.130 is as large as I’ll go with a low B string- I tried a .135 & wasn’t happy with it, it lacked clarity... .120, .125 or .130 all work great for me. I run a .125 on my Curbow Petite, & .130 on my Modulus Quantum 5.
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B string definition => pickups
- Thread starter Frenchy-Lefty
- Start date
My thoughts exactly- I know Brian at the Lowend has made some killer sounding low B’s on 33” scale Lej’s. His necks are extremely well built.
IMO. . . . I've owned 34" and 35" scale basses, active and passive, a dozen different pickup makes and styles and too many different strings. Some gear just works (Lakland) some you have to work harder at (Fender). I think that all parts of the signal chain are required to gel for a well defined 5 string bass sound, but however good your bass and technique is IMO the amp is the pinch point for getting your sound out into the audience. You need a lot of power in reserve to be able to form well defined low notes at volume.
The vast majority of my necks are Maple. Never played a Warwick that approached any of them in B string performance.
Again, my recipe for success hinges on touch. I've played far too many supposedly floppy B basses that didn't flop in my hands. I use standard style light gauge strings, low action and well constructed instruments.
If you start off with understanding how to play a B string vs. simply using the exact same touch as the rest of the strings, things that are deemed important fall to the wayside. Like exposed cores, equal tension, pickup types and brands, scale lengths, larger gauge, etc.
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Long time 5 player here. IME, a 35" is not required for a solid B, but the basses I've played with a sloppy B were all 34". That being said, the B rocks on my Wilkins 34" PJs and I vastly prefer the 34" scale and light gauge string. The only strings I've used that had a B that sounded off/out of balance tonally with the other 4 strings were Sadowsky flats and LaBella flats, and that B is tapered. Sounds great using flats with non-tapered B's. YMMV. Amps/eq/technique also factor into it, but there's no getting around a dead B.
While that's generally true I've gigged a 100w Ampeg B-100R and gotten nice B string performance. The same with a Mesa Walkabout combo. Others have used IEMs or simply gone direct with monitors. GIGO is still key. IME I need to have things together before it leaves the bass. It makes for far less gyrations afterwards.
I felt the same way about my Sadowsky Black Label flats until I started using a Broughton HPF. If I’m running it through my Ampeg 210AV cabs, which pretty much require some bass boost for a useable tone, it also helps with the lowest notes on the E string.
That is probably true if you assume the neck construction is the same.
I have two G. Gould basses that are 35" and they simply have superb B strings. My Roscoe Century 6 is also 35" and has a superb B string. I own 3 Peavey Cirrus basses and the B strings are fantastic on them...35" scale also.
I have owned a lot of extended range basses and the best B strings have been on the ones with 35" scale. Yes, I own some that are 34" scale and have great B strings...Ibanez GWB 205, G&L M 2500 and a Peavey TL5. That said, I have owned a lot of 34" scale basses that had okay B strings at best.
I suppose electronics contribute to the clarity (or diminish it) but the common factor on all the basses that I have owned that had the best sounding B strings was the 35" scale.
YMMV
I love the tone I get with the top 4 strings, but for me the B sounds very different tonally in relation to the other 4 and other sets of flats without tapers don't sound that way.
The sound you're describing is most likely the result of a pickup being too close to the B string - a case of "stratitis" on a bass. If I'm right, and you lower the pickup, it'll clear up.
That's possible, larger string could have been significantly more magnetic due to diameter or iron content. I didn't lower the saddle or pickup height at all, so...
At the time I thought it may have been a bad whiteness point. It felt as silly as it sounded FWIW.
What you're describing typically happens on the lowest string - I had a bit of it on my E string (on a 4) a couple of days ago when I changed pickups. Lowered the pickup a bit, and everything is cool.
You couldn’t be more wrong lol. The scale length of a stringed instrument is the maximum vibrating length of the strings that produce sound, and determines the range of tones that string can produce at a given tension. It is also called string length. Also the length of the neck has nothing to do with anything except playability/reach. That’s why builders have recessed the neck further into the body and have used fan frets. String instruments produce sound through the vibration of their strings. The range of tones these strings can produce is determined by three primary factors: the linear density of the string, that is its mass per unit length (which is determined by its thickness and the density of the material), the tension placed upon it, and the instrument's scale length. Also, a longer neck does not make for a more flexible neck as if it even mattered.
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I also played 5+ string for a number of years. In my experience, the "floppy B" or "muddy B" syndrome is approximately 90% the player, and the other 10% just the physics of notes that low in frequency. And almost no contribution of the bass's scale length, construction, etc. Meaning, I've not encountered a situation where the build quality of the bass or the pickups either doomed the B to sounding bad, or made the B sound significantly better (beyond the ability of the player to adjust via technique).
The long way to describe the situation, roughly, is as follows:
The main thing to remember is, the lower the note gets, the fewer cycles there are in a note of a given length. Accordingly, the "startup" time of the note (initial slip of the string off the fingertip -> attack artifacts like harmonics -> time of a recognizable note consumes a proportionally larger period of the overall note.
The other thing is, as the note gets lower, both our hearing and our equipment conspire to reduce the loudness of the fundamental. This is particularly true below the low E; there's a dramatic drop off in the freq. response of both our hearing and our transducers (speakers in the amp & PA, transducers in our headphones, etc). So we compensate for that by emphasizing the harmonic vibrations in the string - our brains use that information to kind of "reconstruct" a recognizable fundamental, much more so on the very low notes below the low E.
The short way is as follows:
It just gets harder and harder to generate a clean-sounding attack on the note as the notes get lower just as a matter of ordinary physics, and the fundamental gets both harder to hear and harder to reproduce as the notes get lower, particularly below the low E.
So what does all that mean for the "floppy B" syndrome? It means that the cheapest and most effective solution to getting clean low notes, is to simply adjust your plucking technique to emphasize the generation of harmonics of the note, and deemphasize the fundamental. That usually means a) lean more on your bridge pickup if you have one, b) pluck the string closer to the bridge, c) pluck where you already are, but with a lighter touch to force more staccato on the notes.
That's the easiest and most effective solution and the cost is $0.00. Beyond that, in terms of adjustments to the instrument, amp, etc. making the B sound better gets exponentially more expensive and less effective.
The moral of the story is, make sure your 5+ has a good bridge PU in it and pluck more towards the bridge to bring out the notes on the low B. Only after doing that, should you start throwing more money at the problem, keeping in mind the ROI is going to be much lower. Things like getting rid of your perfectly good 34" scale bass and replacing it with another perfectly good 35" scale bass or a bass made out of this or that wood, or going boutique and so on - these have progressively lower and lower ROI, usually to the point that it's not really worth it until you take the first steps described above. Upgrading the amp would probably be preferred before doing that, but the ROI is still pretty low.
L
The long way to describe the situation, roughly, is as follows:
The main thing to remember is, the lower the note gets, the fewer cycles there are in a note of a given length. Accordingly, the "startup" time of the note (initial slip of the string off the fingertip -> attack artifacts like harmonics -> time of a recognizable note consumes a proportionally larger period of the overall note.
The other thing is, as the note gets lower, both our hearing and our equipment conspire to reduce the loudness of the fundamental. This is particularly true below the low E; there's a dramatic drop off in the freq. response of both our hearing and our transducers (speakers in the amp & PA, transducers in our headphones, etc). So we compensate for that by emphasizing the harmonic vibrations in the string - our brains use that information to kind of "reconstruct" a recognizable fundamental, much more so on the very low notes below the low E.
The short way is as follows:
It just gets harder and harder to generate a clean-sounding attack on the note as the notes get lower just as a matter of ordinary physics, and the fundamental gets both harder to hear and harder to reproduce as the notes get lower, particularly below the low E.
So what does all that mean for the "floppy B" syndrome? It means that the cheapest and most effective solution to getting clean low notes, is to simply adjust your plucking technique to emphasize the generation of harmonics of the note, and deemphasize the fundamental. That usually means a) lean more on your bridge pickup if you have one, b) pluck the string closer to the bridge, c) pluck where you already are, but with a lighter touch to force more staccato on the notes.
That's the easiest and most effective solution and the cost is $0.00. Beyond that, in terms of adjustments to the instrument, amp, etc. making the B sound better gets exponentially more expensive and less effective.
The moral of the story is, make sure your 5+ has a good bridge PU in it and pluck more towards the bridge to bring out the notes on the low B. Only after doing that, should you start throwing more money at the problem, keeping in mind the ROI is going to be much lower. Things like getting rid of your perfectly good 34" scale bass and replacing it with another perfectly good 35" scale bass or a bass made out of this or that wood, or going boutique and so on - these have progressively lower and lower ROI, usually to the point that it's not really worth it until you take the first steps described above. Upgrading the amp would probably be preferred before doing that, but the ROI is still pretty low.
L
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I agree wholeheartedly about the pickups and technique having the most effect on B string tone. String gauge is next. Once you have dialed in technique you will find lighter gauge B strings have better tone across the board.
OK, I'll go and give the University back my diploma, which I got studying from 4 years of Acoustical Physics with the premier Professor on the planet when it comes to the topic of the Physics of musical instruments. Apparently he was wrong to give it to me, since I didn't learn anything. Thanks for your help in pointing out this egregious error.
