Setting up a bass for finger tapping.

I would think you need some low action on that baby to get those notes to sound right. I have a p-bass with REALLY high action and tapping is near impossable on it. it sorta sounds like you were talking about.

 

hey polly bass, what do you mean by high or low action? I think I heard some thing like that before but had no idea what it meant..

By the way, I do a lot of tapping and used to have a D or C# tuning on my 4 string, with standard string gauge, It felt nice fot tapping, but yesterday, after more than a year of playing with that tuning, i tuned it EADG and played some stuff on it, it sounded much better... The presence on the lower (E and A) strings was much clearer and stronger.. so.. I deduced that less tension gives less resonance and presence on tapping. And obviously, the separation between the strings and the fingerboeard must be minimum..

 

That IS low action

 

Low action is best for tapping because then you don't have to press down too hard and waste energy. If you are getting fretbuzz with tapping, then you need to figure out if some frets are too high or the neck/ bridge/ nut is set up incorrectly.

 

GOOOOD! I just learned a new term...