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I want strings to sound completely dead. On acoustic, I just use nickel bronze strings, which die super quick. But on electric, the best sounding solution I've found is flat chromes. I have a very soft sound in general. Well, until I stomp on the Fab Tone. But unlike most reverb/delay-drenched tremolo-picking bands, I have a very soft and dark sound, with humbuckers, dead strings, tone knob to around 4, reverb pedals set to eq darker, and so on. I'm a flesh picker on acoustic, so I suppose a lot of this is just me trying to compensate for the brightness you get from using a pick.

dubkitty wrote:after i get a second bass i'll try tapewound on the Jazz Bass, to get closer to the tone of an acoustic bass.

I would love to try tapes but I feel my playing wouldn't do that sound justice

i had the good fortune to get to learn bass in the Jazz Improvisation ensemble class at City College of San Francisco in the mid-80s because there were no bassists in the class. by the end of the semester i could walk in the key of F like a motherfucker. i bought the fretless JB because that's what i played at school...they had a gorgeous vintage JB and a big Fender bass stack that had probably been on campus since the 1960s. i even added the tortoiseshell pickguard, pickup covers, and thumb rest to make it as much like the school's bass as possible for sense memory other than the body which was sunburst on the college's bass and Olympic White on mine.

VREEEEVROOOOOW wrote:I want strings to sound completely dead. On acoustic, I just use nickel bronze strings, which die super quick. But on electric, the best sounding solution I've found is flat chromes. I have a very soft sound in general. Well, until I stomp on the Fab Tone. But unlike most reverb/delay-drenched tremolo-picking bands, I have a very soft and dark sound, with humbuckers, dead strings, tone knob to around 4, reverb pedals set to eq darker, and so on. I'm a flesh picker on acoustic, so I suppose a lot of this is just me trying to compensate for the brightness you get from using a pick.

do you use the round end of the plectrum to pluck/strum? i learned holding the plec kind of wonky and find that my sound lacks a certain unpleasant zip/zing on the attack. i like it.

large mandolin picks are great for this. not the itty-bitty ones, the big rounded ones like the David Grisman signature picks. i used these on electric and acoustic for much of the 80s.

I love 12s on bass! I've had a couple of good 2x12 cabs, I think the best I tried but never owned was the SWR Big Foot, massive sounding. I almost got a Trace V-type 4x12 a year ago but the guy on reverb couldn't figure out how to ship the thing and refunded me...

I like 15s but I's so hard to find a new 1x15 that I don't distort, or that doesn't have a rattle... my fave cab that I've had since I was 16 is a old SWR 1x18.. I've only blown it up once so far I'm using it with a 2x10 but I'm biamping so there are no lows going to the 10s

MechaGodzilla wrote:

VREEEEVROOOOOW wrote:I want strings to sound completely dead. On acoustic, I just use nickel bronze strings, which die super quick. But on electric, the best sounding solution I've found is flat chromes. I have a very soft sound in general. Well, until I stomp on the Fab Tone. But unlike most reverb/delay-drenched tremolo-picking bands, I have a very soft and dark sound, with humbuckers, dead strings, tone knob to around 4, reverb pedals set to eq darker, and so on. I'm a flesh picker on acoustic, so I suppose a lot of this is just me trying to compensate for the brightness you get from using a pick.

do you use the round end of the plectrum to pluck/strum? i learned holding the plec kind of wonky and find that my sound lacks a certain unpleasant zip/zing on the attack. i like it.

Nah. I used to experiment with that, but never got into it. It was too awkward for me to tremolo pick with the round end. But my tone is so mellow that I don't find the attack unpleasant at all anyway. Though I sometimes forgo the pick and just finger pick arpeggios on electric guitar too.

i can't tremolo pick any other way!

That makes sense. I probably have lots of stuff I do "the wrong way" that I would be nigh insurmountable for me to do "the right way", hah.

Have you tried using softer picks? That's a thing that makes really big difference in tone. I got some freebie wood picks and they are awesome. If you play tremolo picking they may wear out alot tho.

What if you played tremolo picking with a felt pick

somebody probably used to do it in a ukelele orchertra before the second war, or as i like to think of it World War 1.5.

qersty wrote:Have you tried using softer picks? That's a thing that makes really big difference in tone. I got some freebie wood picks and they are awesome. If you play tremolo picking they may wear out alot tho.

What if you played tremolo picking with a felt pick

I play 1.5mm picks. I can't tremolo pick with a soft pick for the life of me.

i like the sound and feel of medium-heavy celluloid picks but they just wear away really fast and have a little too much give for me

i feel most picks wear out too fast for me. even when i played brass for a while

Yeah I'm unhappy with the dunlops I'm currently using. They feel nice, but they get rounded pretty quickly, which makes flatpicking a lot more difficult than it has to be. Whenever I change to a new pick, I'm suddenly twice as good a guitarist.