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I have had a few basses that had no noticeable dead spots. One interesting thing is that the room you are in can effect what notes ring and which ones seem a little anemic. The resonant frequencies in a smaller rooms can cancel out some notes much like active noise suppression. It's weird but sometimes it happens. You can also try changing string type and gauge and your dead spot may go away or shift to another note. You could also just get a Warwick with a bubinga body and wenge neck that won't have any dead spots and will stop most small arms fire. The downside is you will need an orthopedic support of some sort eventually. YMMV - have fun.
Honestly, I don't think he thought about it even a little. That was the note that was either written for him or what he decided worked best, and he played it. Jamerson was not a gearhead by any stretch of the imagination.
Stage 1 (seemingly eons ago): Never heard of "dead spots", lived in blissful ignorance and innocence.
Stage 2: Got my first fancy bass, a Ken Smith 5'er without graphite rods, loved how clear and sustained the notes were - except that C# of G string. Sustain at all notes is important for the style/genre I play, so out it went.
Stage 3: Started hearing dead spots on most (not all) basses I tried, though some were obviously worse than others. Didn't matter how expensive, how many neck laminates, 34" vs 35" (won't play short scale with floppy low B)... Graphite reinforcement, all-graphite neck, and headless all help but none guarantee.
Stage 4: It still matters somewhat, but my OCD is largely gone because I've largely realized that life is short and can't be sustained by worrying about... sustain.
FWIW, my two current basses: a Status graphite headless that still has a small dead spot higher up the neck, and a Ken Smith 6 string with NO dead spots. You'll pry that Smith out of my cold dead hands.
Stage 2: Got my first fancy bass, a Ken Smith 5'er without graphite rods, loved how clear and sustained the notes were - except that C# of G string. Sustain at all notes is important for the style/genre I play, so out it went.
Stage 3: Started hearing dead spots on most (not all) basses I tried, though some were obviously worse than others. Didn't matter how expensive, how many neck laminates, 34" vs 35" (won't play short scale with floppy low B)... Graphite reinforcement, all-graphite neck, and headless all help but none guarantee.
Stage 4: It still matters somewhat, but my OCD is largely gone because I've largely realized that life is short and can't be sustained by worrying about... sustain.
FWIW, my two current basses: a Status graphite headless that still has a small dead spot higher up the neck, and a Ken Smith 6 string with NO dead spots. You'll pry that Smith out of my cold dead hands.
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My Fender Tony Franklin fretless has a terrible dead spot on the 7th fret of the G string. It is the only truly bothersome dead spot I have encountered on a bass I have owned (many have had subtle dead spots of no real consequence). But it has pretty much disappeared since I put Rotosound Funk Master strings, which are very light gauge, on it.
I don't know if we can determine that wasn't something he did intentionally, given his vast use of muting.
My 5 string Warwick Corvette sure did! I had been eyeing this particular one on the Bass Northwest web site. It sat for quite a while, then the price came down low enough that I decided to pull the trigger. It had a very noticeable dead spot at the seventh fret on the G string (the D note), a very conspicuous location. The bass was fine otherwise but I wonder if that was why it stayed at the store so long.
What wood was the neck made from? my experience is almost entirely with maple necks. Just wondering if different neck woods, different densities, different resonant tone would put it in the same ballpark as a four string maple neck.
Those who claim no dead spot on their wood neck basses, haven’t carefully listened to their basses. It’s physical law: the nature doesn’t allow a wood bass neck to be free from a dead spot.
Undead spots are much more annoying because they always appear when I play ghost notes.
Best bass for death metal!
My Gibson Grabber had two places on the neck that would just "thud" when playing my way up or down the neck. It was so long ago, that I don't remember where they were anymore except that one was on the G string and one was one the A string. It did that even when played solo. I remember the neck just felt sort of..rubbery. I know of other players who love those instruments. Mine was a terrible bass with no punch, and little clarity. Must have been a lemon. I was glad to have gotten rid of it when I traded it for an aluminum neck fretless Kramer.
One time I was at a gig and there was a serious dead spot (at least to me) on the F# 4th fret of the D string. I took out another bass and the same thing occurred. So all I could chalk it up to was weird overtones in the small bar we were playing in. A few weeks later I used the original bass in the same room where perhaps the amp was in a slightly different location, and there was no dead spot. I find that small bars often create a phenomenon where sounds bounce off the wall and play tricks on the ear. Sometimes guitarists get enough strange harmonic overtones to make their chords sound weird too.
This. Never once noticed one.
And yet there are plenty of other "quirks" that I can't abide that most other players seem to not care much about. Like, say, neck dive, or that too-close-to-the-edge G string on a Music Man. Or ... or ....
I guess we see what we see, and we're blind to what we can't, or something.
Definitely. At a previous band's home practice space, if I played a G it would resonate almost to feedback. If I have a chance during soundcheck, if there is a soundcheck, I'll try to fid the wolf/dead tones in the room. But that usually happens as we're playing. So, you have to adjust.
I never knew what a dead spot ( I thought they were on the E string) until playing whole notes at pretty high volume and the C# disappeared, completely, to the point that I thought that my amp died or was cutting out. Basically, just a note where the neck will resonate and absorb the energy of the string quickly killing the note.
For neck dive - I think I finally figured out that people talking about Fender neck dive are talking about the bass as played on your lap. On a strap, I've never had the least bit of neck dive with Fender / MusicMan / "normal" basses. If you can hold the bass on your index fingers, resting on the strap buttons and the center of balance of the instrument is between those, then the instrument should balance on the strap unless there is a really weird body shape.
G string? That really depends on playing style. I think they cut the nut on the Sting Ray Special 5 strings about a 1/32" too close to the edge of the fretboard. If you don't play cleanly, you can pull the string off the edge.
All, IMHO and not meaning to preach to you, I'm watching "Ad Astra" which kind sucks and I'm committed to finishing it, but looking for diversions like this response. Heh.
And then there are us sad cases who suffer from MOD (multiple OCD disorder). And there's usually no way to fix MOD with mods.
Agree that all Basses have "Dead Spots" or Dead Note. They are different on every Bass as well.
YMMV
YMMV
Cue comments from those with a love/hate relationship with Thunderbirds and Warwick Thumbs.
Both the neck and fingerboard were Wenge (body was ash). I expect a certain amount of deadness in that area of the fingerboard but this was far greater than on my other basses.
24 years ago I bought a new 1995 Am Standard Jazz. Had the worst dead spot I ever encountered on "C" of the G-string, but I didn't notice it until I had the bass a few days. I took the bass back to the store where I bought it. The salesman said he would talk to the Fender Rep. The Rep agreed to replace it.
I received another 1995 Jazz. The dead spot on it wasn't quite as bad, but it was on "B" of the G-string. I didn't even take this one out of the store. The salesman said he couldn't promise anything, but he would talk to Fender again. The Fender Rep said he would get a 1996 if I could wait a couple weeks, which I did.
When the 1996 arrived, I was told it had graphite bars in the neck on both sides of the truss rod, a thicker headstock, and a slightly thicker neck overall. It was much, much better. It still had a minor dead spot near C sharp of the G-string.
The salesman told me I had the curse & I would find a dead spot on every bass or guitar I played from that day forward, and he was right.
Here's the thing; every solid object on earth has a resonant frequency. If you can produce the resonant frequency of an object (with enough energy), the object will vibrate at that frequency. When a string vibrates at the resonant frequency of a bass, the body / neck also vibrate and absorb the energy of the string. There are basses (short scales, aluminum or graphite necks, headless, etc) that have a resonant frequency which is somewhere above or below the frequency range of a standard tuned bass. Those are the ones that have almost no noticeable dead spot.
If you get the curse, you can find dead spots while wearing headphones playing loud music, because you can feel the body vibrate when you hit the specific note. It really is a curse....
I received another 1995 Jazz. The dead spot on it wasn't quite as bad, but it was on "B" of the G-string. I didn't even take this one out of the store. The salesman said he couldn't promise anything, but he would talk to Fender again. The Fender Rep said he would get a 1996 if I could wait a couple weeks, which I did.
When the 1996 arrived, I was told it had graphite bars in the neck on both sides of the truss rod, a thicker headstock, and a slightly thicker neck overall. It was much, much better. It still had a minor dead spot near C sharp of the G-string.
The salesman told me I had the curse & I would find a dead spot on every bass or guitar I played from that day forward, and he was right.
Here's the thing; every solid object on earth has a resonant frequency. If you can produce the resonant frequency of an object (with enough energy), the object will vibrate at that frequency. When a string vibrates at the resonant frequency of a bass, the body / neck also vibrate and absorb the energy of the string. There are basses (short scales, aluminum or graphite necks, headless, etc) that have a resonant frequency which is somewhere above or below the frequency range of a standard tuned bass. Those are the ones that have almost no noticeable dead spot.
If you get the curse, you can find dead spots while wearing headphones playing loud music, because you can feel the body vibrate when you hit the specific note. It really is a curse....
