Double Bass Position Dot Inlays: Where do most people put them?

[Dogfightgiggle]

My teacher had a side dot inlaid at Ab.

 

[garrett2]

Thanks everyone!

Very nice in tune playing on your videos!

 

[statsc]

My teacher had a side dot inlaid at Ab.

The hardest note on the bass to play in tune, at least for me!

 

[turf3]

My teacher had a side dot inlaid at Ab.

Which string?

 

[Dogfightgiggle]

Which string?

E

 

[Lorin Cohen]

Very nice in tune playing on your videos!

Thank you!

 

[Bass Butcher]

I'm more concerned with making guitar players that know how to tune

Had one of those in an art rock band. Also reminds me of when I started playing in the 80's when showing up with a tuner meant 'you aren't a real musician' and two or three songs in the always older guitar player is asking to borrow it

 

[Bass Butcher]

I will stand on my original reply. They may be useful in certain specific situations but the way they are being discussed in this thread is not productive IMO. There are too many ways they are a limiting factor to development of good technique and listening skills. I've had too many students who've "grown up" with fingerboard markers of various types that have had serious limitations to think otherwise.. As I've said before, others may differ but that has been my experience.

I was going to reply to your earlier comment but saw this one as well. In regards to both I couldn't agree with you more. I went from frets to fretless as a 'working musician' and very quickly learned that my reference points were determined by my ears, not my eyes. I also learned that using your eyes is detrimental to developing your ear. Functionally, embedded fret lines can help you get close and develop muscle memory in your fretting hand/fingers, dot markers are useless on anything fretless. Even with fret lines, 'close is only good enough with hand grenades and horseshoes'

 

[Bass Butcher]

The part of the discussion around markers (in general, not specifically this thread) that I don’t understand is the idea that having dots or tape or whatever on your bass means that you aren’t listening and fine tuning by ear. Of course listening is key but I also use landmarks like the heel of the neck and that funny bit of grain near the C when moving up and the fingerboard. Doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch to be more deliberate about it if you find markers helpful.

The OP didn’t ask is fingerboard markers were the solution to all intonation problems, just said it was an option on a new build and was wondering what other people found useful. Personally, I like having a good reference for the 3, 5, and octave.

When you are using your eyes you are taking focus away from your ear. Even playing with frets using your eyes becomes unnecessary with practice, using them on fretless instruments retards ear development. On a bass or double bass physical reference points felt would be better than ones requiring the use of your eyes.

 

[Jeff Kissell]

Small inlay at the octave in the middle of the fingerboard between the A and D strings. Also at the octave+5th and 2nd octave between the D and G strings.

 

[Bruce Calin]

Small inlay at the octave in the middle of the fingerboard between the A and D strings. Also at the octave+5th and 2nd octave between the D and G strings.View attachment 7093000

I believe this is the arrangement that Lauren Pierce and some other soloists have. As I've stated before, this is the only circumstance that can justify dots or markers IMO.

 

[Jeff Kissell]

I believe this is the arrangement that Lauren Pierce and some other soloists have. As I've stated before, this is the only circumstance that can justify dots or markers IMO.

The thing is that there is so much more to intonation than just the visual. I experimented with a whiteout dot at the octave for a while before having this done and it definitely helps me play more in tune…

(the two higher dots are mostly aspirational at this point)

 

[bassically_eli]

Small inlay at the octave in the middle of the fingerboard between the A and D strings. Also at the octave+5th and 2nd octave between the D and G strings.View attachment 7093000

I think I'm going to put some white out in those positions on my Yamaha EUB. Compared to my main acoustic DB, the Yamaha has a shorter scale, a longer fingerboard, and a D-neck instead of an E-flat. That really makes thumb position shifts quite different between the two.

 

[the_Ryan]

I have to take issue with the mindset that fingerboard dot inlays are a bad idea or hurt one's development, and I don't even use them.

I know many incredible bassists and bass pedagogues who use and argue in favor of dots. They are a great visual reference for the practice room; of course when you're playing in an ensemble you don't want to be staring at your fingerboard the whole time. Regardless, there's a reason why more schools, teachers, and players are becoming more in favor of inlays. They're becoming more professionally accepted and many are using them due to the nature of the instrument in combination with how modern repertoire demands larger shifts and for us to play with different tonal colors. You can't always "just hear it."

I think the main trap is thinking that a line or dot is always where that note will be in tune, which is unfortunately not the case due to musical context (key, volume, instrumentation, etc.) and setup (pressing a string down to the fingerboard stretches it, so changing strings or adjusting the string height slightly changes where the notes lie). Our ears should still be the primary driver of what's "in tune" and I think dots should be reserved for when your ears are more developed, but having a visual reference can certainly help that, much like tactile references (like the neck heel or the nut) and muscle memory do.

On my bass I have 5 dots physically equidistantly spaced with the space between each dot being 1/6 the string length, which places them at the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th partials (octave, octave + 5th, 2 octaves + 5th harmonics). While they are the same physical length apart, pitch-wise they are (going from nut to bridge) a minor third, major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, and octave apart, which to me is more valuable than placing them on specific pitches because I can build the grid in my head of (roughly) how the space between pitches changes as I go up the fingerboard, which I have found helps reinforce both my ears and my fingers since my brain has that awareness of the fingerboard's geometry (rather than just going "the space between notes gets smaller as you go higher"). At this point I could probably play without them and I could just scratch them off since they're nail polish and not inlaid, but I like having them.

 

[Mark_T]

I was considering having dots put on when I had my bass made. I was planning to put dots under the key harmonics (as @the_Ryan suggested) The builder suggested I use a silver sharpie on my current bass and try them out before I committed to where the dots on the new bass should go. He said I could take the sharpie off with a tiny drop of isopropanol. It worked like a charm, but my eventual decision was to just leave off the dots. They helped me, to a point, but not so much, and I found they weren't totally reliable for reasons described in detail by others here.

I still tend to mark the octave and octave + 5th harmonics on the G string with a pencil, but in the long run I think I'm glad they're not actual dots. No judgement on people who do use sensibly placed dots, though, and maybe I'd be more in tune if I had them and really learned to use them properly?

If I am practicing a particular shift or arpeggio and am having trouble getting the proprioception right, I will occasionally mark extra lines, too, but I try to use them as a tool to learn the motion quickly and avoid practicing wrong shifts too often at the beginning, but I try to wean myself off them quickly.

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

Small inlay at the octave in the middle of the fingerboard between the A and D strings. Also at the octave+5th and 2nd octave between the D and G strings.View attachment 7093000

Just today I had two customers ask for inlays like this. Thankfully, with the popularity of Edgar Meyer and others, the stigma that using visual aids like this is somehow cheating is diminishing. Dots are a guide to aid one’s intonation; nothing more.

 

[TDAN]

When you are using your eyes you are taking focus away from your ear. Even playing with frets using your eyes becomes unnecessary with practice, using them on fretless instruments retards ear development. On a bass or double bass physical reference points felt would be better than ones requiring the use of your eyes.

I don’t know about all that, seems like there are some great players out there using all of their senses and doing alright. I don’t think looking at the fingerboard all the time makes for great musicianship any more than having my face buried in a chart. But they are both useful tools sometimes

 

[Ed S]

When you are using your eyes you are taking focus away from your ear. Even playing with frets using your eyes becomes unnecessary with practice, using them on fretless instruments retards ear development. On a bass or double bass physical reference points felt would be better than ones requiring the use of your eyes.

Sorry, but I've gotta ask for evidence supporting these assertions. Are you saying that everyone would play better with their eyes closed? Or - for some reason, vision detracts from hearing, but tactile sensation does not?

I would be interested in seeing studies that ears + eyes is worse than ears alone.

I gotta couple dots down at 3 and 5. I like them on my basses. Sometimes I look at them and sometimes I don't. I really don't care what anyone else does with their bass.

The other problem with dots is that you have to twist your neck out into the left to actually see them, so it would be much better to have them on the edge of the fingerboard.

I was wondering about this the other day. My dots are on the side. Not sure EITHER position is PERFECT ergonomically, but I thought on top might be a tad harder to see. With the possible exception of up around thumb position, as you might be more aligned with the top of the fingerboard when leaning over - but who the heck plays up there anyway?!

 

[walterw]

as a long time electric player and noob upright hacker, the best thing i did to make my upright actually viable on stage with a band was to apply some of those rub-on side dot decals! maybe it's not "proper" but upright is not my primary instrument and i know perfectly well (from playing cello in school) that fretless intonation strictly from muscle memory and ear requires constant exclusive practice on that instrument

being used to electric bass and guitar i put the dots at "frets" 3, 5 and 7 and that orients me perfectly over the range of the neck i have any business being in

i made sure that my bridge was exactly at the measured scale length i wanted and used a strobe tuner to find my equal temperament spots for the markers, so as long as my setup is correct my dots will be correct too

 

[Bass Butcher]

Sorry, but I've gotta ask for evidence supporting these assertions. Are you saying that everyone would play better with their eyes closed? Or - for some reason, vision detracts from hearing, but tactile sensation does not?

I would be interested in seeing studies that ears + eyes is worse than ears alone.

I gotta couple dots down at 3 and 5. I like them on my basses. Sometimes I look at them and sometimes I don't. I really don't care what anyone else does with their bass.


I was wondering about this the other day. My dots are on the side. Not sure EITHER position is PERFECT ergonomically, but I thought on top might be a tad harder to see. With the possible exception of up around thumb position, as you might be more aligned with the top of the fingerboard when leaning over - but who the heck plays up there anyway?!

Sorry, but I've gotta ask for evidence supporting these assertions. Are you saying that everyone would play better with their eyes closed? Or - for some reason, vision detracts from hearing, but tactile sensation does not?

I would be interested in seeing studies that ears + eyes is worse than ears alone.

I gotta couple dots down at 3 and 5. I like them on my basses. Sometimes I look at them and sometimes I don't. I really don't care what anyone else does with their bass.


I was wondering about this the other day. My dots are on the side. Not sure EITHER position is PERFECT ergonomically, but I thought on top might be a tad harder to see. With the possible exception of up around thumb position, as you might be more aligned with the top of the fingerboard when leaning over - but who the heck plays up there anyway?!

Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Jeff Healey are a few related examples of the well known relationship between vision and ear sensitivity that has been scientifically studied and documented for a few hundred years. There is also basic university level biopsychology related education available in the subject.