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I tune my bass slightly flat when recording. Is that wrong?

#81
Santol said:
For the record, the nut is nicely shimmed. Down to almost fret level. The high action is due to the bow in the neck, not the nut height.

The sound is incredibly special (sexy and warm) and if changing the neck to a straight one to get ultimate low action is going to alter the sound significantly, I'll never consider it.
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It will change it, but only you can decide how much is acceptable. Generally speaking, the closer the strings hug the fretboard, the more sustain and less plunk you get. That's not desirable in your case, but a little adjustment might help a little bit with intonation, feel better, and make no difference in tone. If you can tighten it, you can always loosen it and go back to bowed if you want. Do you have reason to believe you can't adjust it at all? Do you have to take the neck off to adjust it? If you've already tried and it's still bowed, you're stuck anyway.

At the end of the day, you are welcome to try to make any adjustments you want, but there is no reason to think that leaving it as it is, if you like how it plays and like how it sounds, is wrong in any way, as long as you can get it to sound right for the project.
 
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#82
pbass2 said:
I once did a session with a pretty big producer where when of the three basses I brought wasn't intonated as good as possible, and let's just say I won't repeat that experience if I can help it.
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I ALWAYS have tools and my Peterson on sessions just for that reason, and I've had to make very quick adjustments in between takes a few times. Never anything drastic, but enough to make a difference.
 
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#83
lowfreqgeek said:
I ALWAYS have tools and my Peterson on sessions just for that reason, and I've had to make very quick adjustments in between takes a few times. Never anything drastic, but enough to make a difference.
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Yeah, I THOUGHT that bass was in good shape but something got out of whack somehow before the session. Wasn't the end of the world as I had 2 other basses that everybody was digging, but still......it was needless to say an "unpro" moment for me!
 
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#84
Santol said:
Just lightly off... Hard to hear the difference by ear. I wouldn't notice this if I didn't measure this using a chromatic tuner, just out of curiosity. But when you see it off on the tuner, you seem to hear it as well suddenly... Psychological...
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The thing is it can bite you later in the mix, even if when you tracked it sounded pretty OK. As things start gelling together, overdubs get added, whatever--problems can start rearing their ugly heads. Goes for any instrument. Poorly tuned drums are a perfect example.
 
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#86
pbass2 said:
The thing is it can bite you later in the mix, even if when you tracked it sounded pretty OK. As things start gelling together, overdubs get added, whatever--problems can start rearing their ugly heads. Goes for any instrument. Poorly tuned drums are a perfect example.
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This is why I pointed out Celemony Melodyne. Thank goodness for drum replacement, too!

There is the point of "not perfect" where it starts to sound awful.

An out of tune bass is the worst.

And for those concerned with "cheating", this was the MAIN reason the PRECISION Bass was such a success -- FRETS.
 
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#87
JW_Manhattan said:
This is why I pointed out Celemony Melodyne. Thank goodness for drum replacement, too!

There is the point of "not perfect" where it starts to sound awful.

An out of tune bass is the worst.

And for those concerned with "cheating", this was the MAIN reason the PRECISION Bass was such a success -- FRETS.
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Yep. I have sat and Melodyned individual bass notes in a mix before, from a bass that was intonated badly (tracked by someone else, mind you!). Don't wanna put anybody else through that!
 
#93
JW_Manhattan said:
Just trying to help you keep current. You seem to be a couple decades (or more) out of it.

Think of it more as "Community Service".

;-)

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Haha! By choice I might add but it is good to keep up. I haven't seen the inside of a studio for close to 20 years. No on second thought it's been about 10 years, last thing I duid was in Lima Peru where my wife's from. I remember the engineer moving drum hits around which I guess is kind of autotunes for drummers, no? In his case it was a good idea.:roflmao:
 
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#94
Uhm, even my dead cheap Ibanez Mikro doesn't act like this when I have set the intonation correct.

As some suggested you might be working with two highly raised strings, or not deep enough filed nut.

If you do happen to prefer the high action I am not sure what an eventual solution would be though.

Maybe try to lower the strings just a bit and see how that will work for your tuning and playing?
 
#96
Santol said:
It's a 70s J bass and maybe the neck has been deformed over the years or something... The action is high and can't be lowered since I have heavy flats on it and the tension must be really high on this old neck. It sting gives me nice Jamerson thumps on it and I love the sound.

But regardless of the condition of my bass, isn't it the case with every instrument that the fretted notes are slightly higher? Isn't it worth it to tune a little flat to compensate for it anyway?
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Don't believe that the action can't be lowered. Your neck has a truss rod, your saddle is adjustable, and you can file the nut if the nut slots are too high. I ran heavy flats on my 1965 (was the only thing available at the time) and had my action set nice and low. Take it to a tech and have him fix it.

And NO the fretted notes are not higher. If you're going sharp, your action is WAY too high. Get it to someone who does neck work and then you'll be in tune all the time.
 
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#98
Mushroo said:
Your bass needs a setup so fretted notes aren't sharp in relationship to the open strings. I guarantee you, somewhere in the world is a luthier who knows how to set up an old Fender with flats.

Even a perfectly set up bass won't be exactly 100% in tune on all notes. But it sounds like yours still has room for improvement. :)
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Isn't this normal? I don't think I own a bass where all the fretted notes are 100% dead on balls in tune. They're pretty darn close and you'll never tell the difference listening, but hook it up to a tuner and they're all slightly weird. Just the open string and 12th fret match.
 
#99
Great info in here. I usually tune slightly flat too because no matter which bass Ive used (dozens in all price ranges) the notes go slightly sharp when I hit them, especially with a pick. So Im either right on or slightly sharp according to my trusty Snark tuner.
 

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