A Good Jazz Bass Sound

Question

I have a Fender Jazz Bass and am playing out of a 100 watt Fender Rumble amp. I wanted to get a good Jazz tone/sound and make it sound more deeper and mellower so it sounds more like Jaco Pastorius and other famous Jazz musicians. I have only been playing for 2 years but am pretty good. I was wondering if I were to get the Boss OC-2 Octave or the BOSS OC3 SUPER OCTAVE DIVIDER if that would do the job or if i should get something else?

Answer 1

You don't want to start playing through a bunch of crappy pedals, most all good Jazz Bass Players play directly into there Amp, I'm not familiar with the Fender Rumble Amp but I'm betting its a solid state amp and what you need is a  TUBE AMP, an old Fender BassMan or Ampex Bass amp is what I'd go for, your sound is only as good as the weakest part of your package and your currant amp is never going to give you the sound your looking for and petals won't either, you got to go for the Vintage or Vintage copy stuff to get where you want to go, Good Luck and use your fingers not a pick.

Answer 2

The biggest reason that Jaco's bass sounds so mellow is that he played a fretless bass. I think he had a small amount of reverb or chorus to give depth.

You might go to your local music store and try some of the octave dividers and other effects.

Playing like Jaco is definitely something to aspire to!

Answer 3

Hi Merlin

Jaco Pastorius used to tune his E string down to D which accounts for that deep bass sound. You might think that he was using an effect but wasn't.

Today, guitarist are even drop-tuning their low strings to get a fatter sound. You can drop your fat E-string to D and you will see that you almost have the same sound as Jaco.

The technique to play is not much different either.