Tone

Variety? Do you need one particular tone quality or do you want the maximum versatility from your instrument?

Our pickups and electronics cover many approaches and tonal requirements from:

very specific (you want one particular tone quality and only that one will do) to

very general (you play all styles and change tonal settings all the time)

Active vs. Passive: Consider that from the beginning the Music Man Bass was battery powered and did not have an Active/Passive switch.

I have yet to see a clear case of battery failure. I have seen, however, many cases of harness and wiring failure.

What is the instrument response? What are the tonal characteristics of the instrument? Is it a bolt-on? a neck-through? If you listen to it unplugged (ear to the bass side horn of the instrument): what do you hear? Strong lows? Brilliant highs? How much mid do you hear? How much of this spectrum do you want in the amplified sound?

Remember that this way of listening to the instrument tells only part of the story. Even though the deep bass is more easily heard this way than by listening from an arm's length away, you are still hearing a treble enhanced version of the instrument's tone. It is a useful approximation to the sound of the wood.

The tone of the instrument is the combination of wood + pickups + electronics.

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