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natural harmonic on open?


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When i play my G string open on my musicman for some reason a natural harmonic comes through, it's fairly apparent when i'm playing it silent or tuning up, it's not so apparent when it's amplified but it's still there. It's not a huge problem because as you can imagine, i don't play the G open very often, if at all, but it's still a bit irritating. Any ideas what's causing it and/or how to remedy it?
Thanks

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[quote name='budget bassist' post='228260' date='Jun 27 2008, 07:52 PM']When i play my G string open on my musicman for some reason a natural harmonic comes through, it's fairly apparent when i'm playing it silent or tuning up, it's not so apparent when it's amplified but it's still there. It's not a huge problem because as you can imagine, i don't play the G open very often, if at all, but it's still a bit irritating. Any ideas what's causing it and/or how to remedy it?
Thanks[/quote]
From your description, it may be a natural resonance in the Bass. I have one on my Yamaha, and I fixed it by moving to a different brand of string, and setting up the bass to suit.

You can remove some resonances by adding weight to the bit that is resonating. If you clamp a G clamp onto the headstock, the resonance should move or go. If that is successful, then investigate a fatfinger, which I believe does the same job.

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Also have a look for a poorly cut nut or bridge saddle that in most cases cause annoying buzzes, but harmonics are a possibility.

[edit] - I had a set of faulty strings once, where one string had a loose wrap, that gave the string a secondary muffled tone when I played it. Though not the same, I guess it's worth investigating as well!

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[quote name='budget bassist' post='228411' date='Jun 28 2008, 03:24 AM']That could be it, i just changed strings the other day (well a few weeks ago, but they're still new! :) ) and i only just noticed it, that COULD be it... i might swap the string with one on my toby if at all possible and see if it's still there, or order a new string maybe...[/quote]

definitely worth looking into the possibility of a loose winding on a string.
I had a odd/bad 'overtone' before - suspected truss rod / bridge / tuners / anything and it turned out to be one of the strings,

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