What will an e-bow do on a bass with regular gauge strings?

[osciphex]

I know a lot of e-bow users rely on very light gauge strings to get nice singing tones from this device, but how will it work on regular gauge strings? Will it be able to move a typical E string at all?

[barthanatos]

Originally Posted by osciphex

Will it be able to move a typical E string at all?

Yep.

Matter o' fact, it will move a B string. Hammering-on with your left hand will help get things going, and there's something like that you can do with your right also. Finding the sweet spot on your pickup helps. Using only your neck pickup helps. My experience has been with a Peavey Cirrus. I need to try it on my Jazz. If you have the newer (not-original) Ebow "Plus" model, it seems to work best with the switch to the left (that is to say, not in the "harmonic" position).

There was some discussion a while back about use with neodynium-magnet pickups. A guy who used 'em said that it doesn't really help induce vibration (like I was hoping), but just made the tone more distorted. A search would pull that thread up, I'm sure.

[lemur821]

My experience is that the ebow itself distorts way too much to be useful. No low end at all. Also it's tricky to play over a P-style pickup.