Making Your Electric Bass Sound Like An Upright /// Scott's Bass Lessons

I was watching P bass videos when I run it to this. People tend to forget how much of your tone depends on where you pick of pluck. Guitar and bass sound different if you play close to bridge or close to neck. It always seem to take guys who play with simple setups to show this. There is similar video where Telecaster player shows you can get everything you want from Telecaster. One tip was to change where you pick the strings. If you have active bass and tons of pedals you can live without these tips. But is always interesting to see how guys who play straight to amp get tons of different sounds from their set up when they know what they do.

First thoughts of LTD Surveyor '87

Reached one milestone month ago. Decided to celebrate it with new bass. Earlier this year planned to celebrate it with custom made guitar. For custom made guitar’s money I have got good guitar, good bass and set up pedalboards for both. I think that was better use for the money.

After starting to learn bass I have seen several videos telling bassists should own P bass because it sits so well in mix. Have also seen people playing with ones and seen how well they sit in band context. Owning two basses with active pre-amp and worrying about battery life on them I thought maybe I should own passive bass. P bass was good option with humbucking pickup. Wasn’t so sure about limitations of P bass.

LTD Surveyor ‘87 sounded tempting. I have good experiences with LTDs I got form local store. Problem was finding more information about the bass. There are videos on ESP’s site and same videos on Youtube. But it is hard to find customers’ reviews or comments. Threads on message boards didn’t offer much help. People told they are getting one and then went silent. For that reason Fender Player Precision bass started to feel better option. It had more videos and sound samples. I am not offering sound samples here but I will tell what I think about the instrument.

I went to test the bass in store. It didn’t feel spectacular. Some times you just know you have to get the instrument when you start to play it. This wasn’t one of them. There wasn’t any problems. I just didn’t get that feeling. To be honest I was there to buy something else and tested it because I was there. Got back home. Thought about it and went back next day to get the bass.

After playing the bass for few days I think I understand why owners went silent on message boards. My only issue is the tuners. They feel weird. Like the amount of resistance to turning changes from time to time. Don’t know how that is possible. Not a big problem. Just annoyance when you have to turn backwards because tuner jumped little bit. Other that that bass is well made for what it is. It is passive P bass with single coil Jazz pickup on bridge.

It sounds quite dull on its own. P basses do sound dull on their own. You can’t shape sound like with active pre-amp. You can only cut down high end with tone. P basses sound dull on their own but work well on mix. At least that is what I have heard. I haven’t used this or any other P bass on song context yet. I think some owners expected something more. Because they couldn’t complain about quality they went silent.

I knew P basses sound dull on their own and have limited tone shaping qualities. That is why I got one with Jazz pickup on bridge. I would have put noiseless Jazz pickup on bridge. This is single coil. It isn’t as noisy as I feared. Noise is there on higher gain sounds. It is not as noisy as my other basses on single coil modes. Preamps could add more noise on those. On highest gains you have to stay on P bass pickup but Jazz pickup can handle moderate gain without getting too noisy.

Jazz pickup makes this versatile compared to normal P bass but it is nothing like active preamp with two or three band EQ. I think Surveyor ‘87 biggest problem is headstock says LTD. ESP and LTD are popular on metal community. There aren’t too many ESP or LTD passive basses. If you get this expecting it to sound like bass with active preamp you will be disappointed. If you understand what you are getting this is good option. It is around price of Fender Player Precision bass with popular modifications. This has those modifications. Addition to that you get Jazz pickup which makes bass more versatile. Based on my experience on Mexican Fenders this could be better quality instrument.

I don’t think I could get everything I want from bass from this but none of my basses can’t give everything I want. If I had to do with only one bass this probably wouldn’t be it. That might change after I learn how to get most out of it. I am so used to shaping sound on bass’ preamp I am not so good doing that on amp or pedals. In this case pedals. I am using Darkglass Microtubes B7K Ultra’s amp simulation. It has four band EQ with three selectable frequencies for high and low mids. That should be enough.