spector. This 32” scale bass is handcrafted by Stuart using the only finest woods and components at the Esopus Guitar workshop located near Woodstock NY in the Catskill Mountains.
From its fully carved spruce top (the top is carved on both its exterior and interior surfaces) with a thumb rest that is elegantly carved into the top, to its custom-made Fishman piezo pickup and super hard Carnauba wax finish, every detail of the Tailwater is part of creating the ultimate playing experience.
The Tailwater bass features a fully chambered spruce over alder body (15.5″ lower body bout width, 2.25″ body thickness measuring from the peak of the carved top) that delivers a super comfortable tonal tool for all your low-end needs.
Each Tailwater bass is hand-signed and numbered on the back of the peghead by Stuart Spector. A very limited number of Tailwater basses are handcrafted each year at the Esopus workshop.
“I am proud to present the Tailwater bass, a bass that I have spent the last three years perfecting. The Tailwater is a culmination of all of my 45 years of experience, knowledge, and passion for bass guitar crafting. I am so eager to hear what fellow musicians create with this exciting new instrument.” -Stuart Spector
Direct Pricing : $4995.00 plus options.
For more information about Esopus Guitars and Stuart Spector’s handcrafted instruments, visit www.EsopusGuitars.com.
Bass Videos
Tour Touch Base (Bass) with Ian Allison
Ian Allison Bassist extreme…
Most recently Ian has spent the last seven years touring nationally as part of Eric Hutchinson and The Believers, sharing stages with acts like Kelly Clarkson, Pentatonix, Rachel Platten, Matt Nathanson, Phillip Phillips, and Cory Wong playing venues such as Radio City Music Hall, The Staples Center and The Xcel Center in St. Paul, MN.
I had a chance to meet up with him at the Sellersville Theater in Eastern Pennsylvania to catch up on everything bass. Visit online at ianmartinallison.com/
Latest
This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…
Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag
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Features
Interview With Audic Empire Bassist James Tobias
Checking in with Bergantino Artist James Tobias
James Tobias, Bassist for psychedelic, Reggae-Rock titans Audic Empire shares his history as a musician and how he came to find Bergantino…
Interview by Holly Bergantino
James Tobias, a multi-talented musician and jack-of-all-trades shares his story of coming up as a musician in Texas, his journey with his band Audic Empire, and his approach to life and music. With a busy tour schedule each year, we were fortunate to catch up with him while he was out and about touring the US.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in Dallas, Texas and lived in the Dallas area most of my life with the exception of 1 year in Colorado. I moved to the Austin area at age 18.
What makes the bass so special to you particularly, and how did you gravitate to it?
I honestly started playing bass because we needed a bass player and I was the one with access to a bass amp and bass. I played rhythm guitar and sang up until I met Ronnie, who I would later start “Audic Empire” with. He also played rhythm guitar and sang and we didn’t know any bass players, so we had to figure something out. I still write most of my songs on guitar, but I’ve grown to love playing the bass.
How did you learn to play, James?
I took guitar lessons growing up and spent a lot of time just learning tabs or playing by ear and kicked around as a frontman in a handful of bands playing at the local coffee shops or rec centers. Once I transitioned to bass, I really just tried to apply what I knew about guitar and stumbled through it till it sounded right. I’m still learning every time I pick it up, honestly.
You are also a songwriter, recording engineer, and a fantastic singer, did you get formal training for this?
Thank you, that means a lot! I had a couple of voice lessons when I was in my early teens, but didn’t really like the instructor. I did however take a few lessons recently through ACC that I enjoyed and think really helped my technique (Shout out to Adam Roberts!) I was not a naturally gifted singer, which is a nice way of saying I was pretty awful, but I just kept at it.
As far as recording and producing, I just watched a lot of YouTube videos and asked people who know more than me when I had a question. Whenever I feel like I’m not progressing, I just pull up tracks from a couple of years ago, cringe, and feel better about where I’m at but I’ve got a long way to go. Fortunately, we’ve got some amazing producers I can pass everything over to once I get the songs as close to finalized as I can.
Describe your playing style(s), tone, strengths and/or areas that can be improved on the bass.
I honestly don’t know what my style would be considered. We’ve got so many styles that we play and fuse together that I just try to do what works song by song. I don’t have too many tricks in the bag and just keep it simple and focus on what’s going to sound good in the overall mix. I think my strength lies in thinking about the song as a whole and what each instrument is doing, so I can compliment everything else that’s going on. What could be improved is absolutely everything, but that’s the great thing about music (and kind of anything really).
Who were your influencers in terms of other musicians earlier on or now that have made a difference and inspired you?
My dad exposed me to a lot of music early. I was playing a toy guitar while watching a VHS of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble live at SXSW on repeat at 4 years old saying I wanted to “do that” when I grew up. I was the only kid in daycare that had his own CDs that weren’t kid’s songs. I was listening to Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, and The Doors when I could barely talk. I would make up songs and sing them into my Panasonic slimline tape recorder and take it to my preschool to show my friends. As I got older went through a bunch of music phases. Metal, grunge, rock, punk, hip hop, reggae, ska, etc. Whatever I heard that I connected to I’d dive in and learn as much as I could about it. I was always in bands and I think I kept picking up different styles along the way and kept combining my different elements and I think that’s evident in Audic’s diverse sound.
Tell me about Audic Empire and your new release Take Over! Can you share some of the highlights you and the band are most proud of?
Takeover was an interesting one. I basically built that song on keyboard and drum loops and wrote and tracked all my vocals in one long session in my bedroom studio kind of in a stream-of-consciousness type of approach. I kind of thought nothing would come of it and I’d toss it out, but we slowly went back and tracked over everything with instruments and made it our own sound. I got it as far as I could with production and handed it off to Chad Wrong to work his magic and really bring it to life. Once I got Snow Owl Media involved and we started brainstorming about a music video, it quickly turned into a considerably larger production than anything we’ve done before and it was such a cool experience. I’m really excited about the final product, especially considering I initially thought it was a throwaway track.
Describe the music style of Audic Empire for us.
It’s all over the place… we advertise it as “blues, rock, reggae.” Blues because of our lead guitarist, Travis Brown’s playing style, rock because I think at the heart we’re a rock band, and reggae because we flavor everything with a little (or a lot) of reggae or ska.
How did you find Bergantino Audio Systems?
Well, my Ampeg SVT7 caught fire at a show… We were playing Stubbs in Austin and everyone kept saying they smelled something burning, and I looked back in time to see my head, perched on top of its 8×10 cab, begin billowing smoke. We had a tour coming up, so I started researching and pricing everything to try and find a new amp. I was also fronting a metal band at the time, and my bass player’s dad was a big-time country bass player and said he had this really high-end bass amp just sitting in a closet he’d sell me. I was apprehensive since I really didn’t know much about it and “just a little 4×10” probably wasn’t going to cut it compared to my previous setup. He said I could come over and give it a test drive, but he said he knew I was going to buy it. He was right. I immediately fell in love. I couldn’t believe the power it put out compared to this heavy head and cumbersome cab I had been breaking my back hauling all over the country and up countless staircases.
Tell us about your experience with the forte D amp and the AE 410 Speaker cabinet.
It’s been a game-changer in every sense. It’s lightweight and compact. Amazing tone. And LOUD. It’s just a fantastic amp. Not to mention the customer service being top-notch! You’ll be hard-pressed to find another product that, if you have an issue, you can get in touch with the owner, himself. How cool is that?
Tell us about some of your favorite basses.
I was always broke and usually working part-time delivering pizzas, so I just played what I could get my hands on. I went through a few pawn shop basses, swapped in new pickups, and fought with the action on them constantly. I played them through an Ampeg be115 combo amp. All the electronics in it had fried at some point, so I gutted it out and turned it into a cab that I powered with a rusted-up little head I bought off someone for a hundred bucks. My gear was often DIY’d and held together by electrical tape and usually had a few coats of spray paint to attempt to hide the wear and tear. I never really fell in love with any piece of gear I had till I had a supporter of our band give me an Ibanez Premium Series SDGR. I absolutely love that bass and still travel with it. I’ve since gotten another Ibanez Premium Series, but went with the 5-string BTB. It’s a fantastic-sounding bass, my only complaint is it’s pretty heavy.
Love your new video Take Over! Let us know what you’re currently working on (studio, tour, side projects, etc.)
Thank you!! We’ve got a LOT of stuff we’re working on right now actually. Having 2 writers in the band means we never have a shortage of material. It’s more about getting everything tracked and ready for release and all that goes into that. We just got through filming videos for 2 new unreleased tracks with Snow Owl Media, who did the videos for both Love Hate and Pain and Takeover. Both of these songs have surprise features which I’m really excited about since these will be the first singles since our last album we have other artists on. We’ve also got a lot of shows coming up and I’ve also just launched my solo project as well. The debut single, “Raisin’ Hell” is available now everywhere. You can go here to find all the links distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jamestobias/raisin-hell
What else do you do besides music?
For work, I own a handyman service here in Austin doing a lot of drywall, painting, etc. I have a lot of hobbies and side hustles as well. I make custom guitar straps and other leather work. I do a lot of artwork and have done most of our merch designs and a lot of our cover art. I’m really into (and borderline obsessed) with health, fitness, and sober living. I have a hard time sitting still, but fortunately, there’s always a lot to do when you’re self-employed and running a band!
Follow James Tobias:
jamestobiasmusic.com
Facebook.com/james.tobias1
Instagram.com/ru4badfish2
TikTok.com/@jamestobiasmusic
audicempire.com
Bass CDs
New Album: Avery Sharpe, I Am My Neighbors Keeper
Avery Sharpe and his Double Quartet to release, I Am My Neighbors Keeper
A new recording will be released on JKNM Records by internationally renowned bassist/composer Avery Sharpe, “I Am My Neighbors Keeper” is scheduled for release in June 2024.
Sharpe has composed a new work that highlights our commitment to one another. Avery initiated the project as a response to the political and racial division that has grown over the past seven years in the country. “The U.S political climate has drastically changed in the past 40-plus years, especially during the last seven of those years. In this age of greed, which Sharpe refers to as “IGM,” I Got Mine, basic human compassion has been eroded. Racial, economic and social strides are being turned back.
“We have food insecurity, the unhoused, pandemics, school shootings, domestic violence, and an opioid problem, just to name some. There is a need to remind people that each of us is here on this planet for a very short period of time. It doesn’t matter if one has a religious approach or a secular approach, it all comes down to concern and compassion for each other. Through these compositions and recordings, Avery’s mission as an artist is to remind us that we all are interconnected and that ‘We Are Our Neighbor’s Keeper.’ When we help to uplift one, we uplift everyone,” Sharpe said.
Each movement in the piece describes the values we should strive for to help one another for this multi-media (video slide show during performance) and multi-discipline performance.
Many of Sharpe’s projects and recordings have been about “standing on the shoulders of ancestors, heroes and sheroes.” Among his recordings and projects, include “Running Man” (celebrating the athlete Jesse Owens), “Ain’t I A Woman” (about Sojourner Truth), and his most recent project “400: An African American Musical Portrait” (marking the 400 years from 1619 to 2019).
Avery Sharpe has recorded and performed with many jazz greats from Dizzy Gillespie to Yusef Lateef. He had an illustrious run of 20 plus years with the legendary Jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, of which he recorded more than 25 records with Mr. Tyner and performed countless worldwide concerts.
Visit online at averysharpe.com/
Tour Touch Base (Bass) with Ian Allison
New Gear: Spector Woodstock Custom Collection Volume II
New Gear: The Dingwall John Taylor Signature Model
Interview With Bassist Edmond Gilmore
Have Fret Sprout? Sharp Fret Management… a How-To Video
This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
New Gear: Spector Woodstock Custom Collection Volume II
Tour Touch Base (Bass) with Ian Allison
Interview With Audic Empire Bassist James Tobias
