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Innovative bass technology
- Thread starter Ron Johnson
- Start date
Apart from being aesthetically questionable, the Steinberger was - by far - the biggest innovation in bass guitars. Double-ball/zero-fret, active pups, virtually indestructible, never out of tune, tailpiece tuners - remember their tremolo system (TransTrem)? Could move *chords* in tune and instantly change your tunings. EVH made it most famous at the time (Get Up), but the amazing thing was you could get it on their basses too.
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I think their Q series still looks good, but it was too late by the time it came out.
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I think their Q series still looks good, but it was too late by the time it came out.
Bill Lawrence put a lot of innovation into the Ripper, which came out in 1973. Narrow aperture sidewinding humbucker pickups are quiet, dynamic and have a clear sound. He also added the Q-filter midrange cut and a four position pickup selector with a variety of settings. Definitely an attempt to do something "other" than another P or J. Neither the Q-filter, nor the sidewinding pickups have become commonplace, despite their musicality and utility.
Otto
Otto
The lightwave pickup is a neat idea, however you can't palm mute while playing, as it needs to see the vibration of the string. So the inability of the pickup to work using that technique makes it a failed idea, albeit a cool idea. The Factor basses are a great idea too, until the tone of thumbing the open string with the lever off sounding so different drives you up the wall (i've owned 3, 2 pre fender one post, and it drove me bonkers). I would still buy another Kubicki though, they are just that damn cool.
I'd say the one innovation that has worked well is the extending of the range of the instrument, we are up to what, a dozen strings in single courses? Pretty cool, and outside of muting techniques needing to be be developed they work and sound great, it's not unusual to see 6+ strings in the wild these days. So that's the one innovation that seems to have been accepted into the norm in the bass guitar world.
I'd say the one innovation that has worked well is the extending of the range of the instrument, we are up to what, a dozen strings in single courses? Pretty cool, and outside of muting techniques needing to be be developed they work and sound great, it's not unusual to see 6+ strings in the wild these days. So that's the one innovation that seems to have been accepted into the norm in the bass guitar world.
<sigh> Fine, I'll concede it's full of standard parts. There's your "gotcha!" moment you've obviously been craving.But I'll still stick to my guns on the idea of "innovation" also being the inventive use of pre-existing technology. So, in that context, and to keep the topic rolling, I'll move on to something I feel was, at least, a little innovative…in my own opinion, even though it was the cobbling together of a number of pre-existing bits o' tech, yadda, yadda, yadda. It's a particular wiring harness put together by Santellan Sounds/Elek-Trix that I've written about on several occasions.
Truth be told, it's not very flashy (not like a Lightwave system or other, borderline-sci-fi stuff like that), but I found it to be an ingenious combination which really opened up the capabilities of my last parts-bass project. Here's what they crammed into one, contiguous package…
On their own, none of these are a big deal, 'cept maybe the dip-pin-chip part. The only thing I've come across with those are the Guitar Fetish REDactive EQ-switchable pickups. (Question for Y'all; are there other electronic systems that use dip-pin-chips for tweaking and shaping their sound?) Personally, I feel putting all three of these technologies together in one, easy-to-use package is downright brilliant!
- Series/parallel switchable
- Solderless terminal block connections (for someone who's all-thumbs with a soldering iron, that's a very big deal!)
- A dip-pin-switchable chip that allows one to adjust the capacitance with minimal effort. (again, no soldering required…yay!) I especially love that it's separate from the tone control, unlike a Stellartone Tonestyler. I can set the "cap value" and still tweak the tone independently.
Sadly, the guy who runs Santellan Sounds sold the company to someone who doesn't seem interested in producing more units. Thank Bob I bought a second unit before the sale went down!
Dual P pickup basses were pretty common in the 1970s on a variety of body shapes. Wal pickups were rather more innovative in the 70s either than two P basses.
Really innovative things whewhehey came out might include...
Hip shot detuners
Automatic tuners
Cyber/MIDI bass
Roland hex pickups
Headless basses
Rail pickups
This EverTune bridge seems like the real deal...I wonder how many manufacturers are offering it, and if the answer is "not many", I wonder why not?
I know you can get it on some ESP models like the Ben Weinman Signature, but I haven't seen any other brands offer it as stock. I've seen a lot of bands get them fitted aftermarket though. It's a shame they haven't figured out how to get a bass version to work yet, but I've heard they're working on it.
A big limiter of tunings would be the strings. Steinberger's Trans Trem worked alright, but there is no such thing as a set of strings that can sound good transposed up 3 frets or down 5 frets.
By the way, this fretless bridge is a very cool innovation!
I wonder what a fretless bridge on a fretless bass sounds like . . .
Gotta disagree, with respect. Alembic invented active electronics in the early 70's, which are a much bigger innovation than what Steinberger did. Oh... the graphite neck was also first used in a production bass by Alembic.
Although I agree that Alembic brought many incredible innovations to the world of music, it is not correct to say they "invented" active electronics. I don't think even they claim that (Burns I think has the honor). It might be fairer and more useful to say they "perfected" active electronics because until Alembic I don't think instruments with active electronics really became wide-spread.
In my opinion I believe that we have reached the limit of what can be done with the physical instrument itself. Everything else is really just variations. After all, if we go beyond the vibration of strings producing a signal which is then sent out to be amplified then we are dealing with some other kind of instrument than a bass guitar.
I believe that the same thing can be said about amplification. Amplification, equalization and reproduction through speaker cabinets has reached the same point.
I think that the area where innovation is still taking place is signal processing especially in regards to simulation/emulation technology.
As for what the future of the bass guitar holds, that can only ever be speculation.
I believe that the same thing can be said about amplification. Amplification, equalization and reproduction through speaker cabinets has reached the same point.
I think that the area where innovation is still taking place is signal processing especially in regards to simulation/emulation technology.
As for what the future of the bass guitar holds, that can only ever be speculation.
There have been attempts at convertible basses, double necks, and bridges like the Neusser. The convertible fretboards more or less leave ya with a fretless with high action. The fretless sounding bridges seem to simulate the fretless buzz, but no real sliding or vibrato.
I think a lot of the problem is that guys seem to want to do everything but spend a lot of time on a fretless bass. I'm far from talented and found that it's not as impossible as guys seem to think. OTOH, it's a little entertaining how guys are so afraid of fingerboard wear on a bass that will more likely collect dust than need a fingerboard refin.
At the risk of escalating the discussion to the "Argumentative" category
...I think you may be missing how truly innovative the original Steinberger bass was.Alembic's use of active electronics, and graphite necks, and exotic multi-lam construction, and the whole full custom boutique experience were certainly notable...but they didn't dramatically alter the paradigm of how a bass was built or how it worked, they simply refined the extant paradigm. An Alembic bass still has a wood vaguely guitar-shaped body, still balances from a pair of strap buttons located on opposite ends of that body, still has a neck with a headstock & tuning machines at the far end, and still was built by hand by people who called themselves luthiers. You don't have to go to the 10,000' view to think an Alembic bass resembles a 1952 Fender Precision Bass, you just have to squint a little.
Ned Steinberger changed all that.
People complain about low B strings all the time, but I have no problem with them on my BEAD tuned basses.Headless. Being able to throw a bass into a guitar gig bag is quite nice. Hopefully Hipshot's hardware catches on this time. I respect Steinberger and have a really nice Steinberger guitar, but I think a perceived drawback with headless was that it had a certain sound, which was more due to EMGs and a graphite neck. Throw a headless system on a wood guitar with desired electronics and the tonal impact of the headless hardware is minimal.
A good low B string. This is a combo of good construction and strings. I'm under the impression that part of the resistance to 5+ string basses is that the cheap/old ones don't sound very good. Ok, another part is that a lot of guys want to grip the neck like a baseball bat, which does not fly on slimmer and/or wider necks, not that anyone would admit to technique issues.The stiffer necks can sometimes help the neck resist warping or as much movement with humidity swings.
Coated or synthetic fingerboards. They protect the neck against roundwound abuse and add a certain coolness to the sound.
Truss rod access without removing the neck. Anyone who lives in the Midwest could probably tell ya how fun it is to adjust all of your guitars twice a year due to the extreme shift in humidity.
And it's not like all of those basses are fancy, either. One's a beginner Peavey, one's an Epiphone T-bird, and one is a Rickenbacker 4003S. All of them have low B strings that sound good.
No one has mentioned the magnetic jack that makes for noiseless connections (see Wooten's Fedora bass)
Slick for those of us who have change basses during a live set. No more clumsy 1/4" jack.
(I do allow that while innovative, it is not "bass" technology)
Slick for those of us who have change basses during a live set. No more clumsy 1/4" jack.
(I do allow that while innovative, it is not "bass" technology)
