Back to Passive: Changing my bass tone approach

Back to passive: changing my bass tone approach.

I’ve been a huge fan of Spector basses for a long time now. Even with one of the far more affordable Korean made models (the Q4 Pro in my case) I’ve always felt like I have one of the most playable instruments that I could imagine. A neck so thin and an action so perfect that I never need to make adjustments. An instrument that feels like it’s an extension of myself and is intuitive with my playing in every way. Well…except the way that the tone answers me back in full-band situations. One thing that I eventually had to come to terms with in regards to my Spector is that I simply had a bass that sounded far better by itself at practice volume than it ever did in a rehearsal space or on a stage. The problem was largely the active preamp, at venues where I was mic’ed I had to cut the treble and mids way back just so the sound of my hand on the frets wouldn’t be as loud as the actual notes I was playing. If I was playing a venue where I wasn’t mic’ed direct I would often times lose clarity and fall into indistinct mud when I hit a certain volume level. I still love my Spector, but I came to the decision that it’s time to go back to passive basses.

The first step was taking the old Peavey Unity Series I learned on back out and putting some flatwound strings on it. The bass is from a run that Peavey did in the late 80’s/early 90’s with both a precision and jazz pickup. I’ve begun playing this bass by keeping the neck pickup all the way up and the bridge all the way down. Roll the tone knob down a little and suddenly I’ve got thuddy Motown goodness spilling out at my command. I had forgotten how much I liked flatwound strings, no unwanted high-end noise and great clarity with reverbs and delays.

I didn’t stop at the warmer end of the tonal spectrum though, it was time to fix my mistake of not owning a Fender Jazz bass. I found a great deal on a 2002 MIM in a great color so I finally went for it earlier this year. It was such a relief to be able to dig in and get that aggressive midrange but without the hot signal from an active preamp. Since I do a looping project as well the Jazz has been my instrument of choice all year and has been a blast to play. Of course I’ve kept roundwound strings on it, so now I’ve got the two opposite ends covered.

I can dance around a Jamerson-like thud or a clear, seer-ing Geddy Lee bite between these two basses and still explore plenty of ground in between. Of course it isn’t really practical to take two basses with you unless you’re going to a recording session, but I’ve found that keeping the bridge pickup up and the tone knob down a bit on the Jazz does wonders for getting warmer sounds as well. The Jazz was mostly what I used during the recording of my band (young) American Landscape’s new album which should be coming out this fall. I found a weapon of choice for cutting through my guitarists’ thick walls of reverb…now if I could just afford a tube head. Not that anyone is likely to care but my rig currently consists of a Sunn Coliseum 300, an Ampeg 8×8, MXR M80 DI, Behringer tremolo/pan, EHX Holy Grail reverb, Ernie Ball Jr. volume pedal, Boss DD-7 delay, and my Boss RC-2 looper. So…passive or active, and how long will it be before I find myself switching back?