B string problem on b-stock bass

I got this b-stock Brubaker Brute MJX-5 this past weekend. It does have its problems, but I bought it for a bargain, so I have no complaints.

One of the more serious problems that it has is this thud that B string makes when played on higher frets. It does resonate and a pitch is discernible, although to a lesser extent compared to the other strings. Mostly there is this almost percussive sound that can be achieved normally by playing near the bridge.

E string have the same problem, except the thud is almost inaudible.

Can anyone point out what the problem is?

Thanks.

 

I got brand new TI flats and I am absolutely loving them. The funny thing a luthier swapped the strings, and he supposedly set it up too. I am sort of glad you suggest set-up problems. I was afraid I might have to change the bridge. But thankfully I have no idea what I am talking about.

Anyway, so it does not seem like the thud is worse on a particular fret. Although it gets worse by the fret towards the bridge, so in a sense it is the 22nd fret that is the worst.

The B string does not buzz-- on any fret. But D and G does on the first fret. One needs to press very carefully to try to get a clean note. I guess nut height was not set-up properly?

While compared to the other strings, the B string is almost half way out of its slot in the nut. The E string is slightly out. The rest seem to be comfortably tucked in. D G may be way too in there.

Does this sound like a nut height action problem?

Thanks so much.

 

I have been playing only for 8 months. Although the bass is not the first instrument I picked up, so I have a higher learning curve, or that's what I hope.

I am currently living in Istanbul, Turkey-- and yes, there is no Guitar Centre here. The person who supposedly set it up is a locally famous luthier named Ekrem Özkarpat. He has built wonderful guitars for local guitar giants like Erkan Oğur (who sadly has limited international fame). So maybe he was not paying much attention to his work that day. Needless to say, it is grossly unprofessional botch up such rudimentary tasks.

There is a another possibility though. I bought the guitar from him too. Apparently he bought a bunch of Brubaker b-stock basses and did some work on them. It is possible that the bass has problems that he is aware of, and that he didn't want to fix for some reason (cost?). He wouldn't have wanted to let me know to avoid scaring off a potential buyer. Let's hope that Ekrem botched up the set-up, and these problems have an easy fix because I would rather spend it on new pickups and a preamp.

I'm going to visit his shop this Friday. I'll write how it turns out.

Btw, I couldn't make the tin foil fix work.

 

I noticed that the buzz on the first frets went away. It has been awfully hot and humid: I hope it was the weather that fixed the set-up.

Anyway, though, I went back to the shop where I bought the instrument and had it set up as due to the thumping B string. I was assured that there was nothing wrong with the bass or the setup. I played other 5 string Brubaker Brute MJX basses, they had the same issue: this (slight) percussive tone on frets above 12 on the B string. I was polite but I was not convinced.

I took it to another guy -- he said he'd do a new set-up and that this might fix it. I thought, why not try. While he was setting it up, I went on to check out 34" basses with a B string. That neighborhood has a ton of musical instrument related shops and businesses. I hit a random store and turns out they had a bunch of ESP LTD basses on stock. All of the basses I tried produced the same percussive tone above. So on I went to fetch my bass, and I found out that the new set-up did not fix anything. In fact he had just raised all string except B. He assured me that the bass got more playable. I nodded, paid and left.

Being a newbie is not exactly fun.

I guess I should have taken the first guy word. He did explain to me that all 34" B strings would produce that tone. There may be ways to deal with it different bridges etc, but that there's no way to eliminate it completely. I asked about 33" Fodera basses with B strings, as I cannot believe that these would produce a (slight!) percussive tone on higher frets. I was told that there are a ton of expensive work arounds, but that it is impossible to eliminate this problem entirely. He says it's just physics. Well, perhaps he is right.

In any case, however, I am not happy with my purchase. Had I known I would have gotten a 35" scale bass.
I guess I would not want to return it now though. It was a real bargain, it's a nice bass, and the percussive tone on higher frets is very, very slight. I'll just get something better next year.

Thanks for your input @Conrad Gently !!

 

Thanks for the replies!

Taking your advice a few steps further, I finally got a bass teacher. I have been learning from books, TalkBass, the rest of the internet etc for 6 months now. Not only this is hard, but it is also a slow process. The recent debacle regarding the string and the set-up was the last straw. I thought I should get someone to teach me.

We just had our first lesson today, we worked on my plucking-hand technique so as to widen my tonal palette and we did cool exercises from an old John Patitucci book to flex my fretting hand. It would have taken me weeks to figure all this out by myself. I'm going to have many wonderful hours grinding my way through all this stuff this week. So happy.

I'm sure we'll eventually get to bass set-up