Here's a question for bassists (and anyone else who has an opinion)

[Bill Mountain]

I play a G&L P-bass copy (huge lows, very mid-heavy).  It was a perfect fit for my old rock band.  Now I'm in a metal band and need a sizzly scooped sound.  One would normally achieve this by using a Jazz bass (naturally scooped sounding) or an active bass with a scooped EQ (like a Music Man), or scooping the mids on your amp.

I have tried various eq's but nothing sounds as natural as just playing a scooped sounding bass.  For reasons that are too boring to list I HAVE to play the G&L.  Plus I'm looking for a new project and I'm always looking for DIY solutions to my needs.  So...any ideas what I could build?  I have a Behringer Sansamp Bass Driver DI clone that seems to do the trick but it can sometimes be too much of a good thing and I'm not fond of the overdrive sound.

My current thought is to take some of the elements I like from my behringer pedal and build it to run on higher voltage or maybe use some elements that overdrive better (CMOS stages, Mosfet clippers, etc.)

Thoughts?

[wavley]

What about a Varitone built in a pedal (or your bass)?  It seems there was some discussion about this not too long ago, maybe that will get you closer to a natural sounding scooped bass.

[Ben N]

http://runoffgroove.com/mreq.html
Will do a straight scoop. You might want to adjust the values to get closer to a Yellow Humper's center frequencies.

[hannibal827]

If it were me, I would use the Flipster: http://www.runoffgroove.com/flipster.html

You can get a scoop of up to about 16dB @ 400Hz.  You can mix and match the JFETs to get the right amount of gain.  I used all 2N5457s in mine.  While I don't push it into overdrive often, I think it is a great overdrive sound.

I haven't tried the Ginger circuit, Runoffgroove's "upgrade" of this.  I think the sound clips are fine, but my Flipster is just so awesome that building this new circuit isn't a high priority for me.

I would also think the English Channel http://www.runoffgroove.com/englishchannel.html could deliver a good scoop as well, although the tweaking of that would be more extensive as it is not a "bass" circuit per se.  You would probably have to tame the overdrive, either by using less gainy JFETs or by omitting some source bypass capacitors, and probably increase the coupling caps between the transistor stages.  I haven't tried this, but I have tested out the "normal channel" variation on a breadboard, and that has plenty of bass in it.

I'm offering these suggestions because it sounds like you're looking for mid scoop and a better overdrive.  I really enjoy the overdrive sounds on these ROG pedals.

[JebemMajke]

I've made myself fet version of Alembic F2B, Fet version of sunn 100s and Ginger in one box. F2B is great for fender jazz bass sound, 100s is an instant low boost. Mids and treble are present, but low is the thing with this circuit. It's not instant mud, but a good round, warm bass sound. Ginger is fender jazz to stingray. Also since F2B is really fender preamp you can modify it's eq with adding low switch, in case you want more bass.

Ps I have pushed F2b and Sunn 100s up to 24v, and both worked great. I've used Bf245b FET's in both except 100s q2 was Bf245c.

Different FET's give more or less gain and have overall different tonal characteristics.

If you are after mid scooped dirt pedal go for earthbound's SuperCollider. It's a modified big muff, with a ton of lows and a mid pot so that you can dial them in should you need any.

[Gabeja15]

do you have an SB-1 or SB-2? i used to rock an SB-2 as well as a Marcus Miller jazz. The best way to get a little more of that Jazzy growl would be to turn down the p pickup and crack the bridge through the sansamp of yours

[pappasmurfsharem]

I've never used the Behringer  sansamp, but i know that rolling the blend knob all the way down On my Tech 21 still allows you to use the pedal as an EQ Without the processing.... Or at least the majority of it

[Mike Burgundy]

P's are naurally dark sounding - but so are passive MM pups. If youre not squeamish about modding your bass, going active (MM style 3-band) is worth considering. This will alter your pickup's response even with flat EQ, and help to bring up highs. Add a small sitch and you could choose to have an active or passive bass on the fly, like the Fender USA deluxes.

[Bill Mountain]

All great ideas guys.

It is an SB-1 so there is no J pickup.

I'm not looking for an overdrive (I've got plenty of dirt pedals) but if I dig in and hit the rails I'd like it to sound good.

The Mr. EQ seems like a good idea.

The one thing I like most about the Sansamp is the presence control which is just a high frequency boost so it should be able to replicate no matter what I build.

I'm not against going active.  I don't want to mod the pickguard so I would only have 2 holes to work with.

[WaveshapeIllusions]

Look up the varitone that they put in Gibson basses. Inductor and cap in series. Good for a scoop. Dunno where the J-bass scoop is though. Simulate it perhaps?

EDIT: Apparently it is a 500-600 Hz scoop. So cut that area out? You may have to boost some highs too, since J-pups have a bit more top-end.

[Jazznoise]

It's the 1-2 Khz region that helps a bass stand out against distorted guitars. In the mix the rattle and metallic element is a good thing - sometimes a very good thing. The 200-500 range is really cluttered, so maybe stay a little conservative there. The Fender Bassman seems to be great for this sort of thing, but simulating that might be abit work intensive.

Why not boost a specific band and drive that into a clipping circuit? Overdrive some of the lower midrange and then pull it back out afterwards - sort of like premphasis followed by demphasis.

[Sacorus]

Series/parallel switch on the bass!