can you fix a dead spot on a through neck bass?

[JJ Bass]

Hi all - bit of help please!

Is it possible to fix a dead spot on a through neck bass? I think I have a slightly 'u' shaped neck, but barely noticeable. The bass has an unusual tension as its makes the strings fairly stiff, I have to use a string size down to make it feel like my normal 30-90's...

The bass has a great tone and some even have commented that it sounded better than my old Status S1, so I'm a bit reluctant to get rid of it! But to get rid of alot of fret buzz I have to raise the action higher than I want to, I like a bit of fret buzz, but not too much!

I've fixed the intonation and set up the neck to the best of my abilites, which is fairly ok, but as I have no extra funds to put towards another bass I really don't know what I could get in the 150-200 range that would compete....

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

J

[paul_5]

whereabouts on the neck is the deadspot? This is a common problem with fender jazz basses (amongst others) and can be fixed by using a small piece of wood and a clamp. It's caused by the mass of the headstock, turns out it vibrates at the wrong frequency and cancels out key frequencies. Increase the headstock mass by clamping said piece of wood to the headstock and that should sort it. It's not pretty but works for studio stuff and playing at home. Hope this helps mate. Cheers, paul.

[JJ Bass]

[quote name='paul_5' post='1300584' date='Jul 12 2011, 07:42 AM']whereabouts on the neck is the deadspot? This is a common problem with fender jazz basses (amongst others) and can be fixed by using a small piece of wood and a clamp. It's caused by the mass of the headstock, turns out it vibrates at the wrong frequency and cancels out key frequencies. Increase the headstock mass by clamping said piece of wood to the headstock and that should sort it. It's not pretty but works for studio stuff and playing at home. Hope this helps mate. Cheers, paul.[/quote]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the reply. Its around frets 17-19 mainly on the D string, but I can get the notes on the G but if I bend the G higher up it will not sustain and sound as if I need to raise the action .......... I hope that all makes sence!

It does have quite a small headstock, but I've had this trouble before!

[Machines]

Adding mass will move the deadspot rather than eliminating it. It's a pain..

[fretmeister]

Try one of these:

[url="http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/accessories/guitar_extras/fat_finger"]http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/accessories...tras/fat_finger[/url]

If I remember my sums properly - more headstock mass - the higher up the neck the dead spot will be. So stick one of them on and see what happens.

[JJ Bass]

[quote name='fretmeister' post='1300726' date='Jul 12 2011, 10:41 AM']Try one of these:

[url="http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/accessories/guitar_extras/fat_finger"]http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/accessories...tras/fat_finger[/url]

If I remember my sums properly - more headstock mass - the higher up the neck the dead spot will be. So stick one of them on and see what happens.[/quote]


Never seen one of those before!! - £30 odd quid? Gits! Is this a common flaw of basses with small headstocks? My Status 1000 never had a head and didn't do this, or my series 1....

Does it genuinely work?

Any thoughts on the string tension anyone? All this makes my bass sounds like its knackered, but its a great little player!!

[Machines]

Graphite necks have a different density and thus deadspots are not as prevalent as on wooden necked instruments. They probably do have them - just not at the frequencies you'll play on a bass.

[neepheid]

I don't think I've ever encountered a dead spot. No, I do not want someone to point out where they all are on my basses, I'd rather continue in blissful ignorance thankyouplease

[Lfalex v1.1]

[quote name='jonannlou' post='1300817' date='Jul 12 2011, 11:42 AM']Never seen one of those before!! - £30 odd quid? Gits! Is this a common flaw of basses with small headstocks? My Status 1000 never had a head and didn't do this, or my series 1....

Does it genuinely work?

Any thoughts on the string tension anyone? All this makes my bass sounds like its knackered, but its a great little player!![/quote]

I have two. Yes, they work, but can be unpredictable. One is permanently fixed to my Fortress MasterMan V, where it just "focusses" the tone.
The other floats from bass to bass. It makes my Yamaha Attitude into the sonic equivalent of a Bunker-Buster bomb, but robs it of a degree of resonance- It's just all out armour-piercing!
It ruins my Warwick Infinity. Kills it dead.

Try before you buy if at all possible. Works a treat for some basses, not for others.
Billy Sheehan likes such devices, but he uses a small G-Clamp on the headstock. They certainly aren't £30, but may be a bit of trial and error to get the weight right.
Final thought- Got a string tree on the bass? Thru-neck? Probably not. Try attaching (carpet tape?) a small piece of brass to the back of your headstock. Try different weights. Find a weight/location that does the trick, drill it and screw it onto the headstock. Washburn used to do it on some of their instruments.
Do be aware that there's a bass and guitar version of the FatFinger (different masses)

As for string tension, try round cored strings. They are more compliant for a given tension, and feel softer under the hand. I favour DRs- Either FatBeams (for steels) or SunBeams (for Nickels)

All a bit "suck-it-and-see", but there's nothing to be lost by [b]fully reversible, semi-permanent[/b] experimentation. (Except time and effort, I suppose!)

Hope this helps.
Alex.

[JJ Bass]

[quote name='Lfalex v1.1' post='1301436' date='Jul 12 2011, 07:04 PM']I have two. Yes, they work, but can be unpredictable. One is permanently fixed to my Fortress MasterMan V, where it just "focusses" the tone.
The other floats from bass to bass. It makes my Yamaha Attitude into the sonic equivalent of a Bunker-Buster bomb, but robs it of a degree of resonance- It's just all out armour-piercing!
It ruins my Warwick Infinity. Kills it dead.

Try before you buy if at all possible. Works a treat for some basses, not for others.
Billy Sheehan likes such devices, but he uses a small G-Clamp on the headstock. They certainly aren't £30, but may be a bit of trial and error to get the weight right.
Final thought- Got a string tree on the bass? Thru-neck? Probably not. Try attaching (carpet tape?) a small piece of brass to the back of your headstock. Try different weights. Find a weight/location that does the trick, drill it and screw it onto the headstock. Washburn used to do it on some of their instruments.
Do be aware that there's a bass and guitar version of the FatFinger (different masses)

As for string tension, try round cored strings. They are more compliant for a given tension, and feel softer under the hand. I favour DRs- Either FatBeams (for steels) or SunBeams (for Nickels)

All a bit "suck-it-and-see", but there's nothing to be lost by [b]fully reversible, semi-permanent[/b] experimentation. (Except time and effort, I suppose!)

Hope this helps.
Alex.[/quote]

Hi Alex,

I'll give some of these ideas a try, is there a trick to positioning the weights on the headstock?

I'm quite limited on the strings I use as there isn't many that do 30-90's - even the Rotosound funkmaster's feel like bridge wires!! The strings I got on best with on this bass are Indie strings for a 6 stringer that have 25-85 in the set, I used them on my old Schecter & Status and could barely feel the tension as they are great for bendinging/harmonics....

Thanks for the tips, still not sure what to do with the bass as it sounds bloody good!

J

[Lfalex v1.1]

The principal trick with the FatFinger is to prevent it from fouling tuner (and de-tuner) mechanisms.. If you experiment with brass weights, then the world is your oyster. Ideally, the closer to the body of the bass, the better, if only to stave off neck-dive.

Not round-cored, but Status Hotwires are available in 30-90. They may even be able to accomodate 25-85, as they make up their sets from single strings. They do a good few variants, too - Rounds, Flats, Half-rounds, Single and Double-ball ended in most "regular" gauges (ending in 0 or 5!) They're not top expensive, either.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

My highway 1 jazz had a deadspot that sucked the life out of playing a C on the 5th fret of the G string. I have a fatfinger on it now & the deadspot disappeared.

There is an easy way to try this in principle if you don't know anyone who can let you try a fatfinger and don't want to shell out for one before knowing if it'll help: Get down to the local poundshop and buy one of their sets of tiny cast-iron mini G-Clamps. Put some blu-tak/rubber/card/felt on the clamping surface to protect the bass and attach it to the headstock - It will work just like a fatfinger to shift the deadspot away from where you'll hear it. Of course the G-Clamp will look fugly & ridiculous, so once you've proved to yourself whether the science works or not, you can decide whether buy a fatfinger with confidence.

[henry norton]

[quote name='jonannlou' post='1300534' date='Jul 12 2011, 01:17 AM']Hi all - bit of help please!

Is it possible to fix a dead spot on a through neck bass? I think I have a slightly 'u' shaped neck, but barely noticeable. The bass has an unusual tension as its makes the strings fairly stiff, I have to use a string size down to make it feel like my normal 30-90's...

The bass has a great tone and some even have commented that it sounded better than my old Status S1, so I'm a bit reluctant to get rid of it! But to get rid of alot of fret buzz I have to raise the action higher than I want to, I like a bit of fret buzz, but not too much!

I've fixed the intonation and set up the neck to the best of my abilites, which is fairly ok, but as I have no extra funds to put towards another bass I really don't know what I could get in the 150-200 range that would compete....

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

J[/quote]

Whoaahh!! Hold on before you go clamping overpriced weights to your headstock (or cheap G clamps for that matter). From the wording in your post it sounds like you're suffering from the string choking because of uneven or worn frets. There's a big difference between that and a tonal dead spot, which is actually quite rare and usually fairly subtle on an electric bass wherein the strings play ok apart from one or two positions when all the life and 'ring' seems to go out of the note. Bad fretting has only one proper cure, that's a proper levelling and set up. Genuine dead spots can be sorted by something as simple as a change of strings as it's to do with resonance but I wouldn't attempt any kind of cure 'til the bass was set up correctly.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

[quote name='henry norton' post='1302340' date='Jul 13 2011, 01:57 PM']Whoaahh!! Hold on before you go clamping overpriced weights to your headstock (or cheap G clamps for that matter). From the wording in your post it sounds like you're suffering from the string choking because of uneven or worn frets. There's a big difference between that and a tonal dead spot, which is actually quite rare and usually fairly subtle on an electric bass wherein the strings play ok apart from one or two positions when all the life and 'ring' seems to go out of the note. Bad fretting has only one proper cure, that's a proper levelling and set up. Genuine dead spots can be sorted by something as simple as a change of strings as it's to do with resonance but I wouldn't attempt any kind of cure 'til the bass was set up correctly.[/quote]
Good points. It does sound as if the bass needs a setup - we all zoomed in on the words "dead spot", but that could well be a red herring as the sypical symptoms of a dead spot aren't mentioned. The OP doesn't mention setting the truss rod if the relief is incorrect, no amount of setting the height at the bridge will help and messing about with the intonation will only affect how out of tune it is over the neck.

[JJ Bass]

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='1302942' date='Jul 13 2011, 10:12 PM']Good points. It does sound as if the bass needs a setup - we all zoomed in on the words "dead spot", but that could well be a red herring as the sypical symptoms of a dead spot aren't mentioned. The OP doesn't mention setting the truss rod if the relief is incorrect, no amount of setting the height at the bridge will help and messing about with the intonation will only affect how out of tune it is over the neck.[/quote]

Thanks for all the tips! I only referred to it as a dead spot as I didn't know any other term for it! I think it may need re-fretting as I think its from 1990, but its in amazing condition. I've messed around with the truss rod, used no end of different strings from Olympia to Warwicks to Funkmasters. I think it maybe a mixture of the two from what everyone has said, but I've tried gently pulling the headstock and it still does it...

May look for another bass, which is a real shame!

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Thanks for clearing that up. The dead spot stuff was a red herring, so clamping something to your headstock won't solve your problem.

When you say you "messed around with the truss rod", do you mean you were following any directions on how to adjust it and understand the prinicples of what the truss rod does & how it does it? or were you giving it a tweak to see what happens? If the latter it is unlikely you'll be able to set the optimum amount of relief correctly and in that case it's worth letting someone more experience take a look. where are you based? perhaps there's a BCer local to you who foes his own setups who can have a look?

[aldude]

Even before getting a setup, why not just stick something heavy on the headstock with a generous amount of Blu-tac - if the dead spot goes away or moves, then it's a dead spot issue, whereas if it is exactly the same then it's something else, maybe a fret levelling issue. This way, you can see what you need to spend your money on first. Saying that, a pro setup is always a good idea now and then!

[skankdelvar]

From the OP's description, it's an issue of string choking not a dead spot. A quick fret dress and set-up at a decent luthier will almost certainly sort this and will probably cost far less than the OP's £150-200 replacement bass budget. If he / she is any good, the luthier will be able to identify any problems far more accurately than we can.

Should dead spots be present, it will be a lot easier to find them when the bass is playing properly and sounding cleanly.

[JJ Bass]

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='1303196' date='Jul 14 2011, 08:55 AM']Thanks for clearing that up. The dead spot stuff was a red herring, so clamping something to your headstock won't solve your problem.

When you say you "messed around with the truss rod", do you mean you were following any directions on how to adjust it and understand the prinicples of what the truss rod does & how it does it? or were you giving it a tweak to see what happens? If the latter it is unlikely you'll be able to set the optimum amount of relief correctly and in that case it's worth letting someone more experience take a look. where are you based? perhaps there's a BCer local to you who foes his own setups who can have a look?[/quote]


I've set up a few of my old basses before, from handmade UK & Tawain basses to stock Schecter's and always got the action right, the intonation spot on etc, so I'm hoping I've grasped more than the basics of setting up the bass, plus my local luthier I'm not 100% sure on, and I'm low on funds!! The only thing I wouldn't touch are the frets, I'll clean them, but thats it!

I'm still annoyed a bit by its tension, its just a bit firmer than any other bass I've had...!!! Odd but great bass for the money!!

[aldude]

[quote name='jonannlou' post='1303629' date='Jul 14 2011, 03:25 PM']I'm still annoyed a bit by its tension, its just a bit firmer than any other bass I've had...!!! Odd but great bass for the money!![/quote]

Longer scale?

[henry norton]

[quote name='aldude' post='1303640' date='Jul 14 2011, 03:35 PM']Longer scale?[/quote]
Indeed, if the tension is higher than your other basses it must have a longer scale length, unless the strings are harder to fret because the action is higher, making it feel like the strings have more 'tension'.

[LukeFRC]

what is the bass in question?

[Lfalex v1.1]

Good question!

And permit me to direct you to this gem;

[url="http://www.liutaiomottola.com/myth/perception.htm"]http://www.liutaiomottola.com/myth/perception.htm[/url]

Makes for good reading about "tension/compliance". Others here have posted it before, and the consensus seems to be that it's accurate enough.

[JJ Bass]

[quote name='aldude' post='1303640' date='Jul 14 2011, 03:35 PM']Longer scale?[/quote]

it's 34 scale....!

[Shawman]

righto, bit of a resurrection here

just picked up a new bass (new to me, it's from '84) everything is fine with it except from the 7th and 8th frets on the A string are nae use. can't even hear the note, just that horrible mettalic twang/rattle for a second then it dies

can't see anything unusual about these frets, seem the same as every other one which work fine

really not sure what to try as i'm always afraid of arsing it up completely

just to mention as well, this isn'ta through neck like in the OP

Edited September 19, 2011 by Shawman