Look inward first, even with your gear.

>
>Hello, I was wondering if you can help me with a bass gear question. I'm currently playing a '74 Fender Jazz bass and I play through a Mega Boogie 400 Plus amp (speaker set up is 1 x 15" cabinet and 2 x 10" cabinet). I can get a good punchy tone but I'm having a little trouble getting a good full bass tone (full bottom end) out of the gear I'm using. Do you have any suggestions in possible gear I can buy (possibly a preamp or compressor) that would fill out my sound. Thanks- Ken

Dear Ken,
Sounds like that's a great setup, provided everything's working properly. I'm not an electronics expert and it's hard to guess without checking it out personally, but I wonder if your bass is wired correctly inside. Youy may have a weak solder joint or some other issue that is thinning out the sound so that you don't get the bottom you want to hear. I have also heard of passive pickups like the stock Jazz pickups actually "wearing out" and changing in tonal quality as the years pass. Maybe the pickups need to be rewound. Also, is that amp head you're using a biamp (meaning there's a crossover that sends only the low frequencies to your 15 and the higher stuff to your 2x10)? Maybe there are some biamp or crossover settings that need to be fiddled with. These are all just stabs in the dark though.
The piece of solid advice I have is that you should thoroughly investigate any possible problems with the gear you have first. A '74 Jazz through a Mesa Boogie with a 15 and a 2x10 should sound AWESOME and have all the available low end you could want, and some to spare.
I think if the problem is solved in the gear you have you'll end up being happier. Besides, having more stuff in the signal chain is probably one of the biggest enemies of big musical tone. Simpler is almost always better.
Please write back and let me know how the troubleshooting is going!
Best,
Andrew Pfaff