Basses
Basses come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Most are
solid body instruments, with various types of pickups, strings, string
lengths, hardware, and finishes. However, many players today are
finding that warmth of acoustic bass guitars is very desirable. The
bass guitar is really a descendant of the upright double bass, or bass
violin. Most bass guitars have frets so that the player does not have
worry about intonation while playing, if the instrument is tuned
properly and set up well. However, some players prefer the fretless
neck and do quite well. The fretless has a different sound and usage
for music. It is not suitable for all styles of music. For myself, it
seems as if the fretless bass is almost another instrument to me.
Another factor for
basses
is the number of strings which they come
with today. In the beginning, the electric bass guitar had four
strings: E, A, D, and G, just like the upright acoustic bass. However,
it is very common to find 5 and 6 string bass guitars. If you have
never played a 5 or 6 string bass before, it does take some time
getting use to the extra strings. Muting these strings is an added
problem for the bass player. The other problem is that the extra
strings, especially the low B string, affects the sound of the E string
on most basses. The weak tension and the extra harmonics on the B
string somehow make the E sound noticeably different. Additionally,
some basses with a B string, do not sound that good, specifically, the B string sounds flabby and
weak. This is part of the reason for 35 inch, 36 inch and 37 inch
basses. If you listen carefully to Marcus Millers 5 string Jazz bass (a
34 inch) bass, you can notice that while the notes on the B string are
punchy they do have an odd harmonic tone. However, some basses with a
34 inch string scale do very well with the B string issue.
The Upright Heritage
Some players, like myself, started on the upright bass,
which has four strings G, D, A, and E, and a fretless finger board. The
scale on the upright ¾ size bass is about 41 inches. This is the length
of the string from the bridge to the nut. The advantage of coming to
the bass guitar from the upright bass is the left hand techniques and
holding positions employed. The left hand fingering can be the same
too, although some may prefer to use all four fingers in the lower hand
positions. Classical upright bass uses fingers 1, 2, and 4 to play
three different half step notes in one left hand position. However, in
the upper finger board area, past the shoulder of the bass, the
classical upright bass player uses all five fingers: T, 1, 2, 3, 4. The
thumb is brought out and placed on the finger board and used before the
1st finger. This is not usually done on the electric bass, but it could
be. The upright bass player has to use more left hand and right hand
strength to play the instrument. The right hand angle of attack to the
strings is almost parallel to the strings, while the electric bass
player is more perpendicular and lighter in touch, and usually over the
pickups instead of the finger
board.
Precision-Bass (P-Bass)
The Fender Precision bass is a recognized standard of
the industry, conceived and designed by Leo Fender (Now the maker of G
& L Basses). This bass features a single split-coil
humbucking pickup, between the bridge and end of the finger
board. The placement of this coil (sensor), is actually
very critical to the sound. The fret scale is 34 inches. The term
"Precision" comes from the fact that this bass employed frets in its
early days, so that the player did not have to worry about intonation,
one the instrument was tuned. This bass has a very fat bottom end
sound, with open mid-range tones.

Above -- Photo of Fender Precision Bass Pickup
Jazz-Bass (J-Bass)

The jazz bass is another creation by Leo Fender, and
features two single coil pickups. When both pickups are on, the
electronic sensors are in fact hum-bucking. The Forward
(Neck) pickup is slightly closer to the fingerboard than the
P-bass. The advantage of the sound of this bass comes largely
through the bridge pickup. This pickup adds a significant amount
of clarity to the sound. These basses typically have a harder and
more focused sounding quality. They are very useful in live
performances where greater bass clarity is needed. This is
the bass preference of Marcus Miller and many others. The early
70's Jazz basses actually have better sound because the bridge pickup
is actually 1/4 inch closer to the bridge. This was to compensate
a hardware issue for the manufacture during this time. The
classic Jazz bass sound comes from using both pickups. Although
there have been some notable players who have used just one
pickup. For instance, the song "The Tin Man", by America was
recorded with a Jazz Bass using the forward pickup only. Ray
Parker Jr. used the forward pickup only on many of his tracks for Earl
Klugh. The Barney Miller TV theme song used only the bridge
pickup.

P-J Configurations
Many P-Bass owners have, over time, decided to route
their basses for additional Jazz bass bridge pickup. This
requires either using a split coil Jazz bass pickup (i.e. Dimarzio) or
rewiring the P-Bass pickup as a straight single coil, no hum-bucking
feature. My Preference is the hum-bucking mode, even though my
Fretless bass has all single coil wiring because I am using Seymour
Duncan Quarter Pounder J-Bass at the bridge. Many manufactures
are now making basses with this combination of pickups. The
advantage to this pickup configuration on the bass, is greater clarity,
especially during a live performance. The bridge pickup provides
better low end definition and also adds good high frequency tones as
well.

Double P-Bass Style

Now this is a bass where I built the body from scratch,
from mahogany wood scraps from the job. The body is laminated
vertically in 3/4 inch strips. I had to build jigs and patterns
for the every detail. The body is a Jazz bass shape with Passive
P-Bass pickups by EMG. The Neck pick-up is forward toward the
neck about 1 inch. This is quite a jump for the pick-up
placement, and if I had it to do over, I would put the neck pickup in
the standard Precision placement. I am not sure where and how I
would place the bridge pick-up. This was my second shot at a
Double P-Bass design.


Acoustic Basses
Many Players are finding there roots with acoustic
basses these days. The advantage with acoustic is the resonant
qualities that are added to the instrument, reminiscent of the upright
bass. This of course all depends on the size and shape of the
body of the bass. One of the disadvantages is the possibility of
feed back, which can limit the volume of your system, depending how
close you are to your speaker system. Many acoustic basses are
using piezo pickup devices to amplify the sound of the bass, along with
on board EQ and volume controls.

Fretless Basses
Now for the more adventuresome bassist, is the fretless
bass. However, the name is only for the instrument, not the
player. The player may find that he/she is fretting quite a bit,
especially if you are sight reading music, and it is in one of those
terrible keys (i.e. Db, Gb, Ab). On the upside, if your know your
instrument and music well, the fretless bass has qualities that cannot
be replicated on the fretted bass. I personally feel that the
fretless bass is almost like playing another instrument to me.
There are songs that this type of instrument is well suited.
There as some great fretless players, who exclusively use the fretless
bass (e.g. Jaco Pastorius).

Modern Basses

There are a variety of Modern Basses, for a lack of a
better term. These are basses that do not fit into any of the
above classes. These are usually quality instruments. My
example here is the Schecter Stilleto 5-string bass. This has two
active high impedance EMG
pickups, with a neck thru the
bass design. The finger board is a 35 inch scale system, which
gives a solid B string sound. The on board electronics are wired
as Volume (Neck Pickup), Volume (Bridge Pickup), Treble (Cut/Boost),
and Bass (Cut/Boost). Originally this bass came with S-Tek type
bridges, but I changed it to the narrow Carvin Hipshot type, to gain an
extra 1/16 inch at the bridge for string spacing, since I have large
hands, I need all the space I can get.
Is there a bass guitar that you would like to review?
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