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drop D with Jazz bass
- Thread starter smellah
- Start date
I've struggled a lot with drop tuning my J Bass. I've tried all sorts of strings between 105 and 120, nickel and steel, but none seem to make much difference.
I'm currently working on projects which require Drop Db/C# and it sounds awful. Really floppy tension and muddy sound, even with 120's.
Even Drop D sounded poopie. Intonation was spot on but still sounded bad.
Finally managed to get it sounding better by moving the saddle riiiiight back. Intonation was a pain to get right but i found that moving the saddle back effectively increased the 34" scale length to nearly 35" and it sounds much better.
I'm not a guitar technician so i'm not particularly well-educated in the science of it all but I was pretty sure that correct intonation could only be properly acheived at very specific string lengths, so I'm a bit puzzled with how i managed to move the saddle so far back without causing the string to be flat at the octave. All i can think is that it's moved far enough to put it into the next range for intonation (hope that makes sense, can't think how else to describe my logic).
My results may be purely down to luck, or specific to my bass, but it's definitely worth a try.
Now i've got it sounding ok with drop D, i've bought a Digitech Drop so i get bring it down a half step to drop Db. Reviews on this pedal are mixed but generally they don't seem to perform too well with bass when you go past a whole step but i'm hoping it will be ok with just 1 semitone.
I'm currently working on projects which require Drop Db/C# and it sounds awful. Really floppy tension and muddy sound, even with 120's.
Even Drop D sounded poopie. Intonation was spot on but still sounded bad.
Finally managed to get it sounding better by moving the saddle riiiiight back. Intonation was a pain to get right but i found that moving the saddle back effectively increased the 34" scale length to nearly 35" and it sounds much better.
I'm not a guitar technician so i'm not particularly well-educated in the science of it all but I was pretty sure that correct intonation could only be properly acheived at very specific string lengths, so I'm a bit puzzled with how i managed to move the saddle so far back without causing the string to be flat at the octave. All i can think is that it's moved far enough to put it into the next range for intonation (hope that makes sense, can't think how else to describe my logic).
My results may be purely down to luck, or specific to my bass, but it's definitely worth a try.
Now i've got it sounding ok with drop D, i've bought a Digitech Drop so i get bring it down a half step to drop Db. Reviews on this pedal are mixed but generally they don't seem to perform too well with bass when you go past a whole step but i'm hoping it will be ok with just 1 semitone.
