Weak A string in A D G C tuning

[sokolasty]

Dear fellow all over the world

I struggle to get a decent tone of low A string, no matter the gauge or make (DR, Pyramid, Ernie Ball, Harley Benton)

I use Harley Benton Value .105, .085, .065 for D G C respectively and D'Addario XLB 160 for A, and it sounds weak in my ears

Here the four strings played from C do A open and fifth and seventh fret respectively
Recorded via Rumble Studio 40 USB interface to PC



Below the pics of witness points:

What can I improve to get decent sound? Should I try tapered strings? Should I drill a hole to lead A string through body?

 

[Isaac_James]

.160 is HUGE for an A string. Most B strings are in the .120-.130 range - if you can find something closer to .130 or even .140 you might have better results. How much have you experimented with different gauges? The massive jump in gauge is the most obvious difference here, just looking at the strings.

Also, it's hard to tell from the pictures, but I'm not sure that the end wrap on that string ends before the bridge saddle. You might not have a very good witness point there. I'd be a little hesitant to drill a hole through the end of the bass if it were mine, but if you're set on that gauge that might solve the issue. Either take it to a professional or check in at the Luthier's Corner forum if you're not 100% confident in what you're doing there.

 

[Elusive1]

Raise the pickup on the A string side?

 

[Derek Kay]

Try a custom size, say between 100 and 125

Check online with string tension tables to find a similar weight to the others to gain an understanding of the parameters involved

That would be a great tuning for octave effects

 

[Killing Floor]

What are you doing? Looks like you kidnapped that headstock.

 

[Drop1]

I dont like big strings. I understand they can help with tension for lower tunings but I find smaller strings actually produce more bass (usually.)

In your case, your 2 lowest strings both sounded a bit lower in volume to me. Raise those pickups on that side or lower the pups on the other side .

From what I heard in your sound clip, adjusting the pups should get you were you want to be.
Ignore any "this should be your pickup height" nonsense and set them however you need to to get an even a response as possible.

I have soap bars in my bass and I can't get the strings to sound "perfectly" even, but I do what I can woth the pups amd use the saddles to do the rest. This usually means raising the middle 2 saddles a touch for me. Nothing crazy. Just a touch. The rest I do with my fingers. I naturally just play louder strings softer.

 

[Killing Floor]

Is the string designed to be tuned to A at the scale you're using?

If it's a B you should know it's made to be tuned a whole step higher even if you don't prefer that to be true. So you have to make adjustments to your expectations.

 

[FatherTrucker]

Others have said this but I'll reiterate. That .160 is way overkill for low A. .130-.140 is plenty. I'm sure the time you are getting has a lot to do with that big chunky string.

 

[sunbeast]

That sounds pretty consistent with downtuned strings on a 34" scale instrument- lots of 34" 5-strings sound even more unbalanced on the low string than yours. Big fat strings tend to have a lot of harmonic "mush" to the sound compared to thinner strings which makes their tone less sharp and distinct even though they may have similar tension to the higher strings- part of that is that the larger strings have more relative wrap wire vs core wire than smaller strings which is mostly adding harmonics in the midrange. This is the reason for longer scale instruments and multi scale instruments, which both allow you to use smaller gauge strings so you can get a clear tone and still keep reasonable tension (tension also affects tone and the relative volume of overtones). The longer the scale for those low strings the clearer they can ring.

Also worth noting that reproduction of actual subs takes a lot of power and special speakers. Typical bass cabinets don't really reproduce the fundamental or even first harmonic of a note like a low A very well, and neither do many consumer headphones and speakers. This can make those low notes sound relatively weaker to higher ones depending on what you are listening through.

Of course first step I would recommend is to get a matching set of strings just to have an even playing field tonally (get all the strings in D'addario XLs). I suspect this will get you a bit closer at least, though my experience suggests the bass itself may just not play well tuned that low due to scale and construction.

 

[XLunacy]

Additional piece of advice: do not solely judge how the bass sounds by itself, or you could spend a lot of time and money trying to fix something that might completely disappear the second you plug into your signal chain thanks to one component or another.
How does it sound when played through your amp? This is what really matters.

 

[Prodigus Filius]

String through makes no difference imho. Been there done that.

The takeoff point for all the strings at the nut looks to be at the rear of the nut slot rather the front. Could be camera angle.

 

[Five or Six]

What are you doing? Looks like you kidnapped that headstock.

Looks like a zip tie?

 

[Ritter667]

With that huge gauge for an A the tension of it combined with its thickness is likely to make it too inflexible and thereby preventing it from vibrating properly, which will affect both tone, sustain and output negatively.

Try using a string tension calculator next time you chose strings, and chose something a little more sensible and even.

And you'll generally want lower strings with a little less tension compared to the other strings as the effect described above works synergetic as a function of scale length (the shorter the scale length), gauge (the higher the gauge) and tension (the greater the tension) combined.

 

[ghiggin1079]

I have nothing to add here, I'm just surprised you got a 160 up to A without it snapping and taking out your eye

 

[HaphAsSard]

I have nothing to add here, I'm just surprised you got a 160 up to A without it snapping and taking out your eye

Why? It's gotta be about the same tension as a 080 tuned to the next-octave A, and a larger core.


It's funny how so many assume the OP went straight to 160 for their A0. In every likelihood they tried it all, from 130 up, and liked them even worse than the current string gauge.

@sokolasty:
- have you ever heard about "critical bands"? The short of it is that pairs of frequencies, even at an interval that normally sounds good, can be rough-sounding if they are at a distance that make them interfere with each other while exciting the basal membrane in the inner ear (the signal sent to the auditory centres by one of the two is partially masked, and the brain associates a sense of roughness to this masking). In short, this causes close-voiced chords to sound bad when played toward the left end of a piano keyboard - or on any instrument, for that matter - it's not a question of "tone" (which is determined by the balance of partials, as well as other factors such as note-attack noises), but of fundamental frequencies.
The thing is, A0 (which is, perhaps not coincidentally, the lowest note of a standard, 88-key piano) is in and of itself a little bit rough, internally, because any pair of its lowest partials fall within the same critical band.

- Anyway, your opening post clarifies you're not satisfied with the tone of the whole string, not just the open note.
If so, it may be the inharmonicity (which increases the shorter the active section of vibrating string becomes, with fretting - in practice, the higher up the board you go) you don't like.
Try a custom order from Newtone Strings in the UK.

Custom Bass String Configurator – Newtone Strings

newtonestrings.com

^ Specify 1) "Diamond" for the type, 2) round core, 3) a taper at the bridge (use the notes to tell them the ball-end to 5th-saddle distance, so that the tapering point is just past that, and no further) and 4) the thinnest gauge you found yourself comfortable using (regardless of tone, then) at A0 in your earlier experiments. Personally, I would also 5) choose stainless steel instead of nickel-plated.
If you're still not satisfied, and the vaguely chorus-like tone at mid-fretboard is still annoying (or becomes so at a lower point than you'd prefer),
check out Kemp Strings

Lumped bass guitar strings from Kemp Strings!

University of St Andrews and Kemp Strings inventor Dr Jonathan Kemp has just developed a new concept in bass guitar strings design which reduces inharomicity, improving tone when playing high up th…

kempstrings.com

^ A warning: they're not cheap. In order to have a feel for their approach,

Check this out as well. Note last post about tungsten tape instead of lead tape by yours truly https://www.talkbass.com/threads/low-inharmonicity-strings-esp-short-scale.1656545/

Tungsten Tape

- As pointed out by others, amplification, and specifically the speaker component, is crucial. What are you currently using?

- Oh, and no: string-through-body makes no difference.

 

[TOOL460002]

That string is huge but can you play it more forcefully to get an even tone? Only gone down to BEAD with a 125 and even that could be a 130 if I'm honest, so if I'm guessing at a low A (assuming DR Hi Beams or DDT's), I cannot imagine anything over 140 would be necessary.

 

[Erik Stokley]

I tune to A and have used dozens of 160s-165. The problem is the wrap sitting on the saddle, a tapered 160 would help that for sure. With that said I've stopped using 160+ because the tension isn't all that much different (only about 4 more lbs of pressure than a 145), and it's hard to intonate with that short of a travel distance between the ball and the saddle. Id try a tapered 145.

 

[DanAdams]

The tension is playing off a wire tie. Not exactly a solid anchor.
Try holding down the other strings pressure with a wire tie rather than the string tree and see what happens to sound on those strings.
I also agree about the string seeming too fat. doing an extra wrap on that tuner post would help bring down the string a bit.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

D'Addario XLB 160 for A, and it sounds weak in my ears

If you are talking about A in the zero octave,(A0) the open string is 27.5 Hz, which is down near the low frequency threshold of human hearing. It’s going to sound weak to human ears unless it’s amplified significantly more than the higher frequency strings and even then, the timbre of a .160” string compared to a .105, .085, or .065 string is probably going to be significantly different. A thinner string might make the timbre of the fretted notes on the A string sound a more like the other strings, but it probably won’t make the open string output the same db level as the other strings to human ears without some boost. You’re dealing with frequencies that are well within the hearing range of whales, but almost to the extreme low end of human hearing. It will take some sophisticated EQ to make A0 sound the same level to humans as, say A1.

 

[sokolasty]

Thank you for your contribution here, it's helpful and I'll try out some of suggestions


To collectively answer questions:

1.
I tried 130, 135, 140, 145 and jumped to 160 as I hoped to improve sound by increasing string diameter
Well, It did not
It's not about the volume, as I can modify PUP height and I can as well extend pole pieces with small round magnets.
It's about tembr. There's no punch in it. It's slow volume increase instead of sudden one

2.
Zip tie on a headstock increases the bending angle and thus the intonation. Leo back then did not made an angled headstock so almost nobody does it. There's not enough room to put round plate style string retainer, so a zip tie
You can repair many things with it


3. Fender Stage 800 + F210 extCab and Fender Studio 40
Option 2: Markbass head and Markbass 410
However it's not about farting out or playing below speaker possibility. We hear mostly harmonics anyway. I can hear the same issue with Bose QC25 headphones.

Next question:
Is this possible that pick ups are tuned for frequency of 41Hz minimum or that makes no sense?