Upright NS design Wav bass, weird sound on E string

[zekmoe]

So i bought locally an NS Design upright wav series 5 string. Mostly to learn on, wasn’t super expensive and looked to be in perfect shape. I only noodled with it in the store and didn’t plug it in.

Home on the E string, there seems to be sound odd doubling occurring . It’s like a double note or some super out of tune relative harmonic. Somewhat distracting. It’s also not every time so it’s possible it’s caused by my technique. I’m not familiar with these and wanted to learn but I do know strings both make a huge difference and are pretty expensive. I have no idea what strings are on it.

Any idea if it’s possibly broken in some way? Seems like a simple device and it’s all I want/need to learn on. But I want it to work. How would I go about finding out if it’s just the way it sounds, if it’s a technique I’m missing or something else. I did notice on the NS design site they recommended using direct box which I have some decent ones( countryman and Avalon). Been playing electric bass for 45 yRs and thought this would be fun
Thanks for any suggestions

 

[Wasnex]

Could be a dead spot.

If you bought the bass new it should have proprietary strings that D'Addario makes for NS Design. There are two options and I believe you can buy full sets or individual strings. It's also supposed to be compatible with standard upright bass strings.

AFAIK the WAV is passive. I.E. there is no active preamp to buffer the piezo pickups. A regular DI is not going to help if you plug into an amp. The Thru on most DIs is a parallel connection to the input. So if you connect the bass to a DI and run the Thru to an amp, the input impedance of the amp is placed in parallel with the input impedance of the DI. The resulting impedance will be even lower than plugging straight into the amp.

Radial makes a couple of DIs with buffered Thru connections. The PZDI has switchable input impedance (220K, 1Meg, and 10Meg). The Thru can be set to parallel or buffered. The StageBug SB-4 has 5 Meg input impedance and the Thru is always buffered. Both of the DIs require phantom power.


10 Meg is often thrown around as the ideal impedance for a piezo pickup, but the ideal value is often between about 2-4 Meg. It varies by pickup design. In general, the minimum for a piezo is 1 Meg, but some of them work fine with a lower impedance. Use your ears.

If the WAV requires a higher impedance than your amp provides, you need a buffer or some sort of inline preamp. First step is set a budget. I and others can offer suggestions.

 

[jTrolt]

I think you are describing what's called a "wolf tone".

This is an unwanted ringing tone coming from the portion of string running from the anchor point of a given string to the contact point on that bridge. Obviously, it's way longer than an electric bass guitar, so it has the ability to get excited, somewhat like a harp guitar, yet in a non-musical fashion, as you've discovered. Further, there is a piezo pickup under that bridge, so it picks up vibrations from both sides of that bridge, unlike a magnetic pickup only responding to that which is moving above it. This is why it may seem odd if this is your first foray into upright playing.

Solution? pretty easy. You just need to damp it.
I have an NS WAV5, and found that I had the same issue just on the B string. I used a half-round self adhesive desktop cable routing button made of rubber, roughly the diameter of a quarter. Simply pinch it between the string and the instrument body, wedged down into the angle as it approaches the string's ball end.
I would also note that the issue seems to mellow as the strings age as well, and this can be several weeks to a couple months for full break in.

Common issue, simple solution. Try any form of foam rubber item you may have around. If you want to get fancy, you can get a Nano-Mute to rest down on that end of the strings, but that's a bit overkill and mildly awkward looking. You really only need a small amount of preferably rubber or foam rubber to pinch in there, damp it down and get back to playing.

I love my NS WAV, and I'm sure you will too!

 

[jTrolt]

Further note: When string shopping, check out Gollihur music. He has a full dissertation on the NS WAV instruments, as he's a dealer, and goes into great detail on the colors of the string wraps/ball ends as an aid in helping you identify what's currently on there. I'm on my second set of strings since I bought it close to 4 years ago. Went with the DAddario contemporary strings. I'd say it was close to 6-9 months before they calmed down, and at about 2 years into them, they are quite tame and mellow.

AND- I use a K&K preamp velcro'd to the back of the instrument body. 9V operation goes as long as a typical active bass preamp, balances your piezo output so you can plug straight into any conventional amp or pedal. I use it live with a NUX wireless, and enjoy great sound and freedom of life without cables on stage. These two items can be had for under $300.

Bottom line: get familiar with Mark Gollihur. Great guy, great store. You'll learn a lot by simply reading his lengthy advice posted on almost everything they sell. They are upright gurus that specialize in all the NS instruments too.

Enjoy!

 

[zekmoe]

Thanks. I think the wolf tone thing is very possible but it seems mostly I can contain it by right hand technique. Technique is more amplified on this obviously but I think I can manage as a learning bass.

I did look for a K&K preamp but the place that’s a dealer didn’t have any, so I bought a NUX which seems adequate for my needs. Certainly helps gain and tone wise. In the guitar space I’m a huge pedal guy so setting up a small pedalboard with this pre and a compressor and delay is predetermined.

I need a YouTube collection of bluegrass and traditional roots rock to play to and I’ll check back in a year or so.

Thanks, having fun so far.

 

[Francois Blais]

I did look for a K&K preamp but the place that’s a dealer didn’t have any, so I bought a NUX which seems adequate for my needs.

Which one did you buy?

 

[zekmoe]

Which one did you buy?

The off white one with the piezo impedance.
I think the weird sound I was getting was fully my technique . A couple of weeks practice and it seems to have gone away for the most part. Again , I’m not at all experience with upright despite playing bass for 40 plus years. It’s different beast