Okay let's discuss EQ
EQ is to me
probably, next to just having an
amplifier the most significant thing
that you can really understand and
really learn about the bass guitar.
The way I like to look at EQ for bass guitar
I like to look at in three bands
obviously you can break it down into as
many gradients of bands as you like but
I think three is manageable and I think
that if you kind of work with me on this
if you understand the three bands as I
do you'll be able to make some really
quick choices on your amplifier or on
your studio desk or on your bass guitar
if you have those controls there.
To me the most important EQ control is the
mid-range control it's crucial to the
personality of tone. I like to think of
the mids as residing in that area from
300 Hertz to one kilohertz you can slide
it down a little you can slide it up a little
but somewhere in there that's to
me that's where all the action is that's
where you really kind of find a
personality of an instrument.
Instruments all speak differently depending on the
woods and the pickups and the amplifier
you use they'll just kind of be
preponderate in certain places so it's
it's a sliding scale but when you find
that mid range that really speaks for
your instrument the thing really starts
to breathe and you really feel like
you're singing through it.
So that area of 300 through one
kilohertz whether you boost it or
whether you cut it can make a big
difference in the way your notes are
perceived and the way they actually read
out in in the audience or or on a recording.
On this preamp made by Ashdown
they have a very nice breakdown of EQ
you've got bass, middle and treble knobs
and you've got some EQ knobs in between
those and this EQ breaks down really
nicely in the specific spaces I was
talking about.
First we're gonna listen
to the bass without any EQ at all
let's work the midrange first as I said
mid-range is the king that's what we
look for let's just listen to that
again flat
now let's pull it out
That's when they refer to 'scooped' the shape of a scoop.
Low frequency okay that's the power and
the floor of the bass guitar and that
area to me is most preponderant between
40 Hertz and 250 Hertz and it's almost
250 Hertz is almost into that big range
area I was telling you about. That's
where you can fill a room you can move
the dance floor you can get a booty
shaking or you can just totally ruin the band
okay very important to understand
how much, when it's appropriate, when you
need to abuse that much power or
actually when it's time to duck it down
a little bit and and maybe keep it out
of the way so that the rest of your bass
guitar and the rest of your band can
kind of come up to where they can be
really understood and heard
So my advice with low
 frequency depending on where it is
apply it judiciously listen to what's
happening make sure the amps not just
breaking up because of it or if that's
the sound you like please do it and
sometimes just cutting some of that low
frequency, which I don't often advise but
sometimes it's necessary, it can be used
as a clarifying tool to make your instrument
be a little more articulate to be able
to hear the notes a little better and
also to be able to hear the
band a little better.
This is all up to you and
all to the situations sometimes you
might find yourself in a live situation
where there's a big standing wave and it
keeps catching that one low note
sometimes just a little bit of cut in
that area can really help.
Okay now lets listen to the  bass end
of things here's the very lowest notes
I'm gonna turn down the output for this
okay now let's put it back
let's cut it
you can see when you cut it makes quite
a difference in the clarity you lose a
lot of power but that's a technique if
you turn up the volume and turn down the bass
change the whole tonality
Okay high frequency
High frequency is the percussion and the sibilance of the bass guitar it's really important for old
school and new subgenres of metal you
can't have metal band
well the metal bass player in band
without all that high frequency clanking
away because the truth of the matter is
and I discovered this at an early age
the bigger and louder those marshall
amps are the more treble you're going
to need to kind of get through there and
navigate so people actually hear the
notes you play, the oddest thing is that
the more, the worse it sounds the more
terrible your tone is because of having
too much treble once you put all those
guitars and cymbals around then all of a
sudden it kind of sits back and does its thing
and one of my tips and one of my
tricks is to overemphasize that treble
and you have to do it in context with
the band playing you can't just kind of
set it up and go that sounds awful I'm
going with it you got to listen to how
it kind of reads within everything
around you and it can really help you to
kind of, I wouldn't say stand out, but
stand in with the band so
these ranges are anywhere
from 1kHz on up to 8 -10 kHz
that sounds really high usually there's
nothing happening at 10kHz for bass guitars
passive bass guitars, the
bolt-on type I've been
telling you about they usually fall off
very quickly around 2 kHz at the
very top but for some of the bolt on
neck active ones you'll notice that
those high frequencies really sing up
there and you can really get a really
kind of a sibilant, percussive top-end
that doesn't necessarily read as a note
but reads as an attack just as when
you're hitting a snare drum and you hear
that rimshot it's kind of the same thing
for a bass guitar so it's a useful thing
to have just like all the other EQs
I've been telling you about you can
easily cut them you can lower it down
and you can get that range down for
mellower music like reggae sometimes
it's it's helpful to do that and bring
that down and bring down some mids along
with that and if you're playing
something like folk music for instance
you really don't want to hear all
that string noise and sibiolance at all
you just want to hear a nice fundamental
like it's an upright bass
Okay this is the treble knob 
all the way on top
let's start with the flat
okay let's bring the
treble and the bottom end of the treble
in with this okay we'll push them both
up pretty substantially
As you can see on this bass it's pretty active in the
treble range around 2.6 kHz
let's make it flat again
and let's make it go
away
So high-frequency, the percussion and
sibilants of the bass
be aware of it a useful tool
when put in the wrong hands
though a very destructive one.
