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What do you do about dead spots?
- Thread starter darwin-bass
- Start date
I understand completely why dead spots (aka reduced sustain areas if they aren't pronounced enough to be called a "dead spot") occur - I studied Acoustical Physics of musical instruments in college (yes, there is a professor that is the world's expert in this, and he was my professor). Anyway, I also build my basses, so I have control over the minimization of such things.
I use roasted maple necks with graphite reinforcement (from Warmoth), and Hipshot Ultralite tuners. I also play mostly thick necked 5'ers at this point. All of those things move the "area of reduced sustain" up the neck - usually occurs on the 8th or 9th fret on the G string on my basses, and it's less pronounced as a result of all this.
The way I play, I do use notes in that area on the G string but mostly as octaves or fifths in conjunction with the note an octave or a fifth below - generally not in isolation. As a result of all this, I don't really notice the reduced sustain in my playing.
I use roasted maple necks with graphite reinforcement (from Warmoth), and Hipshot Ultralite tuners. I also play mostly thick necked 5'ers at this point. All of those things move the "area of reduced sustain" up the neck - usually occurs on the 8th or 9th fret on the G string on my basses, and it's less pronounced as a result of all this.
The way I play, I do use notes in that area on the G string but mostly as octaves or fifths in conjunction with the note an octave or a fifth below - generally not in isolation. As a result of all this, I don't really notice the reduced sustain in my playing.
Odd isn't it that they seem to be less of a problem with a five string? I have noticed this as well.
Wherever the deadspot occurs on your G string, hold down the octave below note on your A string. Now play the note on the G and the dead spot is gone. You’ll only need to do this once is a blue moon for something requiring long notes (like a ballad).
Liko's pretty much said what I was going to say. A few years ago, I tried to do as much reading on this subject as I could; trying to limit my research to articles that were as science-based as I could find. Liko's summed up most of what I found out, quite well. A couple of things, though;
1. It's important to remember that this is not just a neck problem. The bass' body plays a large part, too. And, in the case of a bolt-on neck bass? So does the joint between the neck and the body. A couple of articles that I read mentioned that slight variations in the tightness of the screws holding the neck onto the body had a very noticeable effect on dead spots. I can vouch for this. My '78 Fender P-Bass had no dead spots - until I took the neck off for a string change and a truss rod adjustment several years ago. After all that? A noticeable dead spot in the usual place. Slightly loosening the 2 outer neck screws (about 1/8 turn, IIRC) made it go away. And, so far, it hasn't returned... Personally, I have a suspicion that the lack of this mechanical joint is the reason very few neck-thru basses have dead spots - or very minor ones, if they do. I own 6 of the things; no dead spots that I can hear...
2. Yes, it's true that scales other than 34" seem to have much less trouble with dead spots. I don't have any extra-long scale basses, but I do have 7 short scale basses - and no dead spots. Interestingly, one of them - a Warmoth Mini-Precision - has a Swamp Ash body and a Maple neck/fingerboard, with large Schaller BM-4 tuners. Almost a duplicate of my Fender - other than the scale - it would seem to be a perfect candidate for a serious dead spot. Nope; doesn't have one...
3. Yes, it's also true that basses with (mostly) necks, or bodies that aren't made of wood hardly ever have dead spots. But, my engineering soul compels me to point out that - yes, they actually do have dead spots. And, if the necks were long/short enough - or the body was less/more dense, you would be able to hear those dead spots. But, fortunately, they aren't - so you can't. I have 3 basses with aluminum necks; 2 have 31" scale necks, one is 34" scale. No dead spots there, either...
So, what can you do? Basically, changing the resonance frequency of the neck or the body (or both); messing with the neck screws (assuming you have them); or just living with it, is about all you can do with the bass you have. Getting a short scale bass, or a neck-thru, is always an option - might not be one you like, though. Or, you could always get a bass with a carbon fiber or aluminum neck - again, might not be a viable option for you. Otherwise? Well, I never heard of banjo's having dead spots; my long scale '63 ODE Model 33 certainly doesn't...
The only time I noticed any such spots was decades ago…I remember the trick a guitar play showed me on his strat of taking the smallest C clamp available, and experiment with positioning. I recall it working pretty well..
No, he makes untested and unsupported assertions. If vibration through use made any actual difference, it would be extremely easy to reproduce in controlled and repeatable scientific experiments, but I've not seen any, and I bet there aren't any.
This makes as much sense as break in of audio cables.
If Richard Feynmann had made this claim, I would have questioned it without seeing the evidence.
Same here. I've never noticed a dead spot on any bass I played. I'm not saying none of them had dead spots...just that I didn't notice them. After hearing about dead spots a lot on this forum, I finally checked YouTube and I was surprised to see there are very few videos about dead spots.
Being nit-picky, resonance has to be in-phase. It's that since the body is relatively amorphous this in-phase movement tends to end up in a small amount of sound emitted by the body, but mostly heat. Heat can't be transferred back to the string in-phase. It makes me laugh when I read the blurb for things like the G&L L-2000 saying how great the bridge is at transferring energy to the body and making it a resonant instrument as that is the last thing I want. Thankfully, it is also a nonsense blurb and how much the non-vibrating part of the string contacts the body is pretty irrelevant apart from the break angle and that adds stiffness to the system which helps very slighty, rather than increasing 'resonance'.
This might make sense for acoustic instruments with flat plate resonators (guitar tops), but not electric instruments. You can make a guitar from wood, plexiglass, concrete, or cardboard and resin and they sound pretty much indistinguishable as tests have shown. The small amount of polymerisation of resins that occur in a solid body instrument from vibration and age aren't going to make much difference that I can see to the modes of vibration. If it did, then Fenders would not routinely have a dead spot in the same location even when made of different woods.
Dead spots mostly seem to involve resonances in the neck, not the body for a solid instrument. Again, anything that vibrates the body, which is a complex shape, is going to end up as heat. The neck more closely approximates a bar so there is more scope for the whole thing to vibrate and vibrate the string back and you get undamped strings vibrating normally. This is why resting on a wall or a Fat Finger helps as it shifts the resonant frequency. I don't find playing harder helps, though, as the issue is not ever overtone on a string, just some. What I find does work is fretting but not playing a string one octave down as the vibrating neck then vibrates the string at a lower overtone which the pickup can detect. My first bass with a dead spot I noticed was a Fender 'Cowpoke' on the G 7th fret and I wish I'd kept it as leaving the D open was all I needed to do. If you are playing chords, all bets are off.
My playing style is all staccato type playing so I never notice that there may be dead spots.
Hope this helps.
