Too narrow spacing for Ebow?

Narrow spacing?

Aren't eBows designed for guitars, and their string spacing?

When I had an eBow it was almost unusable because the magnetic field wasn't strong enough to move the mass of the strings on a bass.

Ignited might have a point, however. The only bass player that I've ever seen use an ebow, Michael Manring, is the bassist who put this effect on the map for bassists in the first place (far as I know). He's used it often with his fretless hyperbass, which is a modified 4-string legacy elite, with 19mm string spacing. I can get reliable and usable ebowing on my 5-string sonus on the A and D strings (tuned BEADG, with medium guage Zon nickle roundwounds), but that's with custom soapbar humbuckers and it's still an investigation for me, and I haven't worked with ebow on my fretless sonus yet.

Woodshed also raises a good point - ebow was designed for guitar, and most of those strings are lighter gauge and more narrow in spacing. Go through the online lessons, paying particular attention to the video clips. Much of the guitar examples seem like pipe dreams to me for bass:

http://www.ebow.com/lessons.php?cat=1

Then again, there's Manring, and his magic. I love the musicality of ebow on the Equilibre (and Thonk) albums, for example.

Maybe I'll have more general observations from my Soni (sonuses with 17mm spacing) in a couple months (or seasons)....

Edit: It's not musical in its impact, per se, but there's just something so D#MNED COOL about seeing that blue LED light on a Bubinga-topped bass floating in the darkness... and most of the audience, I would dare say, doesn't even notice it, except for the sound...

I'm not an expert, but it seems like the problem is probably that the strings are just to heavy for the Ebow to move.

I used an ebow on my Fender P a few years back, I found I could hold it with my fingers poking out beneath the bottom and use them as guides on the surrounding strings. Was quite a nice effect, although it took a while to get started sometimes. I think I used to start right over the pickup and then move backwards towards the bridge as it got louder to control the volume.

Ages ago I used a Dremel to carefully grind the humps off the bottom of my EBow until I had two flat areas on either side of the central channel, plateaued about 1/16" around it. Got to be careful not to go too far or you will expose metal and have to do a little glue-up surgery.

That and using lighter string gauges (Manring should be a clue there) made it a lot more amenable to quicker and more controlled use on bass.

I posted this in another thread a while back. It may help.

In my experience the ebow can be used on bass to quite good effect to simulate arco passages. A couple of tricks I use are: a) glue some pieces of felt to the underside where the ridges for guitar string spacing are, it cuts down on a lot of unwanted string noise, b) practice acoustically first ie. without the pickup until you get a feel for how to get the string moving, helps alot, c) use the neck pickup alone if you have one, pbass pickups are harder to use than jbass due to the offset, d) play over the neck at ~ 20th fret position or so, e) learn to anticipate the beat with a very slight hammer on to get the string vibrating a bit first, f) a slightly exaggerated vibrato helps. It really isn't that hard to make sounds with the ebow on bass, but I practiced at home for a year before I felt I had the control and finesse to use it on a gig. Works well now, I sometimes have contractors and musical directors speicfically ask for it.

Cheers,
Dennis

onewebfoot said:

The only bass player that I've ever seen use an ebow, Michael Manring

Click to expand...

I attended a Steve Lawson clinic a few years ago. (south SF bay area) He has mastered the eBow.
I have seen an instructional DVD by Michael Manring listed on eBay that covers THONK tunes. The listing indicates use of the eBow. Has anyone viewed this?
In the past, I have seen frustrated bassists sell their eBow on eBay.. This, at least, indicates that it's not easy to master.. not easy.

I've never had a problem, aside from the learning curve, using an ebow. I use it fairly often and on multiple basses. You have to ignore the grooves as they are designed for guitar. I position my hand to become a brace for it so it is held parrell to the string. I use .030 -.130 strings and have no problem with the ebow vibrating the strings if it is held parrell, it does take longer for the swell to occur on the lower strings but for those I usually lightly pluck or tap the note immediately prior to placing the ebow. If you time it correctly you'll be at full swelling ebow volume on beat one. It took months of messing with it for me before I was good enough to be able to use it live or in a band setting, those first few weeks especially it seemed impossible but I saw Manring do it live and despite the string guage difference was determined to make it work. Hope that helps.

I can see where the grooves are desirable for close-spaced guitar strings. But shaving the groove areas flat for bass allows one to get in closer and quickly excite the strings with more energy. It also seems to make it easier not actually touch the strings inadvertently with the bottom since it's predictably flat. Bass string spacing doesn't make it that tough to tell locationally where you are anyway. You just don't need those grooves.

I still want to try out an ebow one of these days. I'll mostly be using it for feedback though...