The advice that really helped me was to turn down the bass and treble knobs all the way, then set my mids to how I liked the sound, growl and bite, then added the bass knob until I could hear every note be sustained with a great foundation and finally add some treble until you can hear a little bit of that clank and metally sound lml

Another helpful advice is to have a gain knob and a master volume on the amp, so you can have plenty of gain, it could be about 50 to 70% depending on your bass' input gain, and that way you can play soft and make the notes really cut through and if you play hard then you are really going to be heard, just adjust your master volume correctly so tou don't saturate the whole band's sound

Jeff I love what your doing with the channel. I subscribed earlier and have been happy watching what I can. Please keep it up!

Love this channel!! Jeff you're an inspiration!!

Nice explanation Jeff

Thanks Jeff! Could you talk about the tone controls on the bass in an upcoming video? I keep my amp setting close to flat but adjust tone by rolling off the highs a bit on the bass until I hear that sweet spot. Maybe talk about the difference between passive vs active.

Hello Jeff, I have to say, you are the one of the few bassists who, instead of making me want to buy more gear to apparently "find my tone", you make me want to improve my playing and experiment until I find what I want. Only when I cannot find exactly what I want after having done all those things, will I move ahead to buying a different bass. And yes, as you spoke in another video, DR strings and passive electronics make for a very "sweet" tone, in my opinion.

If I may add my tip for tone. Plug your bass into a highpass filter before going into your amp or effect boxes. Its so the electronics of your amp’s tone controls or effect boxes will only need to deal with the frequency spectrum that matters and not infrasonic muck. Some of these filters also double up as a buffer which is good for passive basses and there are others that will also do lowpass to cut out ultrasonic muck too. E.g. Broughton and The Thumpinator.

As an addition to the quasi-standard 4-band-eq on the markbass amp there are two additional knobs. One is called "VLE", the other one "VPF". I have no idea what These acronyms mean, but one the Marcus Miller signature amp the VLE is called "oldschool" and the VPF is called "millerize", and that's exactly what they do.

Excellent video. Looking forward to more. @Eli E, dude, that was totally unnecessary.

I really dislike the tone tweeters provide. I do like a treble boost and high mids. I just always found tweeters made a bright tone sound very harsh. Your slapping sounds fine to my ears.

wow

Jeff Berlin... The real deal folks......X

“I’m clearly no slapper”- Jeff Berlin

Mr. Jeff Berlín... You are one special Human being to me, because i have heard lots of your thoughts, through your videos, about music, bass instruments and bass components, and you have inspired me in a particular way that not every musician can in my life. Your existance, in this World we all share, is unique, because it helped me believe that god does exist and manifest, in the positive side of life, through persons like you (im not religios in any manner, but i do have strong beliefs by the special and positive things that come out of people like you, sir, that changes and transform lives in amazing ways). Just to mention a little bit of your magic of transmitting great and powerful messages to people like me, that care so so much for music... i am a drummer... and even when you teach bass lessons, i took a lot from your way of thinking about this art and it had helped me so deeply to the point that i re-descovered myself as the percussion teacher i was at an orquestra here in México (In the city of Ensenada, Baja California) and had Exelent results after checking out your speeches, leassons and ideas about bass playing. I also play bass, but not actually a bassist. But i love instruments so much. I like to learn as much as i can from every instrument posible. Thank you, Mr. Jeff Berlín. You are, and always will be, one of my very best teachers and wish to meet you one special day. Keep transforming the world for the best trhough us and through anyway you can. Best wishes: Efraín Rojas from Tijuana, México. Pd: i always recomend you to all the musicians that have not known you yet but desire yo grow in bass in music in general.

“And that’s out of a 15” records DI😂

bass tone is too subjective

Gee, Jeff, I'm really disappointed with this video! I came here to learn how YOU achieve your relatively unique bass tone! I think everyone understands how to experiment with their amp settings, and has done plenty of that, but how do YOU get that cutting, rounded sound you have live and on so many recordings!?!? What strings? What pickup type/brand, and which pickup position? What bass guitar settings? Where on the bass you play the strings? What freqs do you boost? Do you use a limiter or compressor? Speaker size preference? Amp preference? I need info, not a lecture on how to do what I've already done for years! I imagine: you play fairly fresh semi-round or round-wound strings, on the bridge pickup (mostly), with your guitar tone control turned down, you play the strings over the bridge pickup (and further back for biting passages), you use no effects except some type of limiter compressor, you prefer tube amps, and you boost 500hz range into a limiter/compressor (possibly in your amp), and out to (direct, and) 12" speakers or a 4x10+15 set-up (even though you have 15" here). But who knows!?! I hope you're not one of those guys who keeps their settings a "secret" - I hate that!! Oh well, I admire your playing immensely Jeff, but this video was the opposite of what I was hoping to learn from you. I was once a local hotshot bassist, and everyone told me I was The Shit! But then I saw you with Bruford (1st tour), and I realized I wasn't The Shit, I was only The Fart - Jeff Berlin was The Shit! Thanks for all the great music and inspiration through the years! My only advice to other players (I've had the good fortune to play with many Grammy winning and legendary players - but I'm no Jeff Berlin!) is to get 80-90% of your tone from your bass guitar, and not from your amp or any effects. Personally, I fell in LOVE when I discovered the Ampeg SVT and those glorious 10" speakers (so great for definition!)! But to paraphrase Jeff - "to each their own" (I just wish I knew what Jeff's was!!!) All the best!

Jeff Berlin blocked me on Facebook because I took exception to the way he responded to people who disagreed with his views on music education. I didn’t use any rude remarks and I wasn’t disrespectful in any way. In this video and many others he has a real ‘nice guy’ vibe and he seems genuinely interested in helping people. Why is he so conflicted and even hypocritical in his dealings with others, particularly those that he claims he wants to help? I hope he resolves this problem in his lifetime because he is a good player.

So no real help. You made a video of the google results that say "Just play around with it". Everyone plays with their eq, they want direction to help them get a better understanding of how to get different tones. Jeff Berlin is overrated trash, and this only confirms why I think he's always been mediocre