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I could use some tips on how avoid clanking/ringing when fretting

#21
As noted there are many factors/possibilities involved with playing cleanly. Ultimately it comes down to dexterity and timing, and that’s broadly painting over many fine details.
One universal bit of advise I give in this situation is make sure to practice with your eq as flat as possible...meaning keep the treble and mids up and do not “scoop” your tone. Let those clanks be heard and practice things at a slow enough rate that you can work to mitigate them.
 
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#23
Most of what I have read here seems like a bunch of ******** to me. I’ve been through this in my learning process as well. The answer is very simple and it comes down to the most basic technique. When you press on the string for the note you want to play press as close as possible right behind the fret as you can. That in addition to plucking the note at the same time as you fret it exactly behind and as close to the backside of the upper fret will get rid of the clank no matter how much treble you have dialed in on either your bass or the eq on your amp. The more treble you have in your setup the more difficult this is to control. It all comes down to technique and EQ. I have only been playing for a couple of years but this is one of the things I have gleaned from practice. Clean up your fingering and plucking technique.
 
#27
Thanks everyone for the replies. To be brief (for once in my life) I have put a lot more effort into synchronizing fretting and plucking and I can see that is the right direction. I am too inexperienced to seriously evaluate my setup... but it was done recently at a very respected shop so I gotta take it on faith that they did it right.

I also stumbled on the idea of using foam down by the bridge as a mute and that helped a lot. It really damps the high end... there is less audible fret tapping and stray string/fingernail noises. This may be a terrible crutch, but I like how it sounds all around.

With a wad of grey foam down there it looks like my bass ate a cat though, I need to find something smaller and less ugly...
 
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#29
A big challenge with being self-taught is that it's really easy to miss some fundamentals because your knowledge base is full of random holes. For example, despite all the reading and video watching I've been doing (and it has been a lot) somehow I did not pick up on how you are supposed to sync fretting and plucking. I now see that is probably 90% of the cure to the problem stated in my OP, and it's Bass 101. I bet there are a dozen more equally ignorant colossal errors waiting for me.
 
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