Jay2U

Misfits time again...

...and rotating, but then it's two positions only.

Would be interesting to have a bass with a pickup that could be moved back and forth. I once played one, see pic below.

Nope! Different active (vibrating) lengths are involved. Because the strumming position doesn't change, a shorter (fretted) string is strummed relatively closer to its centre. This affects the number of audible harmonics produced. Try strumming an open string at the 12th fret. It'll produce a relatively dull tone without the second harmonic. Of course the position of the pickup(s) plays an equal role. Also the length/gauge ratio isn't equal, which makes this even more complicated. A shorter piece of string means less mass, so less energy. That's why I chose equal fret positions (2nd) for producing the sound samples. The only variable was the string gauge, resulting in different tensions. It's a complicated matter with many variables. Not to mention how the behaviour of the neck and body, with a partly vibrating string compared to an open string, affects the composition of the tone.

I seldom use a pick, maybe one or two times a year. Some cards fall apart, depends on quality. These picks wear a bit faster than nylon picks.

A Do-It-Yourself Pick. An old credit card, made from good quality plastic, can be given a second life.

A year? Eight weeks is all roundwounds get, ten if I'm having a holiday. Flatwounds stay on way longer. The tests were performed with brand new strings.

Ideally a test setup should be completely neutral and 100% reproducible… but then we'd never know how string x or string y would sound on a specific bass, played finger style.

When still young, I could hear slightly past 20 kHz. About two years ago (57) I got as far as 16 kHz.

That's pretty much true, but (to me) it's fun to know the effect of string gauge. In the studio it may, however, make the desired difference.

Come Join Us, bass cover of Bad Religion's song about cults and sects.

Yes, for sure! Any compression takes data away from the original. The size of MP3-files often is less than 1/5th of the original file. This can be compared with images. A jpg-file, derived from an uncompressed bitmap or bmp-file, is less detailed.

A song about the Spanish Inquisition

Do It U.S.S.R. by The Lillingtons from The Too Late Show, released in 2006

Some audio kits that come close within the audible spectrum. Those are the one's that reveal the difference between original and compressed recordings.

Square waves represent complex wave forms in a measurable manner. Just encoding and decoding doesn't have to have notable impact on quality, but once compressed, the original composition lost some information that can't be retrieved. Whether this can be heard depends on compression ratio, playback equipment and one's hearing.

A few years ago I performed a quick test to find out about the playback quality of MP3 and YouTube. In order to keep things simple, I generated a 600 Hz square wave. Square waves consist of the fundamental frequency plus all odd harmonics. The amplitude of each harmonic with regard to the amplitude of fundamental wave, is the reciprocal value of the number of the harmonic. So the amplitude of the third harmonic is 1/3, of the fifth harmonic 1/5 and so on. If all harmonics (say up to 20 kHz) are present, a neat square wave will be the result. If some harmonics are left out or have an incorrect amplitude, the wave will look distorted. I recorded the 600 Hz signal with a digital recorder which produces a 16 bit uncompressed wav-file. Then I converted this to a high quality 320 kB/sec MP3 file. I also uploaded the original signal to my YouTube account and downloaded it from there. Hereunder the results can be seen, as captured with Audacity. The difference can be heard, even with speakers or headphones of lesser quality.

French punk!

My son is a very good guitar player. Plays stuff like Iron Maiden.

Dunno, I see all instruments as equal contributors to music (with the possible exception of the kazoo ).

Then how 'bout the sheer number of keys on a keyboard?

The guitars are my son's.One of those has been replaced by a Fender Strat since September 2017. I do play some guitar, and keyboard, however. A few examples:

I've been posting on BassChat for a few weeks now. It's a cozy place that feels like home.

Certainly not bad, given the equipment used. Great bass playing, by the way. :-)

Oh, wait! Every other year I attempt to play guitar. London Dungeon - Misfits.