Here are 3 basic ways to change the tone on your instrument:
1. Where you pick
Where you pick the strings will have a huge impact on your tone – and you can tailor this to suit what style of music you are playing. Over the middle pickup you get your bread-and-butter bass sound. Move towards the bridge and the sound turns punchier and more mid-range, with better note definition – great for funk. Play over the neck and you get a warmer, rounder, bassier sound that suits a walking line or a reggae groove. It's all down to which of the string's natural harmonics you're activating.
2. How hard you pick
Changing the force you apply with your picking fingers drastically alters your tone, and gives you a very wide dynamic range – your own volume control, built into your hands. One warning from Pete: as the picking hand digs in, the fretting hand tends to grip the neck harder. His fix is a lovely one – practise the same exercise entirely with dead notes (fingers resting lightly on the strings, no fretted pitch, just a percussive click). It isolates the conversation between your two hands and builds a genuinely lighter touch.
3. The attack angle
Altering the attack angle of the picking fingers plays a subtle but real role in tone. Picking upwards at the fingertip, resting onto the next string (the classic rest stroke) gives brightness and definition – even fingernail length nudges the sound. Playing with more finger pad, pushing 90° into the string, gives a softer, rounder note. Think of how differently Stanley Clarke, Mick Karn and Jack Bruce attack the string – a big part of each of those signature sounds is exactly this. Push the energy to the extreme and you're at the doorstep of slap.
Experiment with all three – they cost nothing and they're on every bass you'll ever pick up. For a guided tone workout, book a one-to-one lesson with Pete, online or in person.