Tuning a bass

[Unsprung]

See what I gotta put up with!

You were holding his johnson???

I truly didn't know what I was getting myself into, last April, when I bought my Johnson JG-622-E acoustic/electric bass. Didn't take me very long to figure it out, though, but I can't complain. The looks on some people's faces, when talking about playing or tuning my Johnson, make me wish I had my camera handy.

I think I'll go stick a bar of soap in my mind, now...

Matt

 

[Bassman Brad]

Yeah, that makes me think twice about building myself a bass on the Warmoth "Dinky" body. The more I think about it, I don't really think I want to tell people, "I think I'll go home and play with my Dinky."

Brad

 

[Rokket]

Yeah, that makes me think twice about building myself a bass on the Warmoth "Dinky" body. The more I think about it, I don't really think I want to tell people, "I think I'll go home and play with my Dinky."

Brad

That's where I am different! I would love to be able to say that just to see the look on their faces!

"I think I will go home and play with my Dinky. You wanna play with my Johnson?"

LMAO!!! Too much fun!

 

[timmerman]

A/B tests with tuners and Dinky's

"I think I'll go home and play with my Dinky."

Brad

Dinky's are great toys to play with one day you may even decide to build your own dinky, well that day would be a day when you made yourself a great toy , one which will please you for the rest of your life.

Okay back to topic about tuning and tuners...........

Perhaps I am cheating a bit here if I admit I can hear the difference in tuners when I use them on guitars so it seems that these tuners recognize all the same frequencies, but give you a different reading at the same time!

Whenever one of my instruments comes back from my guitartech. they seem to be tuned a bit lower, now I know he uses different tuners and has one of those rack-type tuners as well. It seems that his way of telling: "I am in tune here" is just slightly lower than what my tuner tells me about "Being in tune".

I have done A/B tests with some of my pupils, as they all have different tuners: Tuned up with my tuner and compared with theirs, and in some cases their tuner told me that I was sharp..............................

Now we can go into strobetuners and electronic ones and.............but I believe we already have done so a bit earlier in this thread so.......

Oh Brat mentioned a bit earlier that his spelling is not a good as it used to be due to spell check on the pc and whether people have similar experiences....................Well Brat I never got on with spellcheck as it tends to tell me that my words do not exhist or that I use dodgy grammer so eversince I just rely on what those good old teachers taught me, and so far I have to say I do trust those oldies..............but that is until I enter the modern world where I come across like people like Rokket who use language such as LMAO, ...............this is the stage where I could do with a spellchecker, but then they may be set in different ways for different regions of the globe, so I am not sure if this would help me much since Rokket is located in Japan [that is, if he is still there, cause if I can remember he was in transit while being a Ghost............. ......I have just noticed that he will be back, so are you no longer a ghost then? Gone FM perhaps or............ .....?]

Okay I guess I should now be a bit careful before we all get too personal here and far too much of topic from our much loved tuning debate.

So let me salute you my dear folks, I only wish we could share the stage once, just to see if this would be as good as this one

Eddie

 

[Garry Sharp]

If I tune my bass with my Boss tuner, and then compare it with the tuner on my Digitech BNX3, the latter says it is about one dot flat (both set to 440) However if I apply the slightest of pressure to the neck, that changes the tuning by about two or three dots.

 

[timmerman]

If I tune my bass with my Boss tuner, and then compare it with the tuner on my Digitech BNX3, the latter says it is about one dot flat (both set to 440) However if I apply the slightest of pressure to the neck, that changes the tuning by about two or three dots.

That is an interesting discovery Garry, how did you find out about that one?

Eddie

 

[Garry Sharp]

I think it's rather sad actually

I was recording something through the Digitech, and just thought I'd compare the tuning out of interest.

 

[lpdeluxe]

Playing with Dinky Johnson

My Sabine tuner will recognize a range as being "in tune." You can slightly sharp or flatten the note, and it indicates intunitude.

After all, it's a tempered scale....

 

[ntnguitarist3]

i have a question, a lil off topic... my damn guitar ya know its all in tune but as soon as i go to play anything on the high E it sounds out of tune with the rest of the guitar but its in tune... the high E's harmonic sounds nothing like the open E, so could this be the innotation... its a fender american double fat strat if that matters...

 

[Bassman Brad]

i have a question, a lil off topic... my damn guitar ya know its all in tune but as soon as i go to play anything on the high E it sounds out of tune with the rest of the guitar but its in tune... the high E's harmonic sounds nothing like the open E, so could this be the innotation... its a fender american double fat strat if that matters...

If the harmonic on a string is a different pitch than the open string, than you do, indeed, have an intonation problem. You need to adjust the string length (the saddles can be adjusted at the bridge) until they are in tune.

Hope that helps,
Brad

 

[lpdeluxe]

You mean you can intonate a guitar the same way you would a bass? I'll have to ponder that.

 

[Garry Sharp]

My Sabine tuner will recognize a range as being "in tune." You can slightly sharp or flatten the note, and it indicates intunitude.

Yeah, my ears are like that.....the range is a little too wide

 

[lpdeluxe]

Yeah, my ears are like that.....

One of the nost dangerous features of the Sabine is that there is a button on the back, next to the on/off switch, that instantly makes whatever note is sounding "A" on the tuner. The first few times I picked it up wrong I was amazed at how far off the tuning got so quickly!

Back to the issue of dueling electronic tuners: there's an old saying that a person with one watch always knows the time, and a person with two is never sure....

 

[Bassman Brad]

One of the nost dangerous features of the Sabine is that there is a button on the back, next to the on/off switch, that instantly makes whatever note is sounding "A" on the tuner. The first few times I picked it up wrong I was amazed at how far off the tuning got so quickly!

That would be a very handy feature!!! I've often wished there were some way to "tune" one of my tuners to the grand piano at the local college's performing arts hall, so that, before I play a concert there, I could just tune up electronically in the green room, before I go out on stage, and know that I'm not only in tune with the tuner, but with the piano as well.

Brad

 

[lpdeluxe]

In that case you might look into a Sabine. It goes for around $50US these days. Mine is probably 12 years old and it is on its second or third battery. It is different from the tuners that use a needle, and it took me a while to get used to it, in combination with the "tolerance" mentioned above. But you can tune to ANYbody.

 

[Bassman Brad]

Actually, one of the tuners I have is a Sabine. It's the one that has the metronome built in. I think it goes for a little less that that. Maybe $35 or $40. I don't see one of those buttons that you've described, but there is a recessed screw on the back. I wonder if that can be used to adjust the pitch that it's tuned to. Suppose I'll have to actually find and read the manual, now, huh?

Brad

 

[lpdeluxe]

...and I suppose I'll have to go see what model I have. My DSL is down, and I am using dial-up on my wife's laptop. Maybe I can do it tomorrow (dial-up is SO slow...)

 

[Bassman Brad]

Mine is the Metrotune MT9000. And, it turns out it WILL do that. I don't even have to use a screwdriver to get to that recessed screw. You can adjust the tuning frequency right from the front control panel. The top set of up and down buttons are for calibration, and will adjust the tempo when on metronome mode or tuning pitch when in the tuning mode.

Looks like the Bassman just learned something new.

Just goes to show you, this thread is both fun AND educational!

 

[lpdeluxe]

Mine is an ST1100. You don't adjust it: you feed it a note (either through the built-in mic or via cable from an instrument) and while the note is sounding you push the button on the back. It then uses that note as concert A, and all the other notes on the face relate to that (for example, if you play a G and then push the button, when you tune the other instruments it will treat the Gs as As, the Ds as Es, and so on). If the A is really A-and-a-sixteenth-#, every other instrument or note will be sharped by that 1/16 of an interval. It's simpler to use than explain! Basically you hit A on your church piano that was last tuned by Johann Bach, then tune your bass to that. Hope this helps. It may be worth it to get one, since they are fairly inexpensive.

 

[timmerman]

Whow Mr. Les Paul de Luxe, you certainly deserve a LP Goldtop 1956 for keeping this thread going, think you would also make a great salesman of just about any item people could produce, you know, the type of guy who turns up on your doorstep with a large box which contains......... whatever you certainly do not need and cannot use at the moment. But anyway, I think you would sell a lot of those boxes, and in the end people may even start to use whatever was in those boxes.............Oh it could be basses, yes of course, well-tuned basses, intonated as well, and selling like hotcakes, delivered door to door by Mr. Lpdeluxe.

Oh seems to be a bit of a dull day on the forum, there is not much going on, oh do not get me wrong, lots of text and serious debates about politics, but nothing really as worthwhile as tuning a bass.

Eddie