Sustain - Is it Overrated?

[Volker Kirstein]

At what tempo? : D

Slow blues, so somewhere around 60, depending on who's counting off.

 

[bholder]

Until you play arco ... then you have infinit sustain.

Or you can get a Fernandes Sustainer bass like I did!

 

[Andy Daventry]

Sustain is not the issue it once was because the standard of mass produced basses has increased astronomically over the past 40 years. Sometimes it's easy to forget how absolutely abysmal basses could be "back in the day".

 

[dbsfgyd1]

So I’ve been playing for around 10 or 11 years now and have been a TalkBass junkie for pretty much the entire time. I’ve had around 20-25 different basses during this timeframe from $300-$400 models all the up to ones in the $2,500 range. With all those basses I’m not sure I’ve ever had one that truly (by definition) didn’t have at least one dead spot. Obviously some were more pronounced than others. That said one of thing I’ve learned with playing is the importance of your technique especially in the sense of muting strings so you don’t get the sympathetic vibration string noise (I.e. playing cleanly). I play primarily with my fingers so it’s usually some variation of the floating thumb technique. My point and question is this, it seems like controlling the dynamics and/or unwanted sustain/ringing of the wrong notes is more important than sustain and yet it seems we fixate on finding the unicorn bass where each note rings out perfectly on every fret on every string. I get the importance of sustain from a guitars perspective, but do we overrate sustain when it comes to bass? For example, so many of or 60’s and 70’s bass heroes used flats and stuck sponges under the strings close to the bridge. That seems to suggest sustain wasn’t at all important to them. Why then has it become so important to us?

With the majority of songs being in the 60 beats a minute or more needing a 10 second sustain is not likely.
I have yet to have a bass that has dead spots. Dead spots, or excessively excitable spots in a room are much more common.

Is sustain over rated? Maybe for the guys that haven’t changed their strings since the Hoover administration. For me, I have fresh rounds on my basses and I like a bit of it. More often than not, it’s used for proper phrasing, not a major core of my bass playing style. Sustain for 8 beats is good enough for 99% of what I need.

 

[lat]

Ironic that some folks keep on going on and on about sustain...

 

[Vinny_G]

Ironic that some folks keep on going on and on about sustain...

You mean on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on ...

 

[lat]

You mean on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on ...

You'd think that would be unsustainable...

 

[JoeWPgh]

I view sustain as a symptom, rather than an end result. If there is a lot of sustain, it means the strings are ringing freely. This will affect the overall tone with mid to upper harmonic content. When the strings do not ring freely, they sound dead, or muted. So 'sustain' is crucial to me, but not for sustain itself - if this makes any sense.

 

[JoeWPgh]

I view sustain as a symptom, rather than an end result. If there is a lot of sustain, it means the strings are ringing freely. This will affect the overall tone with mid to upper harmonic content. When the strings do not ring freely, they sound dead, or muted. So 'sustain' is crucial to me, but not for sustain itself - if this makes any sense.

 

[Axstar]

Sustain is something I want my basses to have, even if I don't use it I suppose! I want the same sustain and tonality across all four strings on each of my basses.

I'm not sure if this is why so many people stuck brass nuts and Badass bridges on their Fenders in the '70s, however.

 

[OptimalOptimus]

Or you can get a Fernandes Sustainer bass like I did!

Your intonation was off in some spots.

It also sounds a little ... kinda crappy. I think it works better on guitar with some reverb to make it like an echo.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

I think sustain is overrated. If you get the feedback loop from an amp in close proximity, any bass is going to have great sustain. Dead spots however can kill an otherwise great bass. Had one bass that played great, but would drop to almost nothing when you played the C# on the G string. I avoided that note and played it on the D string, but it was frustrating.

 

[bholder]

Your intonation was off in some spots.

It also sounds a little ... kinda crappy. I think it works better on guitar with some reverb to make it like an echo.

Yeah imperfect sloppy playing, but yeah, you get the gist of the effect, it's kind of buzzy and overtone-heavy for bass, hard to use musically. Any yeah still working on intonation, always. lol

 

[bcbassman]

Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

You nailed it! Most players will like an instrument that sustains over one that doesn't.
That's why there are not many bass banjo.
Now somebody is going to find one. LOL

 

[lfmn16]

For me it's not that it's overrated, it's that I've never had an electric bass that didn't have enough sustain.

 

[David Jayne]

You nailed it! Most players will like an instrument that sustains over one that doesn't.
That's why there are not many bass banjos.
Now somebody is going to find one. LOL

Maybe. Basses that sustain the longest tend to be carbon-neck-through-active etc etc. And they tend to sound different than an average-y sustaining bass like a Fender. Different folks-different goals.

 

[TheCouchBassist]

This may come as some shock to you, but not all of us like the same things. For example, you don't like sustain, not do those cats who stick foam under their bridges. That's fine! There's nothing at all wrong with that. But I don't play the same kind of music. I need a lot of sustain and I built a bass capable of giving it to me complete with graphite neck, high mass bridge, solid tuners and a tight neck joint. Sometimes I even use an ebow for really long synth like notes. Not everyone would like what I play. But that's fine because we don't all like the same things and there's nothing wrong with that.

I always get a kick out of how defensive people get on TalkBass.
I didn't say in any my posts that I don't like sustain, I think its great.
What I was wondering is if too many of us (not all of us) put too much importance on it.

 

[TheCouchBassist]

Also, the title of my post was "Is Sustain Overrated" not "Sustain IS Overrated".
I've been on TB long enough to know you don't post those types blanket/black & white statement types of posts based purely on your own opinion.
I learned this the hard way with a "TI Flats are Overrated" thread about five years ago.
I rightfully got the TB version of tarred and feathered for that bone-headed thread

 

[/\/\3phist0]

Maybe. Basses that sustain the longest tend to be carbon-neck-through-active etc etc. And they tend to sound different than an average-y sustaining bass like a Fender. Different folks-different goals.

This Brubaker NBS lightwave has incredible sustain. Add a compressor.
It goes for, serious, about a minute.

 

[TheCouchBassist]

Also, the title of my post was "Is Sustain Overrated" not "Sustain IS Overrated".
I've been on TB long enough to know you don't post those types blanket/black & white statement types of posts based purely on your own opinion.
I learned this the hard way with a "TI Flats are Overrated" thread about five years ago.
I rightfully got the TB version of tarred and feathered for that bone-headed thread

 

[andruca]

I have always suspected that a lot of the people who are concerned about requiring infinite sustain are really just looking for way to justify a $5000 custom boutique neck-thru build.

And even then it's still no guarantee.

 

[Rob Martinez]

How long does anyone need a bass note to ring out? THAT is the question!

 

[TheCouchBassist]

Also, the title of my post was "Is Sustain Overrated" not "Sustain IS Overrated".
I've been on TB long enough to know you don't post those types blanket/black & white statement types of posts based purely on your own opinion.
I learned this the hard way with a "TI Flats are Overrated" thread about five years ago.
I rightfully got the TB version of tarred and feathered for that bone-headed thread

 

[Nev375]

I always get a kick out of how defensive people get on TalkBass.
I didn't say in any my posts that I don't like sustain, I think its great.
What I was wondering is if too many of us (not all of us) put too much importance on it.

I apologize for my defensiveness. I guess I incorrectly assumed that you were asking an honest question and had genuinely not understood why people like basses with lots of sustain. It's not often I meet a person who loves something who would ask why other people love the same thing.

Now that you've clarified your question, I'll go ahead and point out the obvious answer.

Whether people place too much importance on it depends entirely on if they can or ever will use it. Since there is a significant portion of people in the world who do not analyze their needs to any great degree, and since it's safe to assume that some of those people play bass, then yes. Some people put too much importance on it.

However, to be perfectly technical (as we apparently need to be) to answer the question of if "too many" put too much importance on it, well, that requires statistical data which I don't think any of us have. Also it requires specifying exactly how much "too many" is.