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What is a 'dead spot'?

#101
lowfreqgeek said:
I'm guessing you've never been in a studio situation where you're hearing raw playback and the bass fundamental just disappears every time you hit a particular string and position on the neck.

It happens. It's a real thing.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is, and one thing in this thread mentioned only tangentially is that there are types/degrees of dead spots: the type where the note/string vibration stops almost immediately and the type where the fundamental quickly disappears but the harmonics ring out. And also there is the rarely encountered phenomenon where the fundamental on frets 1-5 on the G string seems to be less present than of the frets higher up.

Depending on the type, some dead spots can still produce a usable note, while others are just impossible. It's almost like the string was never struck.

And it is true that a fat)finger or other headstock weight, located in the right position, can ameliorate or (for all practical purposes) eliminate the dead spot.
 
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#102
GretschWretch said:
Yes, it is, and one thing in this thread mentioned only tangentially is that there are types/degrees of dead spots: the type where the note/string vibration stops almost immediately and the type where the fundamental quickly disappears but the harmonics ring out. And also there is the rarely encountered phenomenon where the fundamental on frets 1-5 on the G string seems to be less present than of the frets higher up.

Depending on the type, some dead spots can still produce a usable note, while others are just impossible. It's almost like the string was never struck.

And it is true that a fat)finger or other headstock weight, located in the right position, can ameliorate or (for all practical purposes) eliminate the dead spot.
Click to expand...

I would like to point out that a fatfinger (or any other means of adding weight) won't really eliminate a dead spot, just move it slightly, which can be useful it you need the dead note to have normal sustain for a particular song when playing gigs or recording. The other option would be to use a different bass with the dead spot(s) in a different position. It's always nice to have an excuse to buy more basses.;)

Like you said, dead spots can vary a bit. If you've got one of those dead spots that are centered precisely on the frequency of one note (which I find are the worst) you can also use a fatfinger to (hopefully) move the focus of the dead spot to a frequency between two frets. This might give you 2-3 frets with more bearable dead spots instead of one completely dead fret.

To better understand how a dead spot work I would also like to add that a dead spot isn't really dead in the sense that there is no tone whatsoever. The tone is actually there to begin with but because it hits the instrument's resonant frequency it actually gets TOO loud too fast, probably at least twice as loud as a "normal" tone. Unfortunately this also means that the energy of the string is spent much faster. That unusually loud tone is so short that we don't really notice it and for all practical purposes the tone is "dead". It's all about transfer/loss of energy.
 
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#103
If they ALL have dead spots that's kind of a buzz kill on over priced basses that were originally designed to affordable for the aspiring music maker ( I didn't use "musician" on purpose).

Dead spots, the great equalizer.
Or, all things being equal... etc etc...
 
#105
Geogio said:
If they ALL have dead spots that's kind of a buzz kill on over priced basses that were originally designed to affordable for the aspiring music maker ( I didn't use "musician" on purpose).

Dead spots, the great equalizer.
Or, all things being equal... etc etc...
Click to expand...

Unfortunately we can't get around the laws of physics.
 
#106
A dead spot is a small chamber/void in the center of your brain that's under a vacuum. It can be accessed by watching television, internet forums and articles, folklore and old wives tales, etc.
They typically get filled with bigfoot, alien abductions, tonewood for electric guitars, home remedies for reversing pregnancy, etc.
It's best to have them removed before they become too large and become terminal.
 
#107
RichterScale said:
A dead spot is a small chamber/void in the center of your brain that's under a vacuum. It can be accessed by watching television, internet forums and articles, folklore and old wives tales, etc.
They typically get filled with bigfoot, alien abductions, tonewood for electric guitars, home remedies for reversing pregnancy, etc.
It's best to have them removed before they become too large and become terminal.
Click to expand...

This subject really seems to have gotten to you.
 
#111
DiabolusInMusic said:
What kind of measurements would you define "super low action" as? I have a student who insists he rocks "super low action" - his strings are 3mm off the board...
Click to expand...
I’m at 1-1.5mm on the 12th fret on the G & D. A, E & B are around 2mm.

2E830E44-FB84-4FFD-81C1-A13422AB4174.jpeg
 
#112
Deleted member 271037 said:
To better understand how a dead spot work I would also like to add that a dead spot isn't really dead in the sense that there is no tone whatsoever. The tone is actually there to begin with but because it hits the instrument's resonant frequency it actually gets TOO loud too fast, probably at least twice as loud as a "normal" tone. Unfortunately this also means that the energy of the string is spent much faster. That unusually loud tone is so short that we don't really notice it and for all practical purposes the tone is "dead". It's all about transfer/loss of energy.
Click to expand...

I don't ever note that they start louder.
 
#113
2thAche said:
I don't ever note that they start louder.
Click to expand...

It's actually not very audible but THEORETICALLY they are supposed to. The energy you put into the string is the same as when playing other frets and that energy has to go somewhere. The energy is just transferred to the body a LOT faster. You can't get around the laws of physics. I guess it's more audible on acoustic instruments where the energy transfer to the body will make the body resonate strongly for a very short moment, rather than on electric instruments where the tone depends on the pickup(s) picking up vibrations from the string. On an acoustic guitar the deadspots (often but not always around 4th fret D-string) clearly have a very strong, boomy attack but die out almost immediately. It can still be hard to notice though. The reason for this it is that it happens so fast. I read an explanation of this once. I don't remember the details but it had something to do with how our ears/brain react to fast transients or something.

But you're right, for all practical purposes the tone just goes dead almost immediately. At least when we're talking about electric instruments.

I would also strongly advice everyone to NOT go looking for dead spots on their acoustic guitars. You might end up hating your guitar once you start noticing them... Especially when playing fingerstyle arpeggios. Once you've started noticing it you can't "unhear" it. It's just one of those things you're better off not knowing about. REALLY!!!;)
 
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#114
You can offset a dead spot by fretting an octave lower. That string will vibrate in sympathy a bit and reduce the effect. The Cowpike I had had a dead spot of the G 7th fret and an open D was a convenient option. Other FSOs I have are dead on the 5th fret so it's a bit more annoying. The P-Lyte seems free of problems. The Harley Benton Jaco style boat anchor too. But it's a boat anchor. By first bass was a Washburn B-10 with a small pointy headstock and seemingly no dead spots, so I was lulled into a false sense of security.
 
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#116
Often, the dead spot in your bass is really the dead spot in the room. At the extreme, there's one venue I play regularly where's there's no point in playing anything above the 4th fret on the D string, it'll just disappear. I had someone come up to me and crack on me for playing the bass part for "Daydream Believer" wrong. My retort: "It's not wrong here."
 
#117
This old thread popped up this morning, resurrected by @Brent Hahn , and I had to come look at some of the responses that came after my Jan. 14, ‘23 response I didn’t see back in Jan.

The dead spot issue on stringed instruments is still just physics. If a vibrating object comes into contact with a non-vibrating object (hold the bedroom jokes…) the non-vibrating object absorbs some of the energy of the vibrating object. How much energy the non-vibrating object absorbs varies by the frequency of the vibration & the resonant frequency of the non-vibrating object.

So,
  • Vibrating object = bass string
  • Non-vibrating object = neck & body of bass.
  • Max amount of energy absorbed by the neck / body of the bass occurs at the resonant frequency of the neck / body of the bass.

If you don’t quite grasp this phenomenon, avoid the topic at this link;
Mode-Matching / Tailpiece Tuning
 
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