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Low 6's?

Who Wants a Low Six?

  • I DO!

    Votes: 41 34.7%

  • Carrots!

    Votes: 77 65.3%
  • Total voters
    118
#21
Hmmm, very dicey territory when discussing fundamentals vs harmonics, et al .... ;) There are several highly respected players with varying opinions on the subject, and I'm far too limited in my knowledge to be able to voice any opinion worth a darn regarding the comparisons between the two.

But from a purely practical point of view, I can absolutely FEEL the difference when playing that deep. Is it the harmonic? or is it the fundamental? .... I don't know, but something is rattling my below-the-belt junk :D And that same something is being felt in the crowd by others ....

Debate all you want, but I will continue to seek out the most gonad-rattling low notes I can muster ...... :cool:
 
#22
Only reason I could see buying a low 6 was to tune the F# up so it's tight and use it as a support with my floating thumb technique. Right now when I get to the E/B string I have nowhere to rest my thumb, so I revert back to the standard "anchor on the pickup" technique. It's not bad, but it would be nice to not have to adjust.
 
#26
Well, I suppose if you're really buff you might not mind hauling around a couple of 18" drivers in a 150 pound cabinet, but you gotta remember that there's two ends to the sound - the end the speaker produces by shoving lots of air around, and the sound you receive by vibrating a receiver 1/4" wide inside your ear. Once the frequency gets low enough so that the wavelength of the sound is a LOT wider than your eardrum, you aren't really hearing the fundamental at all. Instead, your brain is taking the pattern of overtones, probably combining this with the vibrations you feel through your feet and skin, and manufacturing something you can "sense" as a very low note. It's no mystery why bass amps need 5 times the wattage of guitar amps. Eardrums just aren't very efficient at low frequencies.

Yeah, the Warwick Dark Lord, pumped through enough hardware, can produce a deep rumble guaranteed to muddy any sound the band is making. But in general terms, a bass played AS a bass (tonal, low notes defining both chord and rhythm) inhabits a narrow zone between the guitar's lowest notes and your ear's lowest notes. Notes outside either end of that range must be used very judiciously in ensemble playing.
 
#27
Keep in mind that we are talking about 23 Hz - it falls within the accepted range of human hearing.

That said, 8th triplets are indeed lost down in that range.

What is interesting to note, as seen on scopes in frequency analysis, is that what we define as the fundamental carries only slightly more than half the sonic energy of the corresponding first harmonic. It is what our ears expect to see so to speak.

Having that same relationship at 23 Hz - or even 20 Hz - is well within the grasp of both a competent (though not inexpensive) rig, and our ears' expectations.

FWIW - while it would be nice to have double 18s or 21s, they aren't necessary to carry these frequencies to the ears' satisfaction. It is indeed awesome to have these fundamentals reproduced on an equal footing as the upper harmonics (I am a former Bag End ELF owner), but it isn't a necessity.
 
#28
I personally think that the below-B sound is incredible. I've been seriously considering finding a 36" scale four banger to do some stuff. But, if I were to do this, I'd do it more in the vein of Yves Carbonne: Two bassists in a band, one playing the extreme low-end with the other playing a strong counterpointed grooving bassline on top. I think that's be awesome for an R&B or Hiphop style.

I don't see the need for a sixer, though. For me, a sixer is best employed for either a Fusion soloist who need the B for certain grooves and the C for solos ala john Patitucci or for an extended technique guy such as chordal player ala Todd Johnson. Just go for a 4 or 5.
 
#29
Flintc said:
the sound you receive by vibrating a receiver 1/4" wide inside your ear. Once the frequency gets low enough so that the wavelength of the sound is a LOT wider than your eardrum, you aren't really hearing the fundamental at all.
Click to expand...


How do you define "a LOT wider than your eardrum"? :eyebrow:

An A440 has a wavelength of 2.5 feet. That's 120x the width of your ear drum. Is that a lot? No one would consider that a low pitch or claim that you can't hear the fundamental in this case.

How about the low E on a regular 4-string? At 40Hz it has wavelength of 27.5 feet or 1320x the width of year eardrum. Are you saying we are incapable of hearing the fundamental of this pitch?

Ok....let's take this the other direction. If we want a frequency that has a wavelength of .25 inches for a 1 to 1 match with our eardrums (and by your statement should give us the optimal ability to hear this pitch) we end up with 52,381 hz.

This is out of the range of hearing for most dogs :hiding:

I think we need a new pardigm for this.... :scowl:
 
#34
Why 4?
95 % of the basslines in all styles of music can be played with only 2 strings. The number of strings is very subjective... Just imagine if Leo Fender had invented the Precision Bass with only 3 strings... everybody would play 3 string basses today! :)
I need the sub register because you can hear it in my music.
And I love to play 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 string basses.
 
#35
pointbass said:
Hmmm, very dicey territory when discussing fundamentals vs harmonics, et al .... ;) There are several highly respected players with varying opinions on the subject, and I'm far too limited in my knowledge to be able to voice any opinion worth a darn regarding the comparisons between the two.
Click to expand...

It would be nice to see a series of plots of spectrum analysis playing progressively lower notes on the E, B and F# strings. That would certainly not end the debate but it may help quantify it!

Alex
 
#40
alexclaber said:
It would be nice to see a series of plots of spectrum analysis playing progressively lower notes on the E, B and F# strings. That would certainly not end the debate but it may help quantify it!

Alex
Click to expand...

It may be nice to see, but I am not certain you would get as much out of it as you'd like. The analysis ought to include A and D strings to comparatively show what existing higher tensions do to the tonal curve. The end result is elusive as it has rammifications on several sides: studio, live, reproduction.

There is a history of poor physics used as compensation for shortcomings, primarily in amplification. Loose strings bring the relationship of the fundamental to the first harmonic to near-parity and the end result is a poor man's ELF system. If the speakers are less capable of producing low frequencies then give the lower frequencies more power out of the bass to put it there.

Any studio musician will tell you that as a matter of technique there is compensation absolutely necessary to get E and B strings to sit nice next to A D and G strings, or have a boat-load of processing equipment handy.

Only now are we seeing string manufacturers come to the realization that equal or better approximate tension (given a less-than-extraordinary string gauge) provides a more consistent tonal relationship within a set.

As well we are seeing very interesting string winding techniques to make extraordinary gauges behave more like thinner gauges - best example is bare core strings.

I know what these curves look like and relied on them heavily to arrive at string sets for these tunings. I don't have the ability to screen-grab these curves any more or I'd pony up. Up-shot is, IME, given a reliable environmet where all frequencies are represented, the sonic curve A and D strings have is the ideal curve for E B F# and beyond.
 

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