If a fret levelling and /or setup fix it, it was a choked note - a fret interfering with the vibration of a note played below a high fret, or a note played on a low fret, and again a higher fret is interfering with the vibration. A true dead spot has a different cause (the neck's resonant modes), that a fret levelling and/or setup will not fix. You can also have loose frets that cause reduced sustain, which are fixed by...gluing the fret into position.
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Dead spots
- Thread starter rlsuarezv
- Start date
If a fret levelling and /or setup fix it, it was a choked note - a fret interfering with the vibration of a note played below a high fret, or a note played on a low fret, and again a higher fret is interfering with the vibration. A true dead spot has a different cause (the neck's resonant modes), that a fret levelling and/or setup will not fix. You can also have loose frets that cause reduced sustain, which are fixed by...gluing the fret into position.
Dead spots can be caused by a number of reasons, and each sounds similar but different.
Harmonic / resonance deadspots can be alleviated by changing string gauge, and thus the intonation distances from bridge to nut.
Adding weight usto the headstock will usually move the deadspot to a lower note, which the Fat finger is good for. The position of the weight can also change the behaviour slightly.
If your strings are fretting out, yes, get a level / re-crown / refret, or raise string height.
Some deadspots are related to mechanical coupling between the string and the body, where the string vibrates in a loose saddle, or is so rigidly mounted that the natural harmonic resonance of the instrument over powers the string vibration.
They are a fun beast to troubleshoot because you learn a lot of different tricks to tame them, but sometime, it is just best to ignore them as best you can - play the same note on a different string when you need sustain, use it as part of the sound etc.
Harmonic / resonance deadspots can be alleviated by changing string gauge, and thus the intonation distances from bridge to nut.
Adding weight usto the headstock will usually move the deadspot to a lower note, which the Fat finger is good for. The position of the weight can also change the behaviour slightly.
If your strings are fretting out, yes, get a level / re-crown / refret, or raise string height.
Some deadspots are related to mechanical coupling between the string and the body, where the string vibrates in a loose saddle, or is so rigidly mounted that the natural harmonic resonance of the instrument over powers the string vibration.
They are a fun beast to troubleshoot because you learn a lot of different tricks to tame them, but sometime, it is just best to ignore them as best you can - play the same note on a different string when you need sustain, use it as part of the sound etc.
Have you tried playing the bas away from the church?
Not in my experience.
Yes, this has been my experience, too.
@Jeff Scott
Yes I’ve tried it at the house also and it does only in those areas. Kind of different as it’s in the D string only instead of the more common G string.
Yes I’ve tried it at the house also and it does only in those areas. Kind of different as it’s in the D string only instead of the more common G string.
I probably haven't had a bass with a dead spot then. KNOCK ON WOOD
If it has to do with the neck, then would a neck swap fix the dead spot?
Is there a modification you could do to the neck to fix the dead spot?
Answer to the first question: maybe.
Answer to the 2nd - my thoughts in post 19 cover the things that can be tried; there are no guarantees.
In my experience a dead spot is not as much a lack of sustain, but rather no "body" behind the note being played. I found it especially noticeable in a band context, the note seems to 'drop out' and not be be there. Nothing behind it.
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songwriter21
I have an obsession for wood. The musical kind.
Yep, and graphite basses can have dead spots too (despite the myth to the contrary). But don't go looking for dead spots on your basses. Besides, one thing I've learned is that one person's dead spot is another person's perfectly acceptable note.
Construction of bolt/set/neckthru doesn't really matter. Most bolts have sustained way better for me than neckthrus, anyway.
Wood is obviously natural, with many random defects and quirks. Every piece grows differently, so any neck can have a freak dead spot, depending on how the tree grew. Man-made stuff, like carbon/graphite, can zero out dead spots, simply by making a consistently perfect mold of the neck.
I've lessened and alleviated many dead spots simply from a good setup of my own, so no trip to the luthier required.
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The problem is that those notes are matching the resonant frequency of the neck. The easiest way to fix this is to add weight to the neck. You can test whether this will work by clipping a capo to your headstock. Some people glue quarters to the back of the headstock.
Unless you plan on doing some high end studio work they are usually a non-issue. Most of the time we don’t hang on a note that long anyway. Never really got the “sustain” thing. If it actually flubs the note that’s a different story. I had a P years ago that did this on the E sting G position. Which was a big deal. I took it to a professional tech and he was able to fix it. I would caution against trying to much that could affect the integrity of the instrument.
I wonder if you could bolt a neck (or the entire instrument) to a large speaker, sprinkle sand on the neck, play different frequencies through the speaker and watch how the sand reacts to those frequencies across the neck to find and adjust dead spots better. Like a Chladni plate
That is, if you don't want to eliminate them using the aforementioned Tort scratch plate.
That is, if you don't want to eliminate them using the aforementioned Tort scratch plate.
Dead spots never really bothered me because I never spent much time in those areas (usually somewhere between D# and F# on the G string in my limited experience) in situations where I need to note to ring out longer than a few seconds.
That would work well if you had a flat fretboard - with a 10 inch radius , all the sand (salt works fine as well) will be off the neck pretty fast. You could maybe make fences out of aluminum foil to contain the sand in the middle of the fretboard, and at least see where it moves up or down on the neck. Also, the sand congregates at the nodes (places that don't move with a standing wave). The dead spots are places that do move - they rob the string of it's vibration precisely because they move so much when excited at at that frequency. So you'd be looking for the spot midway between sand lines. Oh, and fretless would help a lot - no frets to stop the movement of the sand.
But early on I let go of a Vox Cougar and its successor, an Epiphone Newport, solely because of dead spots. (The next bass in the queue, a 1959 EB-2, was dead-spot free.)
trust me don't go looking for them. once you find them they only becomes a blemish in your mind. of my five basses only one does not have dead spots and that bass has a carbon fiber neck.
It happens. I've had over 20 shortscales in the last 5 decades and only one (an old Kay) had any issue with dead spots and it was minor compared to those in all of my long scales.
In a previous life I was a Mechanic. To lessen the deadspots on my Fender basses figured I could stick a few ounces of the stick-on style wheel weights to the back of the headstock, worked pretty good in the 1-3oz range depending on the year of the bass and thickness of the headstock.
