ESP LTD D5

[danstefl]

Hello Bass Players! i am happy I found this site, this will be my new home.

so I bought a ESP LTD D5 about a month ago, love it. Best bass i have ever owned. It had original strings on it and I never asked what they were. I was cleaning out my bassment and stumbled across my Ibanez 305 which I had just put new Medium DR HIghbeams on. Thinking the new should be with the new I put the DR on the LTD. now I am at a crossroads.

Since I am 2 years into playing now I am learning more and more about tone and all that jazz and not just belting out a cool rythm with the drums.

I play in 2 bands, one plays in normal tuning and the other wants to experiement with drop tuning (D and one full step across the board) my problem is I get alot of clanking so I raised the height of the string (and rechecked my innotation) but it still doesn't have the punch I want. I know alot of that has to do with im playing through a POS Behringer Ultrabass 2x10 450 watt + a GK Backline 12 for the low end but if would heavier strings make a difference in tone in standard and drop?

i don't consider myself a light player unless we are covering someting like 2 minutes to midnight by Iron Mainden where my left hand has to be fast, most of the time I'm fingering the strings with 3 fingers to keep up with the kick drum so hammer on's and bends aren't in my style.

Also the bass has a through neck so I'm thinking experiemnting with strings is not an option considering I woudl have to have it set up each time.

Given the fact I am surrounded by professionals what is:
Your opinion on best strings for standard and drop tuning
your opinion on best bass rig for lowest cost
you opinion on the ESP LTD
what the heck is Action and all that other crap you guys speak of....

help!

DeEdZ

[kevoh]

hey dude. i too own a an esp. mine is the esp ltd b-305fm. and i absolutely love it. umm ok as far as strings...honestly, i could be wrong, but i think it has alot to do with personal preference. it has alot to do with what you want to do, and what kind of sound you want. i would just keep experimenting with different strings until you find one you want. bass rig....well same thing. depends on what youre doing. if you want something thats really gonna rumble, youre gonna want to spend more money obviously. personally, im an ampeg freak...they make a solid product. my opinion on the ltd. wonderful. seriously. like i said, i love it. i had to put a little work into it to get it exactly where i wanted, but since then its blown me away. umm my only complaint, which can be said for all neck throughs, is that its kinda heavy...but you get used to it. action. this is actually what i worked on with this bass. action is how far off the neck your strings rest. typically, a lower action is better, meaning the strings rest really close to the neck. this makes for a faster bass. but, if your action is too low, you'll get lots of fret buzz. the way to adjust the action is by adjusting the truss rod...access to the truss rod is usually through the head. if youre curious about adjusting your action check this out:
http://www.fretnotguitarrepair.com/trussrods.htm

hope this helped, and happy playing.

[danstefl]

Originally Posted by kevoh

hey dude. i too own a an esp. mine is the esp ltd b-305fm. and i absolutely love it. umm ok as far as strings...honestly, i could be wrong, but i think it has alot to do with personal preference. it has alot to do with what you want to do, and what kind of sound you want. i would just keep experimenting with different strings until you find one you want. bass rig....well same thing. depends on what youre doing. if you want something thats really gonna rumble, youre gonna want to spend more money obviously. personally, im an ampeg freak...they make a solid product. my opinion on the ltd. wonderful. seriously. like i said, i love it. i had to put a little work into it to get it exactly where i wanted, but since then its blown me away. umm my only complaint, which can be said for all neck throughs, is that its kinda heavy...but you get used to it. action. this is actually what i worked on with this bass. action is how far off the neck your strings rest. typically, a lower action is better, meaning the strings rest really close to the neck. this makes for a faster bass. but, if your action is too low, you'll get lots of fret buzz. the way to adjust the action is by adjusting the truss rod...access to the truss rod is usually through the head. if youre curious about adjusting your action check this out:
http://www.fretnotguitarrepair.com/trussrods.htm

hope this helped, and happy playing.

that helped out alot. I know alot of it boils down to preference. The cover band I play in plays alot of Metallica and heavier stuff but I also know that Tone is HUGE when it comes to basses.

I know what you mean about weight. I went from a Ibanez 305 and 505 to this and this thing made my shoulder sore the first time I held it up for 2+ hours but I'm use to it now.

When you said you had to mess with yours to get it to where it is now, what all did you have to do or what all did you do? what type of music do you play and on what type of rig?

Here she is :-) I love the wood color!! I was looking at the B model but it was 300$ out of my price range. I played a Warwick, Spector, Schector all 1000$ + basses and I thought this played just as nice for half the cost...

[kevoh]

honestly all i did was just adjust the truss rod with an allen key until i got the action i wanted and no fret buzz. that littl plastic arrowhead looking thing that says esp no it thats screwed onto the head....unscrew that and thats the access point for the truss rod. when i bought my ltd it came with a few allen keys...on of which fit the trusss rod. so yeah just mess with that a bit until you have it where you like it.

with this bass i used to play in a funk/punk type band. we broke up, and since ive been playing more progressive post-rock type stuff. i play through an ampeg svt 3 pro out of a sunn 215. pretty basic, but it gets the job done. im also putting together a pedal board.

thats a pretty bass...lemme see if i can find some pics of mine.
not the best pic, but it gets the poiint across.

[danstefl]

when techs say they "set up the bass" I am starting to wonder if that is only the tuning because I found a bow in my neck last night that was causing all my fret buss. It was enough that I could see it looking down the strings from the bridge. I did about 3/4 turn and left it overnight and it is much better. I might do it again tonight to give it more of a slight arc so I have alot of action. I don't like teh tension on the B-String so I might up it to a heavy string for that low string.

I'm sure I could have caused damamge by adjusting everything myself but now I don't have hardly any buzz and the neck is straight with a slight back arc which is nice. I can't wait to hear the tone tonight.

[Solarmist]

Originally Posted by danstefl

Hello Bass Players! i am happy I found this site, this will be my new home.

so I bought a ESP LTD D5 about a month ago, love it. Best bass i have ever owned. It had original strings on it and I never asked what they were.

I purchased two LTD B series (an "07" & "08") that came with SIT Powerwounds 45125. I sold the basses, but I swear by SIT. Great sounding strings, warm - bright, and the price is right

[Solarmist]

Originally Posted by danstefl

when techs say they "set up the bass" I am starting to wonder if that is only the tuning because I found a bow in my neck last night that was causing all my fret buss. It was enough that I could see it looking down the strings from the bridge. I did about 3/4 turn and left it overnight and it is much better. I might do it again tonight to give it more of a slight arc so I have alot of action. I don't like teh tension on the B-String so I might up it to a heavy string for that low string.

I'm sure I could have caused damamge by adjusting everything myself but now I don't have hardly any buzz and the neck is straight with a slight back arc which is nice. I can't wait to hear the tone tonight.

3/4 turn is a lot for one adjustment - 1/4 is the recommended max. Go to the "Setup" forum and learn about the different adjustments before you break it!

Neck relief and action height are two entirely different, but related adjustments.

READ >> http://www.tunemybass.com/bass_setup/
http://www.fender.com/support/basses.php
http://garywillis.com/pages/bass/bas...tupmanual.html
http://www.sadowsky.com/media/suppor...bass_setup.pdf

[danstefl]

Well it wasn't 3/4 turn and that was that. That was over a period of a few hours in my warm house so the wood could adapt. I read the posts, thanks for the info!