Tuning a bass

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Jones
  • Start date Start date
lpdeluxe said:
LOL. I deserved that.
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I looked it up on Google, and apparently, there is no set guideline because the different manufacturers used different frequencies!!! :D
 
the different manufacturers used different frequencies!!!

Yeah, I only run mine about once a month in the summer when the Asian jasmine in the front grows down over the curb.
 
Cuzme said:
Does anybody here use foam to mute their strings a bit? You know, like the really old P's that were built with foam just above the bridge. I wedge a bit of foam underneath my strings near the bridge and get a great sound, but my intonation is affected. I remember a post talking about this a while back but not with regard to intonation or y'alls personal experiences with it in practice.

BassmanBrad, I dig your story of learned "perfect pitch". I too believe that it is something you are not born with, but is something that can be learned. I started on saxophone, got serious, and used to practice long tones religiously. I would envision being the note and memorize my entire body's senses when playing these tones. I would get cut off from practicing around 10:30pm, so I would then have to practice in my head if I wished to continue which I often did. I would practice in my head without my saxophone through various moments of the day, walking, and traveling wherever I had to. I heard the notes internally and would finger my air saxophone accordingly. Consequently, I have "perfect pitch" - HOWEVER, I relate all tones to the Bb tenor saxophone and then transpose it down a ninth to talk to concert pitch instrument players and speak the common language.
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Hey there, Cuzme! Glad you liked the story. I think it's REAL COOL that you stuck with your pitch training long enough for it to stay with you. Not so with me. Just for kicks, I've tried to recall the "bzzzzz" tone that stupid tuner made to see if I could still "remember" the pitch. No luck. I no longer have that convenient "reference tone" to carry around with me wherever I go. Of course, that was more than two decades ago.

I don't use any muting on my bass. Can't honestly say that I know any of the other bass players that I hang with who have set up their basses that way, either. It's a very cool sound, though. I should probably do that with at least one of my basses. I've never considered that it would throw off the intonation, but that would make sense, since it would raise the strings a little bit. Don't know how you'd fix it, either. Since the strings are muted, you wouldn't be able to check the intonation of the harmonic over the 12th fret. So, I don't know what to tell you about that one. I still think it's neat that you're doing it that way. ;)

Brad
 
I don't mess with my bass set up. I got it set the way I like it, and it was a bear, so I don't try to do anything that will make me have to go through that again....
 
crazydoc said:
Here's a bass I strung with weedeater line - tuned in the usual way.
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=116559
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Thanks for sharing that, Crazydoc. I LOVE THAT, man! I'm glad you provided the link to the picture, too. I was assuming that you were just pulling my leg, until I saw the picture. That is just too funny!

Notice that, just on a single page we've got one bass player who's using the good old James Jamerson, muted bass trick, and another who's stringing his upright with weedeater line. Who would have thought that a single thread (about tuning a bass, no less) could be so educational AND entertaining.

ROCK ON, GUYS!!! ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)
Brad
 
Bassman Brad said:
Thanks for sharing that, Crazydoc. I LOVE THAT, man! I'm glad you provided the link to the picture, too. I was assuming that you were just pulling my leg, until I saw the picture. That is just too funny!

Notice that, just on a single page we've got one bass player who's using the good old James Jamerson, muted bass trick, and another who's stringing his upright with weedeater line. Who would have thought that a single thread (about tuning a bass, no less) could be so educational AND entertaining.

ROCK ON, GUYS!!! ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)
Brad
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In the context of this thread, we also have some very unusual basses: The ol' washtub, and the pics I posted (OK, one was a fish, but it was a bass ...). If this thread stays on topic and makes 100 pages, I think it could be one for the history books!
 
Rokket said:
I don't mess with my bass set up. I got it set the way I like it, and it was a bear, so I don't try to do anything that will make me have to go through that again....
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I understand how you feel, Rokket. However, I might actually give the ol' "muted bass trick" a go, myself. Since I've bought a modern "clone" of my old Jazz Bass for taking to gigs, that means that the real '66 Jazz never leaves the house, anymore. I just play it, now, for my own entertainment. I had already been thinking of putting flatwounds on it to give me some tonal variety from the rounds that are on the other bass. Stuffing a piece of foam in there might go along with that sound just perfectly.

Brad
 
Rokket said:
In the context of this thread, we also have some very unusual basses: The ol' washtub, and the pics I posted (OK, one was a fish, but it was a bass ...). If this thread stays on topic and makes 100 pages, I think it could be one for the history books!
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Actually, I have some interesting bass pictures that I could post, but I haven't figured out how to post photos, yet. If somebody would be kind enough to send me a PM with instructions in how to do this, I'll throw 'em up there for y'all.

Brad
 
Bassman Brad said:
I understand how you feel, Rokket. However, I might actually give the ol' "muted bass trick" a go, myself. Since I've bought a modern "clone" of my old Jazz Bass for taking to gigs, that means that the real '66 Jazz never leaves the house, anymore. I just play it, now, for my own entertainment. I had already been thinking of putting flatwounds on it to give me some tonal variety from the rounds that are on the other bass. Stuffing a piece of foam in there might go along with that sound just perfectly.

Brad
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My ESP cost me too much to mess with it. But I am looking into gettting a few more for some variety... I will most likey set them all up differently, too.

I am going to put flat wounds on one of them. I was thinking about a fretless. And one with the muted trick... :cool:
 
Bassman Brad said:
If somebody would be kind enough to send me a PM with instructions in how to do this, I'll throw 'em up there for y'all.
Brad
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Never mind, I think I got it figured out. Give me a minute, and I'll see if I can put some up for you guys.

Brad
 
Bassman Brad said:
Nope, didn't get it to work, yet.

(I'll keep trying.)

Brad
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How are you doing it? There is a 64k limit. If they are over that, you will have to resize them...
 
Well, I clicked on "Post Reply" and it had a "manage attachments" button which I then pushed. It then let me browse my hard drive for the pictures I wanted. So far, so good. I assumed that I would only have so many kilobytes of memory to upload pictures, and would have to upload all the pictures I ever wanted to use on this board, and then there would be another step involved in making one (or more) show up in a post. It cut me off after five downloads, but I couldn't tell that any of them were in the post that I had written.

So, I changed the stuff that I had written to say, "Nope, it's not working." Then, when I hit the "submit reply" button, the post showed up, and ALL FIVE of the files were listed (by name), but none of them showed the picture. I deleted that post, and tried it again.

This time, when I hit the download manager button again, and tried to download one of the same files, it said, "I'm sorry but you've already posted that file in this thread." But I DIDN'T. That post had been deleted. And when I opened the download manager and clicked on one of the filenames, I got a message that said it was the "wrong address," or something like that. And, that if the URL was correct, then contact the administrator.

ARRGGHH!
Brad
 
Bassman Brad said:
Well, I clicked on "Post Reply" and it had a "manage attachments" button which I then pushed. It then let me browse my hard drive for the pictures I wanted. So far, so good. I assumed that I would only have so many kilobytes of memory to upload pictures, and would have to upload all the pictures I ever wanted to use on this board, and then there would be another step involved in making one (or more) show up in a post. It cut me off after five downloads, but I couldn't tell that any of them were in the post that I had written.

So, I changed the stuff that I had written to say, "Nope, it's not working." Then, when I hit the "submit reply" button, the post showed up, and ALL FIVE of the files were listed (by name), but none of them showed the picture. I deleted that post, and tried it again.

This time, when I hit the download manager button again, and tried to download one of the same files, it said, "I'm sorry but you've already posted that file in this thread." But I DIDN'T. That post had been deleted. And when I opened the download manager and clicked on one of the filenames, I got a message that said it was the "wrong address," or something like that. And, that if the URL was correct, then contact the administrator.

ARRGGHH!
Brad
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Yeah, with multiple attachments, it will list them all in the thread. With a single it will post. Go into the user cp, and on the menu on the left, at the bottom, you will see a header "Miscellaneous". On the bottom of that is "Attachments". You can go in there and delete them, then repost them one at a time....
 
Rokket said:
Yeah, with multiple attachments, it will list them all in the thread. With a single it will post. Go into the user cp, and on the menu on the left, at the bottom, you will see a header "Miscellaneous". On the bottom of that is "Attachments". You can go in there and delete them, then repost them one at a time....
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Thanks, Rokket. You 'da man!

Brad
 
Well, let's try it, then. Here's a cool bass. (Er, I think, anyway.)
 

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repost them one at a time....

It also helps to size them before you upload. I send a lot of graphics out and about and I learned to rightclick on a .jpg file, click properties, and see how big it was before I sent (some of mine that I shoot off are up to 20MB, but homerecording won't accept them that big). There are two easy ways to make a .jpg smaller in size. Depending on what I'm doing I use one or the other. The first, obviously, is to make it smaller (since the size of the file is a function of its area, it goes down pretty fast when you shrink); another is to resample at a lower sample rate. Graphics are done at 200 pixels per inch, but I can resample a ledger size poster (11" x 17") to 180ppi and it'll fit under the 20MB limit.

The attached started out at 150kb (200ppi) and I resampled to 120 to make it 50kb, under the 64kb limit. It's still decent resolution, and I hope it turns out a decent size....

Whoa! pretty small! Back to the Photoshop drawing board.
 

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Well, I got one up there. Still having trouble with any file I've already used, even if the file's been deleted, and even if I rename the file. By the way, under User CP, it says that I have no attachments. Weird, man.

Brad
 
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