# Twiggy bass tone in drop F



## Depraved (May 16, 2016)

Just looking for some recommendations of basses to track with that will sound great with a really gritty, full, extremely present in the mix tone such as the tone from The Reflecting God by MM and Kinderfeld, also any pointers as to good rigs/setups would be dope


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## Depraved (May 16, 2016)

Preferably something 5 string as we play in drop F and E


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## Seybsnilksz (May 17, 2016)

Multiscale is the way to go. Dingwall.


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## Masoo2 (May 17, 2016)

Dingwall, Ormsby GTR Bass, Rondo Music/Brice 53437/63437, or *risky* Acacia.

The first two would be great options, third would be fine on a budget, and the last would be "doable," but very risky.


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## ixlramp (May 18, 2016)

I assume you mean sub B string drop F / E standard?
A 5 or 6 string is more suited for low tunings and there's more chance of intonating the lowest string because the lowest saddle may be designed to shift back further than normal.
To be able to use huge gauge taperwound strings make sure it has a modern slot-loading top-loading bridge, not string-through-body, and with the ball-end anchoring point less than 1.5" behind the saddle.
Kalium Strings are excellent for ultra-low tunings, they also have drop tune sets and string lengths for up to 40"" scale basses Kalium Strings &#8211; The home of the original balanced tension guitar and bass strings


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## olejason (May 18, 2016)

You mean an octave below the 41hz standard low E string?


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## xwmucradiox (May 19, 2016)

I dont think the song you mentioned is in a low tuning. That bass sounds pretty much like a standard tuned 4 string. Not an octave lower.


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## olejason (May 20, 2016)

The Reflecting God is definitely not in drop E. It's just standard tuning as far as I remember.


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## ixlramp (May 20, 2016)

> we play in drop F and E

Ok this means your guitar tunings, how do you want to tune your bass, octave-down?

> really gritty, full, extremely present in the mix tone

If the bass is tuned as low as octave-down drop F / E you won't get that on the ultra-low strings because their thickness makes them stiffer so they have a darker tone.
Example in drop E with Kaliums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb7ZY_94DbY

If you want to tune ultra-low the scale should be 35" or as long as possible.


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## Depraved (May 22, 2016)

Okay so to the two people that said that the songs I mentioned aren't in that low of a tuning.... NO DUH FOOLS

I said I want the tone, with a low tuning.

And to ixlramp, thank you for the advice and I totally get what you mean but I meant like I know the lower strings will sound that way but I want a similar tone because our bassist actually uses the higher strings very often to give a more warm contrast to our baritone heavy ass guitars


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## wankerness (May 29, 2016)

Depraved said:


> Okay so to the two people that said that the songs I mentioned aren't in that low of a tuning.... *NO DUH FOOLS*
> 
> I said I want the tone, with a low tuning.
> 
> And to ixlramp, thank you for the advice and I totally get what you mean but I meant like I know the lower strings will sound that way but I want a similar tone because our bassist actually uses the higher strings very often to give a more warm contrast to our baritone heavy ass guitars



Insulting the people trying to help you is classy. Anyway, your request as initially stated was ridiculous since a big part of the reason those two songs are so punchy is that the bass is so damn trebley and is up in the guitar range. If you tuned it down an entire octave it will not sound anything like that given both tech limitations and human ear limitations. If you want boinky high bass, you have to play boinky high stuff, not stuff well below the point where the human ear can really even make out separate frequencies (IIRC Low A on a bass is about the point where you're mainly only hearing overtones). The aforementioned multiscale things will give you the punchiest sound you can possibly get when toning down in the mud area, but that's not going to get you too close to that.

If the last part of your post means that you only want him to sound like that when he's playing high notes, then he'd have to do EQ based around those sections and the really low notes may suffer in comparison. But yeah, fuzz +pick +mid to light strings will get you there. He will need to drastically switch EQ settings between sections of the song if you really want it to sound like that on the high notes but still be able to switch to super sub-octave stuff. Your average multi-effects unit or even a lot of amps' footswitches can do that. Twiggy used an MXR Distortion+ on that album IIRC. It's not a very complex tone (much easier to copy that than say, Type O Negative - October Rust), basically if you use a Fender P-Bass, that pedal, a pick and some new strings you can get in the ballpark easily. I think he had some very expensive vintage bass like a T-Bird.


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