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Hey everyone,

I play bass in a black/death metal band and I really like the tone I get when I'm playing on my own but when the rest of the band joins in I lose my tone. I can still hear my playing very well but the tone just becomes a muffled boomy sound. Do you guys have any tips on cutting through better? I think I'll need to change cabs or something.

I play a 5-string fretless bass through a fuzz pedal that's always on into a late 70s Fender Bassman and an EBS CL-410 cab.

What kinda fuzz pedal?

In before everyone says you need more mids, but yeah you probably need more mids in your signal.

The fuzz in question would Also be helpful to know.

Before knowing the whole story, you may want to consider something like the Earthquaker Devices Arrow, which is a boost designed to give more clarity to a guitar neck pickup. Might be your ticket.

Upgrade your cab first. Also, when playing fast I like to use a tubescreamer style pedal for more mids to boost the fuzz, and you're losing a lot of bite by playing a fretless. My favorite bass TS is either a Boss SD1 or an HBE Hematoma (which also has a switchable boost?). One of the best bass tones I ever had was a 68 Bassman 100 into an Ampeg 810 with an Earthbound Audio Supercollider and the Hematoma for dirt.

More mids and roll off the 'bass'.

D.o.S. wrote:More mids and roll off the 'bass'.

Also this, low bass (150 hz and under or so) is pretty much useless for volume and will eat up a ton of power from your bassman. Keep things in the low mid range and add more speakers.

Also, those Bassmans have the cut only mid EQ, right? So 10 on the dial is actually just going to be flat mids. Try dialing it to something like 2-10-2 (bass middle treble) and working back slowly from there.

D.o.S. wrote:Also, those Bassmans have the cut only mid EQ, right? So 10 on the dial is actually just going to be flat mids. Try dialing it to something like 2-10-2 (bass middle treble) and working back slowly from there.

It depends on the channel you're running. If you're lacking low end, jump your channels and turn on the bass boost/deep switch on the bass channel, but keep your normal channel EQ as is

Thanks for the tips everyone!

I normally use a Boss HM-2 but it's been acting up so for now I'm using a Behringer SF300. I'm also thinking of buying a Gallien-Krueger, and I've been looking at Ampeg cabs but I've got a bad back and I'd prefer something easy to transport.

Would an extra eq pedal or preamp pedal help?

Potentially, but you should see if you can fix the problem in house before you resort to buying any new gear -- not that you shouldn't buy new gear, but you shouldn't buy new gear to fix fixable problems.