Tuning a bass

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Jones
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My contribution to the 100 pages: When I was a kid I went into my local music store and asked if I could try an electric bass. The sales guy gave me a bass and a practice room. I asked how to tune it and was told: same as the 4 lowest strings on a guitar. I took him at his word, and figured it was normal that the tuning knobs were so hard to turn -- that is until a string broke, sending a streak of fear through me I will never forget. (By the way, a cello is tuned in 5ths (C G D A), not 4ths.
 
ez_willis said:
Pretty sweet. Here's a pic of one of mine, like mine really, the pic is from the gibson site-
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SWEET! That pic of mine is off the ESP site....
 
pungod said:
My contribution to the 100 pages: When I was a kid I went into my local music store and asked if I could try an electric bass. The sales guy gave me a bass and a practice room. I asked how to tune it and was told: same as the 4 lowest strings on a guitar. I took him at his word, and figured it was normal that the tuning knobs were so hard to turn -- that is until a string broke, sending a streak of fear through me I will never forget. (By the way, a cello is tuned in 5ths (C G D A), not 4ths.
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The first bass I ever owned was a Samick. I got it for $100 because someone was playing it and dropped it. It was worth $600, but they were going to lose money on it because they would have to throw it out. I convinced the guy to sell it to me. I got 5 good years out of it until I decided I wanted to play a 6 string. I traded a Dean 6 string in and got my ESP....
 
So who has some interesting stories about their first bass? I've had other basses before the Samick, but that was the first one I ever bought. The others belonged to my dad.
Do you know how rough it is when he lets you take his bass and gig with it, but before you get out the door on the first night, he says "You better not get one little scratch on my P-Bass or don't come home!" :confused:
 
My first "proper" bass, in 1978, was a Hofner semi acoustic. When I came to sell it, the guy in the guitar shop was very interested in its history and told me he thought it had once belonged to Tina Weymouth. Who knows.....

Anyway, as we have started posting pix, here (again - sorry) is one of my favourite, the Manson Custom fretless, in action. As the bass was in tune when I was playing it, I think it is relevant to the topic ;)

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/attachment.php?attachmentid=11557

(Sorry, I already had this in my attachments file, don't know how to make the pic appear)
 
Unsprung said:
Maybe the confusion about tuning in 4ths or 5ths comes from guitar tuning - E, A, D, G, B, E - where the G & B strings are only tuned a 4th apart. Although I've never played in a band, I'll sometimes drop my E1 down to D, and play a bit of "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2," but since I've yet to perfect going from D back to E in 1 smooth tweak, I usually don't anymore. Besides, who but another bassist is gonna notice that I'm playing an open E note, for "Another Brick...," instead of dropping to D? ;)

Matt
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A minor detail here: G & B are tuned a 4th apart on the guitar? Well no, they are a Major 3rd apart, ;)

Really like this thread they are getting better and better, so keep them up guys :)

Eddie
 
Garry Sharp said:
My first "proper" bass, in 1978, was a Hofner semi acoustic. When I came to sell it, the guy in the guitar shop was very interested in its history and told me he thought it had once belonged to Tina Weymouth. Who knows.....

Anyway, as we have started posting pix, here (again - sorry) is one of my favourite, the Manson Custom fretless, in action. As the bass was in tune when I was playing it, I think it is relevant to the topic ;)

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/attachment.php?attachmentid=11557

(Sorry, I already had this in my attachments file, don't know how to make the pic appear)
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Yeah, Garry, I remember that pic. And that bass is a beaut!
 
Circle of fifths

Since we seem to be going in that direction....
 
Circle of fifths, part III

One last one, just to see if they all agree...
 
The last one shows the notation symbols, which is cool... I always mess them up...
 
Yep Rokket, great stuff!!

You think you could also find something on the names of the individual intervals, including their upper extensions such as the 9th, 10th and flat [hey I have no sign for this on my keyboard, how bad is that......... :D ] 13th ect.

See where this tuning idea has brought us into? From gear we go into musictheory and from there it could go into......... ;)

Bye the way those 12 string basses looked really good, never seen one in real life though, have you? Wonder what these beasts sound like? And where would you use them for? Solobasspieces or............. :eek:

Eddie
 
Rokket said:
One last one, just to see if they all agree...
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Major keys, minor keys or..........? and what about their relative ones? :confused:

Okay you could get your guitarist to play in G major an let him use all the major chords, just let your bassplayer deal with its relative minor chords, see what that would get you................Oh let us forget the singer for the time being as that would be a bit too much for the time being ;)

Eddie
 
Very good music theory. Just popping in to say the best bass I ever played was a Westone Thunder IIIA - it weighed a tonne but had so many sounds and played like no other instrument I've ever come across. Beautiful.


I couldn't afford it :(
 
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Important correction

While it's true that the A string on a guitar is not tuned to 55Hz, it's not 440Hz either: that's the frequency of the A at the V fret of the high E string*. Since going down an octave divides the frequency by 2, the A at the II fret of the G string is 220Hz, and the A string itself is 110Hz, which is twice the frequency of the open A string on a bass, which is an octave lower.

Just so you'd know.

__________
*If you ever used an A=440 tuning fork to tune a guitar, you'd know you have to match the 1st string, V fret A to it. I guess that's like telling people how to use slide rules, these days.
 
Mandolin tuning

The mandolin is tuned like the violin: G-D-A-E, low to high. This means it is tuned in fifths, which is why you can see mandolin players using all those 1 and 2 finger chords. The necks are too small to allow tuning in fourths, because that requires more fingers than there is room for. A hundred years ago, when I was still a relatively young man, Gibson promoted mandolin orchestras as a way to sell instruments (they started out as the Gibson Mandolin Co) and toward that goal they built a mandolin "family" similar to, and tuned like, the violin family. The tunings were (violin/mandolin) G-D-A-E; (viola/mandola) C-G-D-A; and (cello/mandocello) C-G-D-A, an octave below the viola/mandola. Although the bass viol is included (and it is tuned like the electric bass, E-A-D-G) in the family, it actually comes from the viola da gamba family. Compare the square shoulders of a cello or viola with the sloped shoulders of a bass and you'll see the difference.

So how do you tune a guitar with a tuning fork? With the guitar in playing position, hold the fork by the stem and "clang" it against something hard and dense, like the side of your head (the noise the fork makes is actually known as the "clang tone"). You are fretting the first, high E string at the V fret. Holding the vibrating fork with your picking hand, set the base against the guitar top, close enough to the strings that you can pluck the high E with your finger or thumb. The guitar top will amplify the sound of the fork and make it easy to tune to. If you are using an electric guitar, plug it into an amplifier, turn it on, and hold the fork above the pickup. You'll hear the tuning fork through the amp speaker.
 
lpdeluxe said:
While it's true that the A string on a guitar is not tuned to 55Hz, it's not 440Hz either: that's the frequency of the A at the V fret of the high E string*. Since going down an octave divides the frequency by 2, the A at the II fret of the G string is 220Hz, and the A string itself is 110Hz, which is twice the frequency of the open A string on a bass, which is an octave lower.

Just so you'd know.

__________
*If you ever used an A=440 tuning fork to tune a guitar, you'd know you have to match the 1st string, V fret A to it. I guess that's like telling people how to use slide rules, these days.
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We learn something new everyday, good stuff!
 
Bassman Brad said:
Fair enough. I also seem to recall that 60 cycle hum is in the key of B flat.

C'mon. I just know you all wanted to know THAT!

Brad

p.s. I know a guitarist in Indiana named Matt.
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Whenever I get my Hammond M2 (spinet organ) going, I'll hafta stick one of my Hammond clocks on it, fire up the Hammond and give it a listen. From what I've heard, the hum you described is what ya get, when ya put 2 asynchronous (could be synchronous) motors too close together. This would hafta be for experimental purposes only, least I end up tuning my guitars and basses to Bb...although it could be useful in tuning B strings; just tune a half-step up from the hum. :P

Now, I may be getting a tad bit off the bass tuning topic with this, but I always hate when I've left my guitars sitting around long enough that they go WAY outta tune. I'll plug in, start jamming and create some truly awesome riffs...then I realize I'm badly outta tune, and tune the thing. Of course when tuned, there goes that riff I've just created. Maybe if I knew more than Barre chords, I'd be able to find those riffs, again, after I've tuned the guitar. Depending how far out of tune, I may only need to move my Barres up the neck, a tad bit, to recapture the riffs.

Matt
 
Let's not forget the SEVEN string basses!

With all this talk about four string basses, five string basses, six string basses, eight string basses -- even 12 & 16 string basses, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned yet the mighty and majestic (drum roll please) seven string bass.

How are they tuned? Well, you start with a conventional six string bass (BEADGC) and add a low F sharp below the B string. They're awesome!

The neck is wide enough that you could race matchbox cars down it when you're bored. (But you'd want a fretless model for that, of course.)

Brad
 
Unsprung said:
From what I've heard, the hum you described is what ya get, when ya put 2 asynchronous (could be synchronous) motors too close together.
Matt
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I don't know about that, but whenever you play an axe with single coil pups under florescent lights, or if you have your lighting system on the same circuit as your amplification gear, you get the same 60 cycle hum. It's B flat. (Unless, I suppose, the electrical circuit isn't running at spec.)

Brad
 
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