Weird harmonic question

[PAguy]

I'm looking for some help here. It seems when I play cheaper basses, I get a lot of unwanted harmonic ring. I don't find this to be the case with 'better' basses. Examples: I have cheaper Ibanez and an American Fender Jazz. I get the unwanted harmonic ring on Ibanez, but don't find the same problem on the Jazz.
Yesterday, while auditioning some new 5 string basses, I had the same problem. I was at GC playing a nice $900 Ibanez and a $300 MM Sub. I was playing the groove of "Stuck in the Middle with You", fretting the D. I heard the harmonic ringing out on the Sub, making the groove sound muddy. I then picked up the Ibanez and played the same groove, but I did not have that ringing harmonic problem on the Ibanez. I swapped basses again and found I had to work a lot harder with muting to keep that D harmonic from ringing out.
Am I crazy, or is something others have experienced?

 

[Nephilymbass]

Some basses have those weird oddities. Production basses are mostly made by machine these days and there's very little staff (if more than one guy per company that handles quality control of basses so they are under preasure to keep things moving along. I know for me one thing I used to have problems with was slapping close to the neck on 24 fret basses and accidentally causing the 24fret harmonic to go off at times. That was pretty much fixed by moving my right hand back some. I don't know if that's any help for you but I tried

 

[j.kernodle]

could just be a crappy string. if the string got twisted during installation it can have all kinds of wierd harmonics.

 

[ShonenCello]

My cheap Ibanez did this also.

I solved the problem when I stopped playing it.

 

[Remus_Redbone]

Next time you experience this phenomenon, notice if you can also feel the body &/or neck vibrating much more when you play the note with "weird harmonic". If you do feel that note through the body / neck, you are experiencing the cause of "dead spots". When the body or neck resonates at a specific frequency (note), it will soak up, or dampen the vibration of the string. What you hear is a harmonic of the note you played, because the fundamental was "absorbed" by the wood. The harmonic is usually higher pitch and does not get absorbed, because the body / neck doesn't resonate at the frequency of the harmonic. ...and it's usually more common on cheaper basses due to the wood type / quality, but not always. It's why graphite necks are so cool. Their resonant frequency is higher than the range of the bass, therefore, they usually don't have dead spots, unless they are bolted to a wood body that resonates somewhere in the bass freq range.....