Bass fiddling night tonight. Been listening to The Bass Nerds and their two episodes featuring Jauqo III X. Fascinating fella, superb bassist, and one of the people who inspired me to pursue playing subcontra, so I've been thinking about that low end a lot the last few days. I want to push more audible sustain out of my lowest string. This is something that has been bothering me for a while. Virtually all its sustain is on the fundamental and the first harmonic at 21 and 42Hz respectively. So it's technically audible but it's kind of edging on it and doesn't have all that much character.
I tried to lower my pickups, but one screw stripped pretty hard so now I'm stuck with a crooked pickup until I get a new screw lol. It seems to work to an extent. The sustain is about the same level, but the attack is quieter, meaning I can push more volume to get some more sustain in the long run. This kind of goes hand in hand with my technique. I play hard. I should play softer and turn up the volume. Still, it feels so counter-intuitive to play softly when I'm trying to sound like an earth-shaking, mind-blowing wall of sound. Compressors do a lot to even this out for me but I could probably be getting more value out of them by adjusting my technique and re-tuning compression accordingly.
Other than all that I'm kind of out of ideas here with regards to setup and sound. The sustain is mostly on the first harmonic at 42Hz. The other harmonics fade pretty quick. Even if I wanted to EQ it up there isn't really anything to work with. I don't think the pickups are lacking. They pick up the full range of frequencies I'm looking at fine, so I don't think another set of pickups would magically make more harmonics appear.
The strings are naturally the core of this issue, but I like flats and I like these a lot in particular. To me, they have a kind of caramel timbre. It's very smooth, kind of goopy, but has a truckload of character. I can't imagine any other strings doing this better, and I don't know what I want if I don't want this tone.
I have been looking for a subwoofer but I've been through two deals that both didn't go through. No doubt reproduction will help, but it won't give me the 3rd-4th harmonic sustain I'm looking for regardless. Headphones are fine but it just doesn't have the same feeling when playing. And I think I need to be able to create a good mix without a subwoofer.
Should I go about and build a sustainer of my own or should I just rely on the EHX Superego? I haven't toyed with the latter enough to see how it holds up compared to natural sustain in that region, but I know for a fact that my HOG2, which also has freezing functions, has a tendency to lose some low end. I could easily split my signal, run one path into a volume pedal for control, and then into a class D pedal amplifier going into a sustainer. I honestly wonder if this has actually been done with class D amps before. Fernandes' designs have been around for a long while at this point and I think most DIY solutions based themselves on the tin can amplifier one. Just need to make a sustainer then. I've looked into it before. Not that I got all that far with the project it was part of -- I was getting ahead of myself a bit, trying to build a kind of kicked droning instrument. But building an instrument is on my bucket list, and I pride myself in my ability to half-heartedly attempt solving problems that no one actually had. So I don't think a sustainer is all that far fetched. I need like, a 3D printer for the bobbin, some wire, magnets, and a suitable connector.
Thanks for being the outlet for my megalomania, y'all.
I tried to lower my pickups, but one screw stripped pretty hard so now I'm stuck with a crooked pickup until I get a new screw lol. It seems to work to an extent. The sustain is about the same level, but the attack is quieter, meaning I can push more volume to get some more sustain in the long run. This kind of goes hand in hand with my technique. I play hard. I should play softer and turn up the volume. Still, it feels so counter-intuitive to play softly when I'm trying to sound like an earth-shaking, mind-blowing wall of sound. Compressors do a lot to even this out for me but I could probably be getting more value out of them by adjusting my technique and re-tuning compression accordingly.
Other than all that I'm kind of out of ideas here with regards to setup and sound. The sustain is mostly on the first harmonic at 42Hz. The other harmonics fade pretty quick. Even if I wanted to EQ it up there isn't really anything to work with. I don't think the pickups are lacking. They pick up the full range of frequencies I'm looking at fine, so I don't think another set of pickups would magically make more harmonics appear.
The strings are naturally the core of this issue, but I like flats and I like these a lot in particular. To me, they have a kind of caramel timbre. It's very smooth, kind of goopy, but has a truckload of character. I can't imagine any other strings doing this better, and I don't know what I want if I don't want this tone.
I have been looking for a subwoofer but I've been through two deals that both didn't go through. No doubt reproduction will help, but it won't give me the 3rd-4th harmonic sustain I'm looking for regardless. Headphones are fine but it just doesn't have the same feeling when playing. And I think I need to be able to create a good mix without a subwoofer.
Should I go about and build a sustainer of my own or should I just rely on the EHX Superego? I haven't toyed with the latter enough to see how it holds up compared to natural sustain in that region, but I know for a fact that my HOG2, which also has freezing functions, has a tendency to lose some low end. I could easily split my signal, run one path into a volume pedal for control, and then into a class D pedal amplifier going into a sustainer. I honestly wonder if this has actually been done with class D amps before. Fernandes' designs have been around for a long while at this point and I think most DIY solutions based themselves on the tin can amplifier one. Just need to make a sustainer then. I've looked into it before. Not that I got all that far with the project it was part of -- I was getting ahead of myself a bit, trying to build a kind of kicked droning instrument. But building an instrument is on my bucket list, and I pride myself in my ability to half-heartedly attempt solving problems that no one actually had. So I don't think a sustainer is all that far fetched. I need like, a 3D printer for the bobbin, some wire, magnets, and a suitable connector.
Thanks for being the outlet for my megalomania, y'all.
