From Basexperience (www.funkbass.co.uk)
If, like me, you get cheesed off with those expensive strings when they go dead (how much for a 6-string set of Warwick black labels? Sheesh!) - unless, of course, you enjoy that authentic Jamerson thud - then I have a good tip which is well-worn and mentioned in many places on t'internet.
Meths.
Now, this doesn't mean you should go off and drink until you don't care about the thudding. Oh no. Use this purple wonderliquid to remove the dead skin and grease from the windings of your expensive strips o' steel! Simply get some form of container (one tip is to use plastic sink tubing and plug one end with proper plumbing stuff, then do the same for the other end but put a small hook on there for the ball ends of the strings to latch on to, then fill the tube and lower the strings in) - I use an old Jelly Belly plastic tub container - fill it with meths (B&Q's cheapish) and drop you strings in there and leave them for as long as you want. I usually leave them for a least a couple of weeks, gving them the occasional slosh about.
When you pull them out, leave them somewhere airy to dry (the smell!!!!) and when they're dry, they're ready to play and sound great - just the right side of “played in”. I've got 4 sets on the go for the Toby and they're all sounding wicked.
How to EQ (a rough guide):
well I did a load of googling, and have found what seems like good advice, which I'll summarise here incase anyone has the same issue in the future.
As I found when I last jammed with a mate, although a 'smile' sounds good in your bedroom, it gets lost when other instruments are present. So a frown is indeed the way to go as a rule of thumb, else you will only be felt not heard.
The most interesting bit I found was a guide to learning how to tweak the EQ. Essentially, level off both your amp and bass controls. Then go through each band of your eq, and take it to both extremes whilst playing. This means you learn the effect each frequency band has on your sound, and what too much and too little will do. For example, at 50Hz I discovered that too much just makes a thud sound, but too little just makes the sound weak and pathetic. At the other end of the spectrum, 5kHz if too much will make the sound too tinny, but too little will lose the 'sparkle'.
So to set up the EQm for actual playing, the best thing to do is start with the eq flat, then listen to what your sound has too much/little of and adjust the right slider accordingly. Of course,this needs to be redone whenever you switch amp/location/bass. Had a go at doing this this morning, and have ended up with a hump at the low mids, with just a slight boost to the 5kHz and a cut at 50Hz. One other point is that the dynamics of the amp/cab will change at louder volume, so if you're playing a gig there's no point EQing at a low volume whilst people are setting up then cranking up the volume after.
Lastly, one thing I'll do when I next play a gig is get someone I trust to stand there plucking the strings whilst I stand in the middle of the room, since the location of the listener matters, so the sound standing next to the amp will be different to 10m away.