Any advice to remove dead spots?

Sounds like it's time for a new bass.

 

The open notes probably sound horrible because either you dont have enough string break angle over the nut. Or more likely it has a cheapo plastic nut that is to soft.

 

Switching to flats is not likely to help (it would probably make the matter worse). Did you buy the bass new? And, just to make sure, what do you mean by "dead spot"? Do you mean a note whose fundamental fades significantly faster than those of surrounding notes, leaving the harmonic (typically the fifth) ringing? If so then I don't think there's much you can do about it.

 

You intentionally bought a bass with 5 prominent dead spots? You need to change the mass of the headstock either by swapping ultra lite tuners for heavy or vice versa. After that it may be a neck swap in order to fix it.

 

Almost certainly not.

Flats tend to make dead spots worse.

Swapping strings out may improve things somewhat, as may changing right-hand positioning.

Some basses are just nothing but a collection of dead spots.

Depends on the bass, the nut work and other variables. Open D is often a plain dead spot, just like the D is on the G string.

Open E strings sometimes just crap out starting at fretted F# and working down to open E just being mush.

 

truss rod adjustments maybe?

 

Ouch.

 

Have you had a pro setup done ?

 

ANYthing can help/hurt.

One thing to check on a bolt-on design is the fit at the face of the pocket (right there at the pickguard). If it isn't tight, there are a whole bag of faults that can show up. This is a very overlooked point on TB because it isn't sexy and you can't buy something for it, but every old-timer tech master knows about it.

Dead spots are a mystery. I have basses that had no perceptible dead spots out of the box develop them just sitting there untouched, apparently due to climatic change. I've had them come and go and come and go, for no apparent reason at all.

It also has nothing to do with price or market value.

 

carbon/graphite neck?

 

Graphite necks are not immune to dead spots.

 

Any bass can have dead spots - from the cheapest to the most expensive, from wood to graphite, hollow body to solid.

 

Even Fodera and Alembic can have dead spots.
You can't really remove them but you can move them along the neck by altering resonance.

 

I don't mean to sound rude, but this is why you play every note on the neck before you buy an instrument. No bass made from wood is immune from the possibility of dead spots, there are things that can be done to mitigate the problem.

You need to change the way the bass resonates, by either adding or subtracting weight from the body or headstock. How you accomplish this is up to you. You could try a heavier bridge or chamber in the body.

The truth is that anything you do could fix the problem or not. A new neck is about the best way, and even a replacement neck may have dead spots so be sure to try it before you call it done.

 

It won't.

Electric guitars usually don't have much of a problem.

So-called "classical" nylon-stringed guitars have ASTOUNDING dead spots, though.

That's a dead spot.

Probably not. In forty-plus years of working on basses, I don't think I've ever heard one that didn't have a dead spot or two. Whether they were normally perceptible is another story, but they were there waiting to jump out when the conditions were right.

Pretty much. It's certainly not a matter of price. And measures such as changing head mass and so forth are only temporary measures that will usually undo themselves when you make some routine change in the bass, like different strings, and usually they just move the dead spot somewhere else if it's substantial to begin with. I've seen basses with a dead spot going from the fourth to the ninth fret on the G. Nothing will fix that.

Fender designs tend to be the worst, but this was not an issue when they were designed, as they came stock with foam mutes under the bridge covers anyway [thud, thud]. It became one later when people removed the mutes and started using rounds, high-mass bridges, etc., etc. and being obsessed with "cutting through" and sustain, generally trying to be guitarists or something.

When Leo wound up at MM, minimizing dead spots became more of a priority, and I think MMs have less prominent dead spots.

Since wrecking my fretting hand, I can only do recording -- and DI recording will really bring out the inherent tonal inconsistency problems of an instrument you'd never notice gigging.

 

they're permanent. sorry.

 

I've found that shortscales are more even sounding and less prone to dead and hotspots.