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I thought I was a 19mm guy until I learned to slap!! AGGGHHHHH!!!

#21
Hmm,

I'm thinking that striking straight down on the string, so that the angle of string attack is perpendicular to the string being 12:00.

Hitting the side of the string closes to the B string would be 9:00 and parallel to the fretboard, and hitting the the side of the string closest to the G string being 3:00.

It appears we are speaking two different languages.
 
#22
You are on the right track....

1:00 to me means the tip of my thumb pointing between my face and left shoulder (a la Flea). 3:00 would be with the thumb basically pointing towards the nut along the length of the strings.

Also, I find popping to be much easier at 1:00 than 3:00. I guess we are all different.


12:00-1:00 = ^


3:00 = ---->
bassrique said:
I'm still not getting it. How about we describe this as the nut being 12:00? A thumb facing up would be anywhere from 9:30 to 11:30. I play parallel, or 12:00. A guy like Flea would play at around 1;30 to 2:00. This I get.

Edit: I'm trying to think of it this way because it doesn't matter how the bass is orientated. Some guys angle their bass way up. while guys like me keep it high and roughly parallel [there's that word again] to the floor.
Click to expand...
 
#23
Baird6869 said:
Wow! Thanks Roger.

I generally gig my Sadowskys but is would be nice to have one (of my 3) have narrower spacing for some of the funk I play...

Is it something I can order from Club Bass in Toronto and install myself or is there more to it than that?
Click to expand...

Order from me. I have an 18mm 5 string bridge. You could also get one of the Hipshot bridges with adjustable string spacing.

Roger
 
#25
bassrique said:
I'm still not getting it. How about we describe this as the nut being 12:00? A thumb facing up would be anywhere from 9:30 to 11:30. I play parallel, or 12:00. A guy like Flea would play at around 1;30 to 2:00. This I get.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you really don't get it...

Baird6869 said:
In a nutshell, my thumb was hitting the strings at 1:00 (when looking straight at me) vs. 3:00 and hitting down on the strings.
Click to expand...
 
#28
I always played more of a 4 or 5 'o clock position (thumb pointed more towards the ground), and muted the surrounding strings to accomodate the inaccuracy.. Lately I have switched to 3 to accomodate double thumping.. however i still get a much meatier sound when doing it the way I started.

It doesn't feel natural to me to have my elbow low enough to allow my thumb to point upwards..
 
#31
I've never even given this topic a thought. Always considered slapping and thumping two completely different things--different attacks on the string, different wrist motions and achieving two different sounds. That said, I have pretty pronounced hitchhiker's thumb. So my thumb to the joint is always parallel to the strings and I just move the part of my thumb with the nail on it past parallel to 1 o'clock-ish if I want.

I always found the problem with narrow string spacing to be the difficulty in real fast poping...like if you want to get two or three fingers under the string at the same time to set something up.
 
#33
I don't slap that much for what I do. Maybe a slap and a snap here and there.
But, when I do I am more of a 4:00 position slapper. :bassist:

Is there really a right way or wrong way???
I always believed in that "whatever works" law!
 
#35
I'm part of the elite 2:00 club myself. I've always thought that the individual player needs to decide what works best. We all have different body structure so just make use of what works. I find the 5 o'clock to be very hard to play really clean which is what I like.

I've been working through some Anthony Vitti stuff and he's definitely a 3 o'clocker so I've been trying that but I just like a little tilt.
 
#40
allexcosta said:
Ok, here we go:

1 o'clock:

Click to expand...


OMG I am so confused..

This person's thumb is pointed to the 1'oclock, but their wrist is pointed down more then the person in the 3'oclock video. it is just that their thumb is bent like an L..

I don't consider slapping and thumping to be the same thing - but slap tone in the higher frets sounds like crap (for me anyway) so I will usually switch to thumping if i get up above the 12th or 14th fret or so.. it is not the same tone, but closer than finger style.. and keeping my thump more parallel to the string makes it easier to switch to thumping.
 

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