smallsnd/bigsnd wrote:depends on what amp, what i'm playing (musically and instrument-wise) and who i'm playing with.
with my band, i try really hard to fit in without overpowering the bass so i typically cut the bass a bit and slightly boost treble. i like my "clean" to be slightly dirty so the preamp gain is up a bit as well. other than that i generally tend towards a more flat EQ with no reverb. depends though! when playing out i always check how things sound in the room, since there are always weird bass traps, hollow stages, reflective surfaces, etc.
edit: when i play guitar at the shop, i usually go for as flat a response as i can get out of my fender twin, with a bit of reverb added.
Back when I first started playing bass, I played with that huge scooped sound because it was what I thought sounded cool when I was playing by myself. Once I started playing in bands, I found that almost every guitarist I played with scooped the shit out of his signal (because that's what all the METULLLLZ dudes do) and basically made it so that my bass was completely inaudible in the band mix. So I started turning down the bass and treble and cranking my mids all the way up so I could at least be heard. After years and years of playing that way, I'm so used to hearing it that way that I play with that EQ even when I'm by myself and now I hate it when my sound is scooped or overly bassy/boomy. It's made it so that it sounds wrong to me if my signal isn't crazy mid-boosted.
I worry that one day I'll play with a guitarist who's all about mids and I'll have to change my EQ again and everything will sound wrong and I'll hate it.