Selta's bass presets

selta

Power User
Selta's bass presets & general bass help.

Hey everyone,
I'm going to be making some efforts here to bring more value to the bass sub-forum. I plan to spend some time with my various basses (and, also, with basses of friends / builders etc. that I personally know and can get access to), and develop some presets for them. When possible, I'll also do some popular bassists' rigs (think Steve Harris, Marco Hietala, Geddy Lee, David Ellefson, Justin Chancellor [I'll be doing this with a Wal bass, but it'll be interesting!!], etc. etc.).

I'll also toss out the idea that if you have a particular bass tone you're after, let me take a stab at helping you get it. Keeping in mind a lot of what you may be hearing is studio magic and also part of "being in a mix" versus what you may hear when playing solo. Also, of course, my playing and basses are not yours, so some tweaking will be necessary. If/when you request a preset, please let me know what bass you (or your bassist) plays. If I don't own it, I'll see about borrowing one like it, so I can do a bit better.

Lastly, I'm pretty available for general Q/A for bass specific stuff, Axe-Fx related or not. I generally shy away from gear recommendations right out, but will still try to help if asked.

Basses I personally own
  • Dingwall Combustion V4, 5 string
  • Spector Euro 5 (neck through)
  • Ernie Ball Music Man Bongo 6 H/S
  • Ernie Ball Music Man Bongo 5 H/S/p Fretless
  • Ernie Ball Music Man Sterling 5 HH
  • ESP M-IV (Made in Japan 4 string P/J bass - EMG pickups)
  • Squire Affinity P bass (flatwound strung)

Amps I own
  • SansAmp RPM
  • 1969 Ampeg SVT (verified build year of 1969)
  • 2007 Ampeg SVT-CL


Cabs I own
  • Audio Kinesis ThunderChild 1x18 (two way, FRFR cab. Monster, monster cab)
  • Ampeg SVT210AV (sealed 2x10)

Basses I have easy access to
  • Wal MkI 4 string fretted
  • Wal MkI 4 string fretless
  • Wal MkII 5 string
  • various NYC Sadowsky
  • A pre-CBS Fender J (all original)
  • An early 70s Fender P
 
Last edited:
Ever growing list of presets
  1. Axe-Change - Download Preset - Selta_Dingwall - by selta -- This is "version 2" of the Dingwall base bass (see what I did there) preset.
  2. Axe-Change - Download Preset - Selta_Dingwall - by selta -- This is "version 1" of the Dingwall base bass preset.
  3. Axe-Xhange - Download Preset - Selta_SpectorEuro5_JetCityWoman -- This is a take of my Spector Euro 5 LX (EMG pickups, HazLab clone preamp). Pretty much *nails* the Empire-era Queensryche tone. A lot of the tone comes from the Spector (especially with a pick and a heavy right hand), but this preset really, really brings it alive!

Version 2 (of the Dingwall preset) I'm much more happy with. I spent a lot of time in both of my projects tweaking this to get it right for both. Version 1 isn't bad, per se, but I just wasn't thrilled with it. The way I shaped the tone, it could easily get buried in some situations - mind you mids and lows if that is the case. Bring the 800Hz up a bit, and anything under 100Hz down if you find yourself getting lost in the mix.

Note, both are the same name - I thought I could rename them after uploading, but nope.

More presets to come. I'm in the middle of packing and moving, so it may be a bit. But, I'm available for help and general chatting.
 
Last edited:
Strong and noble effort to beef up the Axe for bass. I do appreciate it.

How about using that Stirling in order to whip up a general Fugazi bass patch? Here are three representative samples:







I've got a few more artists in mind. I want to sift through some tracks in order to find the better examples. I'm more of a guitarist, so you'd be saving me a ton of time in programming.:encouragement:
 
Hi selta,

This is great, it's going to be a big contribution even for people like me, primarily guitar players who don't have much time to tweak bass presets for occasional bedroom recording.

You helped me once already with a generic preset made extra for my purposes and explained what kind of tone for which genre. So I'm glad to see your thread, I'm looking forward to what's coming here.
 
Cool tread ;)

If you have some time.. i will try to help out to TM (tone match) the SansAmp RPM
 
Small world, I just downloaded Selta_Dingwall yesterday and here you appear haha. You and Seed are the only people I know of pushing the advancement of bass on this forum.
 
Strong and noble effort to beef up the Axe for bass. I do appreciate it.

How about using that Stirling in order to whip up a general Fugazi bass patch? Here are three representative samples:
I can give it a whirl, sure. :)
I've got a few more artists in mind. I want to sift through some tracks in order to find the better examples. I'm more of a guitarist, so you'd be saving me a ton of time in programming.:encouragement:
Sweet. If anything, this is good practice for me to work around in the Axe as well. If I can help people along the way, all the better!

Hi selta,

This is great, it's going to be a big contribution even for people like me, primarily guitar players who don't have much time to tweak bass presets for occasional bedroom recording.

You helped me once already with a generic preset made extra for my purposes and explained what kind of tone for which genre. So I'm glad to see your thread, I'm looking forward to what's coming here.
I'm glad to hear that preset worked for you. I actually forgot about that entirely, hah.
I will admit, most of the presets I make for myself will likely be with my Dingwall, as it's my main bass. But, I'll use the others as much as possible and when asked. I'll also try stepping through various music genres as well.

Cool tread ;)

If you have some time.. i will try to help out to TM (tone match) the SansAmp RPM
Hm, I've never done an actual TM before. Doing one of the SansAmp actually isn't a bad idea at all - it's a nice, versatile pre. I'll have to look into what it takes to make a good TM and go from there. Thanks for the idea!

Small world, I just downloaded Selta_Dingwall yesterday and here you appear haha. You and Seed are the only people I know of pushing the advancement of bass on this forum.
Hah. Well, I would suggest downloading V2 now. - at least compare the two.


Thank you all for the encouragement. It does help to know that this will be useful for some people :)
 
It would be even better when we share some presets,to link in a little recording of the tone. This would help people to nail the sound,with there bass
 
It would be even better when we share some presets,to link in a little recording of the tone. This would help people to nail the sound,with there bass

I agree. Recording just takes a bit more time than I have. I plan on circling back to do some recordings with my presets and then put them in-line here.
I have a rough one done for the Fugazi request from Kent. I will work on refining it a bit this week and will post it at some point soon.
 
Kent - might have your preset done near the end of the week. The basics are very easy to nail down... now I'm just adding in some fluff.
One thing to note - that guy plays sloppy *and* with very low action. Hence, a lot of what is being heard is from fret noise, which I can't replicate within the axe. But, it's still shaping up to be a neat preset.
 
Hi Seta,

Thanks for all that work!... I still think there is som much untapped potential for Bass with the Axe FX.
If you could get arounf to it, the bass tome in this cliep;
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-fx-ii-recordings/98503-rush-limelight-full-band-cover-fw-18-a.html
....is proving elusive to me... Are you able to get anything close to that tone?

Thanks
Pauly

Hey everyone,
I'm going to be making some efforts here to bring more value to the bass sub-forum. I plan to spend some time with my various basses (and, also, with basses of friends / builders etc. that I personally know and can get access to), and develop some presets for them. When possible, I'll also do some popular bassists' rigs (think Steve Harris, Marco Hietala, Geddy Lee, David Ellefson, Justin Chancellor [I'll be doing this with a Wal bass, but it'll be interesting!!], etc. etc.).

I'll also toss out the idea that if you have a particular bass tone you're after, let me take a stab at helping you get it. Keeping in mind a lot of what you may be hearing is studio magic and also part of "being in a mix" versus what you may hear when playing solo. Also, of course, my playing and basses are not yours, so some tweaking will be necessary.

Lastly, I'm pretty available for general Q/A for bass specific stuff, Axe-Fx related or not. I generally shy away from gear recommendations right out, but will still try to help if asked.

Basses I personally own
  • Dingwall Combustion V4, 5 string
  • Spector Euro 5 (neck through)
  • Ernie Ball Music Man Bongo 6 H/S
  • Ernie Ball Music Man Bongo 5 H/S/p Fretless
  • Ernie Ball Music Man Sterling 5 HH
  • ESP M-IV (Made in Japan 4 string P/J bass - EMG pickups)
  • Squire Affinity P bass (flatwound strung)

Amps I own
  • SansAmp RPM
  • 1969 Ampeg SVT (verified build year of 1969)
  • 2007 Ampeg SVT-CL


Cabs I own
  • Audio Kinesis ThunderChild 1x18 (two way, FRFR cab. Monster, monster cab)
  • Ampeg SVT210AV (sealed 2x10)

Basses I have easy access to
  • Wal MkI 4 string fretted
  • Wal MkI 4 string fretless
  • Wal MkII 5 string
  • various NYC Sadowsky
  • A pre-CBS Fender J (all original)
  • An early 70s Fender P
 
Hah. To start, realize there is a lot (a lot a lot a lot) of synth bass going on Rush tunes. His bass tone is actually not terribly difficult to play - jazz bass through some distortion. Mixing in the Moog Taurus is the very hard part. It's so cliche, but a lot of Geddy's tone is in his hands (and feet, when it comes to the Taurus). BUT, with all of that said, I'll give it a whirl and will get you something after I wrap up Kent's.
 
Looking forward to this. Thanks again!

"Sloppy", you say? That's kinda my home turf... 8)
 
G'day again Selta,

Synth in that sound? Wow.... I asked Mark if he could share some tips on getting that sound but he must've been a bit busy as I didn't get a reply.

Ok thanks again and I await the fruits of your labour

Pauly


Hah. To start, realize there is a lot (a lot a lot a lot) of synth bass going on Rush tunes. His bass tone is actually not terribly difficult to play - jazz bass through some distortion. Mixing in the Moog Taurus is the very hard part. It's so cliche, but a lot of Geddy's tone is in his hands (and feet, when it comes to the Taurus). BUT, with all of that said, I'll give it a whirl and will get you something after I wrap up Kent's.
 
Sorry - I didn't click the link yet (no time). In general, Geddy uses a Moog Taurus (maybe a Taurus 2) which contributes a lot to the low end. I'll peck at a Geddy preset for you though, for sure :).
For my own knowledge, what kind of bass do you play?
 
Rickenbacker 4003 of course! ;-)

thanks
Pauly

Sorry - I didn't click the link yet (no time). In general, Geddy uses a Moog Taurus (maybe a Taurus 2) which contributes a lot to the low end. I'll peck at a Geddy preset for you though, for sure :).
For my own knowledge, what kind of bass do you play?
 
Back
Top Bottom