Couple of Questions

[chumba]

Hi all
A couple of questions if you don't mind.
Firstly i am loving playing my new bass.
I have a really pish wee guitar practise amp that sounds totally crap....however heres the question.

I played the guitar fairly competently but...while playing the bass the tone is qute crisp and missing the lower end. i reckon a lot of that has to do with the amp ..but..despite practising I am still getting a lot of hanging notes despite trying hard to make clean moves and clean notes. Also a real rub noise when moving from string to string ie the actual string itself is being really amplified greatly.

Is it just the crap amp?
Is there anything else I can try to improve my technique or will a good bass amp really improve it and the sound that much?
I and the bass sounded great in the shop through a mega amp ..but then again I was totally hung over !
Any help pointers advice greatly appreciated....I couldn't practise any more if I tried !
cheers

[DirkThrust]

You'll discover that it's one of the iron laws of bass playing that everything sounds great in the shop, and everyone else's gear sounds better than yours.

I think the answer to your question is probably that you are right on both counts. A better amp will improve your sound but practise will improve your technique. I would also get the bass properly set up by a good professional technician. There's no point making life difficult for yourself by having a badly set up bass.

Also watch other players, if your technique is poor then you won't be benefitting from practise as much as you could. Youtube is a good place to start.

Edited April 2, 2008 by PaulMartin

[chumba]

Thanks for that paul.
I plan to purchase a good amp but a little homework and research first...plus practise.
cheers

[ashevans09]

The old adage is true - practice practice practice.

Though there's always an excuse to buy more gear

What kind of amp you looking for? Small practice or something bigger? There's a wealth of information available from the lovely people on this forum so everyone'd be more than happy to help you out

[LukeFRC]

it will be both the guitar amp making the high end too high
and the way you are playing. whatever you are playing go slower and practice making everything as quiet as possible with your fingers, a lot of this will be hand position and the way you mute the notes

[LukeFRC]

i found when i was learning playing a song but making each note staccato helped. makes you think about how you hit the note and dig into into it with your right hand and how you mute it with your left. If you have a maple fretboard this will be a bit harder as i find you get more noise off it

[chumba]

Sound advice ...if i may use a pun.
It's nice to have it all confirmed. i do think a good amp is in order and i am trying to move from each note as quietly and as smoothly ...trying to get to an easy note with the occasional run. It's in my enthusiasm i leave a note ringing and annoys the hell out of me as i never do this on the guitar ...However......keep practising i am enjoying this much more than the guitar ....I think it's a much harder technique, but for some bizarre reason far more enoyable.

any other advice on practising gratefully received
cheers

[Bilbo]

Couple of things - when you hit a note and, as you say, it keeps ringing after you stop it, are you dampening the noite properly? There are several ways of doing this using your fretting or plucking hand. Are the notes that are ringing harmonics (i.e. are they on 3rd, 5th, 5th, 7th or 12th fret)?

One of the aspects of playing most often neglected (IME) is the END of a note. Everyone focusses on where the notes start but forget that the LENGTH of a note is an equally important part of the process. Gary Willis has some strong views on this on his Progressive Bassics video. His whole technique is worked around the termination of a note as much as the commencement, You need to find ways of silencing a string you don't want to hear ringing - a decent teacher should be able to help you with this.