What is the radius of the nearly flat board? And do the pickup's magnets follow the curve or is it just the outer casing that follows the curve?
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7.25 jazz neck users help needed
- Thread starter gjooro
- Start date
What is the radius of the nearly flat board? And do the pickup's magnets follow the curve or is it just the outer casing that follows the curve?
I tweak 'em withing a mm of death in the summer, when the weather is a bit more stable. In winter (around here, at least), I tend to let them go a bit due to the wide variations in temp and humidity and allow a higher action--otherwise I'd be adjusting them all the time. YMMV.
I know, but the volume peak is still very much there. I spend several hours a day recording with many differend basses and I'd like to think I know the difference between string characteristics and more volume.
And it's really not an issue, unless it's made into one, like I and the OP do. When I play my basses with flatter radius and less pronounced arch on strings, I don't have this problem. And when I raise my E string on the vintage radius basses the problem goes away which in my mind proves that problem excists only because the way I like 7,25" radius bass to be set up or in other words because of the string that sits closer to the pickups, even if the difference is just 1-2/16".
In live situations I could get away with the volume difference, but when recording DI it becomes untolerable. IMHO of course.
Of course there are remedies too that help -compression, experimenting with pickup heights, compensating technique and differend pickup types (active/passive and so on)
I checked, pickups don't follow the curve. There are some bartolinis that do tho
Don't know the radius but its huge (ibanez 1206e 6 string)
Must be a case of the straw that broke the camel's back.
The effect was a lot more pronounced with my '51 reissue, where the pickup only has one pole underneath each string. Those SCPB pickups are notoriously sensitive to height adjustment. A mm in either direction changes things a lot IME so it doesn't surprise me that a 2 mm difference between inner & outer strings sticks out like a sore thumb. (Interesting to note that the stock pickup and some replacements have raised middle poles.)
If the string to polepiece distances are looked at as a ratio or percentage the difference is probably easier to see.
If you have 1/8" distance on the A/D strings and the E/G is 1/64" closer that's a 12.5% difference. If the A/D distance is 1/4 and the E/G is 1/64" closer that's only a 6.25% difference which may not be as audible.
That's why my lowering the pickup on my '51 P RI with the QPs evens out the volumes. It makes the differences between distances of the different strings and poles a smaller percentage.
Fair enough and you make your point well. But, we're really not talking about one or two 16ths of an inch difference here. I estimated 1/16" in my first post but when I did the math that turned out to be a bad estimate (and I'm sure I overestimated it because like most people I perceived the 7.25 radius to be much more arched than it really is). The actual difference between 9.5 (which is what I assume you mean when you say a flatter radius) and 7.25 is only 1/64th of an inch. Adding 1/32" for your cello effect brings the grand total to 3/64", or less than 1/16". This is still very small, small enough to be well within placebo effect/golden ears territory in my opinion.
uhhhh. I hope I won't have to make soundclips to make a point. Let's say that G string is about 3mm from the pickup and the D is 4mm. 1mm is small distance but it's big when dealing with pickup height. D is 33% higher than G in that case
Here's a clip I made with a non-radiused pickup in my '51 RI. IMO the E and G strings are very noticeably louder. And you can totally see it in the wave forms:
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Several problems with this logic.
The first is that the percent difference between two values is meaningless if you don't relate it in some way to the possible range of values.
For instance, imagine that you and I are comparing our heights to Shaquille O'neal. Let's say that I'm 5 feet tall, you're 6 feet tall, and Shaq is 7 feet tall. In this case the fact that you're a foot taller than me is significant because it represents 1/7th of the range we're interested in.
Now imagine that we're comparing our heights to the Empire State Building. In this case the 1 foot difference is insignificant.
So the question is what kind of range are we dealing with here? That's a little tricky to define but I can tell you that with my amp on 3 I can hear a vibrating tuning fork as far as 2 inches or so from the front pickup of my J bass. If for the sake of argument we take this as the range, then a 1/64" difference is a tiny 1/128th slice.
Now, I must admit that this actually overstates the insignificance of the 1/64" since the falloff in volume is probably exponential rather than linear, which means you'll hear more difference closer in to the pickup. However, I can tell you that according to my tuning fork testing, even when you're in close -- in where the strings are -- you can't hear a difference of 1/64", or even 1/16". You have to move about 1/8" before the difference becomes distinct and even then it's subtle.
So both by logic and by experimentation it seems pretty clear to me that the volume difference due to different fretboard radiuses is insignificant.
You guys should break out your tuning forks and see for yourselves. It's an eye opener.
Or if you don't trust a tuning fork, you can air fret a string with your left hand an inch or two beyond the end of the fretboard while plucking with your right hand. Apply more or less pressure with your left hand so the string moves closer/further from the pickup and listen to the change in volume. I think you'll be impressed with how insensitive it is to string height.
Thanks but no thanks on the sound clip. Too dependent on you plucking the strings with the same force.
Better would be a clip of you moving a tuning fork 1mm in and out from the pickup.
On the contrary, using ratios or percentages is a way of making it independent of specific ranges or values.
Ratios or percentages are fine, but you have to use them the right way.
You have to know what percentage of the overall range the 1/64" represents. Making it independent of the range makes it meaningless.
By the way, did you get a chance to move a tuning fork in and out from the pickup? If not, I double dog dare you to try it and report back your results.
I think you'll find that you can't hear a change of 1/64" or even 1/16".
Doesn't matter if you believe in the percentages approach it or not, it's just another way of thinking of it and it works as I stated. I already demonstrated how to use it in my example.
I've tuned with a tuning fork for decades by holding the fork over the pickup. I can easily tell the difference in very small distance changes and now my son can too after I taught him how to do it when his electronic tuner crapped out last month.
It's not that I don't believe in "the" percentages approach. It's that I don't believe in your percentages approach.
Yeah, a wrong way of thinking about it.
No, sorry, it doesn't work, for the reasons I stated.
Let me try again to explain your error to you. You claim that what matters is the relative change, not the absolute change. According to your logic, we can expect the same change in volume from, for instance, moving a volume knob from 1 to 5 as from 0.1 to 0.5. After all, they both represent a relative change of 500%, right?
But obviously this is wrong. It's wrong because what really matters isn't the percentage of relative change but the percentage of absolute change as it relates to the overall range. Going from 1 to 5 is a bigger percentage of 10 than going from 0.1 to 0.5, so we rightly expect to hear a bigger change in volume.
It's the exact same thing with the string height above the pickup. Yes, it's kind of interesting that 1/64" is a 12% (or whatever) change from where it was before, but what actually matters is that 1/64" is only a 0.8% change with respect to the total range. This is tiny, too tiny to hear.
Your example is worth about a hill of beans since neither I nor anyone following the thread can repeat it. Instead we have to take your word for it. And since magical, placedo-effect hearing is the norm rather than the exception, there's not much reason to take your word for it.
But we can all take out our tuning forks and see for ourselves how little the volume is affected by the small changes in distance we're talking about.
Unless you have magic ears, the difference in 1/64" is inaudible, as is the difference in 1/16". Even 1/8" is very subtle. There is no way that 1/64" is going to make your A and D strings noticeably quieter.
You just need to fess up and admit you're wrong. It's the standup thing to do.
Why should I bother, apparently you just want to shout down anything anyone else has to say.
We're done here.
On my '51 the outer strings are set 5mm above the pickup, the inner strings 7mm. That's an extra 40% farther out from the top of the pickup. 40% farther from the magnet poles (before I modified the pickup). I'm not surprised I could feel that.
On my J-bass, it's a lot less dramatic. The outer strings are 4mm above the (neck) pickup, the inner strings 5mm. To calculate string-to-pole distance in this case, I factored in the 3.5mm offset of the dual poles, so that makes it more like 5.32/6.1mm. That makes the inner strings on this bass 14% farther from the magnets. The response might be a tiny bit uneven if I'm really looking for it, but not enough to be a significant nuisance to me.
For me it boils down to this. On many instruments my eyes tell me the pickup poles don't match the radius but when I play, my hands & ears tell me it's OK. When I put a non-radiused pickup in my '51, suddenly my hands and ears were telling me it was NOT okay. So I did something about it and now I'm content. To me that trumps any math, theory or speculation by others.
If you're not content with the response on your instrument, it seems like this thread has covered a good variety of potential solutions:
If you're lucky, maybe you can be satisfied with one of the less expensive/risky options.
BTW I tried that tuning fork test. FWIW I found that, moving it as little as I could (about 1/16" - less distance than the arch), from above the strings (where that 1/16" would represent a smaller % of the overall range) I could hear a definite surge in volume, each time the fork moved closer to the pickup.
On my J-bass, it's a lot less dramatic. The outer strings are 4mm above the (neck) pickup, the inner strings 5mm. To calculate string-to-pole distance in this case, I factored in the 3.5mm offset of the dual poles, so that makes it more like 5.32/6.1mm. That makes the inner strings on this bass 14% farther from the magnets. The response might be a tiny bit uneven if I'm really looking for it, but not enough to be a significant nuisance to me.
For me it boils down to this. On many instruments my eyes tell me the pickup poles don't match the radius but when I play, my hands & ears tell me it's OK. When I put a non-radiused pickup in my '51, suddenly my hands and ears were telling me it was NOT okay. So I did something about it and now I'm content. To me that trumps any math, theory or speculation by others.
If you're not content with the response on your instrument, it seems like this thread has covered a good variety of potential solutions:
- Stop imagining things.
- Adjust the bridge saddles.
- Lower the pickup.
- Modify the existing pickup or install one that has poles that match your fingerboard radius... or is adjustable.
If you're lucky, maybe you can be satisfied with one of the less expensive/risky options.
BTW I tried that tuning fork test. FWIW I found that, moving it as little as I could (about 1/16" - less distance than the arch), from above the strings (where that 1/16" would represent a smaller % of the overall range) I could hear a definite surge in volume, each time the fork moved closer to the pickup.
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