inexplicable bass clipping. wtf?

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 1:42 pm

but geoff if it turns out to be the phone then dokushoka gets the pants.

heylow · Post by **heylow** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 1:43 pm

I'll take a lame shot from my own book of experiences....

Sometimes, if a player's action is too low....

(Wow...this could really go somewhere else....especially in a thread where leather pants were mentioned)

Seriously...if a player's action is low or his string tension is low and his technique is more of an "inward" stroke rather than the normal "up and down" stroke, you will get some slapping against the frets, fretboard or pickups. What makes this wierd is that you won't SEE it happening because it happens so quickly and it doesn't take much pressure at all but if a person with a better "up and down" technique plays, it will be fine.

I discovered this beginning to play fingerstyle on my guitar....too much percussion with the thumb gets that yucky smack sound whereas if I adjust technique, I'm good. I also tried a bigger set of strings for more tension so I now have a greater "window".

It really sounds as though the strings are definitly hitting something though. Maybe experimant with a small piece of rubber or thick felt by putting it over the pickups and at various places on the neck to see if you "change" the clicking sound sound. If the clicking sound changes, you found your spot.

That or buy something expensive and use tons of it....

heylow

JohnDavisNYC · Post by **JohnDavisNYC** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:09 pm

probably a technique thing... playing too 'down' into the pickup, if the string hits the polepiece of the pickup, you will get a wierd click... also, if his action is low and he has light-ish strings, then it may be clacking against the frets... regardless, it is undoubtedly a technique issue...

john

joeysimms · Post by **joeysimms** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:24 pm

Kill the bass player and you play his parts instead.

stinkpot · Post by **stinkpot** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:55 pm

Does he wear any rings?
After I got married, I had to change my playing style to get rid of the clicks from my ring hitting the side of the frets (I have freakishly small hands...).

spankenstein · Post by **spankenstein** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:13 pm

I'd really look at the string hitting the pickup. It's easy to pull into the the bass rather than up.

Scodiddly · Post by **Scodiddly** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:17 pm

I'm ashamed to say that I haven't gotten round to fixing this little thing on my own bass, but...

Try putting a piece of electrical tape over the metal polepieces on the pickup. Sometimes you get weird clicks or noise when the polepieces aren't properly grounded and you touch them with your finger.

workshed · Post by **workshed** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:47 am

It's got to be technique. We had the same problem with our bass player and his american jazz bass, he plays with fingers and gets very clicky on some parts. He's a great player and he doesn't mash the strings, so it's not necessarily how hard he hits, but *how* he hits, as heylow pointed out. I really noticed it when I increased the compression on his bass tracks (which we did all DI). I was able to eq out some lower and higher frequencies to get less click and more lower mids and that helped a lot.

Silly anecdote... our bass player brought his bass in to a local, well-regarded guitar repair shop. He said his bass was clicking like crazy. The tech picked it up, played it, and proceeded to tell him his bass was fine but his technique sucked.

Anyhow, I don't want any leather pants (not that I've earned them), but I'd be interested to find out what ultimately fixes the problem for you.

Stephen B. · Post by **Stephen B.** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:55 am

Does the bass player wear a pacemaker?

trodden · Post by **trodden** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:05 pm

Do the pants come in vegan "leathur"?

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:17 pm

alas there will no leathur pants given away just yet. it seems to be some kinda grounding issue with the bass. i am ignoring the fact that it happened with my bass players other bass as well, cause he wired them both himself and (i'm assuming) fucked them up in the same way. anyway, we tried everything we could think of last night, ended up wiring the pickups straight to the output jack, all to no avail, so i'm bringing it to my extremely expensive guitar tech tonight in the hopes that he can figure it out. argh.

kayagum · Post by **kayagum** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 1:14 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:he wired them both himself

The missing piece of info...

The road to hell is paved with good DIY intentions

Scodiddly · Post by **Scodiddly** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 3:50 pm

Scodiddly wrote:Sometimes you get weird clicks or noise when the polepieces aren't properly grounded and you touch them with your finger.

I've already got a pair of leather pants, but I'll take the $35.

EDIT: I need to add a

or it'll be one of the more arrogant-looking things I've ever posted here.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:31 am

haha. but it would still be so much less arrogant than other things that get posted on here!

so my guitar guru seemed to think it was something to do with a shitty output jack, leftover debris from the crap active pickups that used to be in there, and something i didn't understand about the seymour duncans that are in there now. we shall see...

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inexplicable bass clipping. wtf?

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