Sustain

[kesslari]

I thought you all would get a kick out of this.
And yeah, I know, sustain really doesn't matter in a bass - it's definitely not the primary quality (or even in the top 5) that I look for in an instrument. Though I will say that it's a nice quality to have in a fretless instrument. With that said...

We're slowly recording the next Folk in A CD.
We did a track yesterday (on my Zon fretless "Custom Sonus Elite"), and I ended the tune playing a chord (open A, C# a 10th up, E a 5th up). Just for kicks I held it and didn't stop it - just let it ring. And ring. AND... ring, untill FINALLY I stopped the notes. I asked Ted - "what kind of compression do you have on my signal?" He said "no compression, no processing".
I finally stopped it - and checked the time, it had sustained for 35 seconds before I cut it off.
I felt like the Beatles on the last chord of "A Day in the Life".

<edit> Adding a jpg of the waveform and a link to the raw audio - folks asked for it, might as well put it up here as well as in the later reply.

Audio: http://www.doumbek.com/music/zon_sustain.mp3

 

[superfunk47]

Love it. I'd like to hear it, if you've got some tracks to share.

 

[kesslari]

Will share it when we're done - he still needs to do some guitar tracks.

 

[Internet Police]

I wish I could get something like that. In before debate about sustain

 

[Bryan R. Tyler]

About what percentage of the normal volume was the sustain at after the 35sec. mark?

I personally love basses with long sustain- better to have it and not use it than need it and not have it. Manring has always gotten fantastic sustain with his Zon fretlesses....always sounded great to me.

 

[kesslari]

I don't have the wave form in front of me to look at, so I'm writing from memory. By 35 seconds it was definitely at the "end of a fadeout" kind of volume, present but low.
The waveform resembles a triangle on its side (one point toward the right) with a long tail. The "triangle" is a few seconds long. The "tail" continues on, and at 20-25 seconds was still about half the volume of the beginning of the tail.

I'll see if I can get T-bone to send me the end of the file and will post it here.

 

[darkstorm]

Kewl. Yeah there may not be a lot of occassions to make use of long sustain with bass. But its a great thing to have available whenever wanted. Makes a nice compliment to the cut real short by fretting mutes stuff at times to. Lol.

 

[kesslari]

Ask and ye shall receive. Naked bass track, no sweetening, compression, or any effects, no other tracks added yet. But it's enough to illustrate the point.

Audio: http://www.doumbek.com/music/zon_sustain.mp3

 

[Josh Pelican]

I don't have the recording anymore, but I had my bass tuned an octave lower and wanted to record an open E0 just to show some friends. It rang out for close to 25-30 seconds before I turned it off.

I had pretty good earbuds in. With regular laptop speakers or crappy computer speakers, you couldn't hear anything except the first little rumble.

I love bass sustain.

 

[lowphatbass]

Nice! Sustain is great, quite handy and effective when I'm playing R&B/Neo Soul tunes that were originally recorded with keybass. The old Dingwall goes forever with what sounds like tons of fundamental.

 

[shannons]

Yep, since I got my Dingwall a few months back, there's nothing better than hitting that Low B & listening to it sustain for a solid minute. Soundmen love this bass. Almost all of them say they leave the board EQ flat & just turn me up because it sounds that good. Makes me happy.