Weird sound on E-string higher frets

[VanillaO]

I have been playing my Stingray for 10 months now, changed the strings back in August or so, and haven't felt the need to change them.

Anyway, now to the problem:

When I play on the E-string at around the 10th fret all the way up to the 21st, it sounds like there are 2 notes being played at once. At first I thought I just had some weird settings on my pedal, but then I noticed it wasn't even running through it. Now, this isn't necessarily a huge problem as I think I can harness the awesomeness of the situation to make it sound freaking great, but it is a problem because I don't know why the hell it started doing this (about 3 days ago). I haven't changed the action or anything since I got the bass in February. It dropped once because of a faulty strap, but it was working fine for 3 months after that until now. I have changed the battery, just as a last-ditch effort..

So if anyone can give me some suggestions that would be great.

Also, I'm not sure which forum this goes in, thusly I have tossed it in the miscellaneous. (and I wasn't sure what to search for, so if there's already threads concerning this, could someone please guide me)

[mikezimmerman]

Did you go to different strings when you changed strings? I've seen this happen when going from non-tapered to tapered strings. There are a couple of different ideas I've heard about why it happens, but here's a few things to try:

1) Check the intonation of the E string at the bridge. If you have a tapered E, the saddle will be a lot farther forward than a non-tapered E...

2) Try lowering the pickup under the E string. The magnetism from the pickup can disrupt the string's vibrations if it's too close.

Mike

[VanillaO]

Ok, I'll try that when I get home from work, but the strings have been on for over 4 months at least. Would it just randomnly start happening now?

[mikezimmerman]

I've never seen it randomly start--usually it's pretty obvious immediately after putting on the strings. On the other hand, because it's really only happening with the higher harmonics of the string, its sometimes not really audible if you have the treble turned down a lot on your bass. It's still happening, and you can hear it acoustically if yo listen carefully, but rolling off the highs cuts out a lot of the "offending" harmonics. Did you change any EQ settings recently?

Mike

[VanillaO]

Nope. I switch between pickups now and then and turn some more tone on, but when I'm playing my room (90% of where I play is done here), it's always at where it's at right now.