EssentialTension

Fender Cowpoke, so-called,

http://youtu.be/cIzV9462xeE http://youtu.be/D4MdWzN_100

If you are into soul and blues, and you liked fourteen year old dead strings then you're a very good case for trying some flatwounds. But whatever strings you use you should expect to do at least a little setting up when you change them.

When I had a Starfire with those large single-coil pickups people usually mistook them for humbuckers.

Very nice. I have looked at these often. I used to have the DeArmond version with Hammon Dark Stars fitted. Very nice.

With short scale, subject to the construction of the string, a slightly heavier gauge is usually a better bet. If you use same gauge (and make etc.) as on long scale then the strings will be floppier and if you go lighter gauge then floppier still.

Ed Friedland's books, Blues Bass and Building Walking Bass Lines, are both very useful.

'Day of the Dead' not 'Halloween' but here are [i]Bajo El Volcan Con Los Bastardos Ingles[/i] - that's [i]Under the Volcano with the English Bastards[/i] for anyone without Espa[size=2]ň[/size]ol - guitar, piano, bass, drums, two percussionists, and male and female vocalists but female vocalist gone missing here: Set list was: Call of the Dead Canción de Mariachi Season of the Witch Alberta Chan Chan Trece Dias Que Bello La Llorona Jambalaya Big Chief El Raton Algo Esta Cambiando El Rey De que Manera te Olvido La Diferencia Un Puño de Tierra El Liston de tu Pelo El Quarto de Tula La Bamba Earlier, the drummer, two percussionists and the guitarist wait to for the dead to be called: I was waiting too: ... and the return of the other vocalist and pianist making an appearance at the back left:

I'm playing a 'Day of the Dead' night tomorrow with [i]Bajo El Volcan Con Los Bastardos Ingles[/i].

I started answering but gave up quite quickly due to spelling mistakes, questions that made unwarranted assumptions, no relevant answer for me, personal questions, overlapping of categories, incorrect use of more than and less than symbols, etc etc. Sorry. I've never actually seen a 'survey monkey' questionnaire that was any use at all.

I'd love to know what are 'a slightly fuller tone', 'a tighter feel' and 'this slightly stronger sound' that Jamerson didn't have. Can anyone really tell in a blind test which bass has the higher mass bridge?

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1414767083' post='2593123'] Double bass bridges are quarter sawn maple and not particularly soft as woods go but the mass appears to be critical, as evidenced by the clip-on mutes orchestral players use for some passages - a fairly small amount of weight attached to the bridge can change the sound noticeably. I suspect maple was the best compromise available for balancing rigidity against weight while being hard enough and reasonably stable. However, a double bass bridge is coupling the strings to a thin and somewhat flexible soundboard on the front of a resonant chamber so may not be particularly analogous to a bass guitar bridge which anchors the strings to a solid slab of wood. [/quote] Yes, I didn't mean that it was not hard wood (as opposed to a softer wood) but either way it's softer than a BBOT or a Badass. Is there a more rigid and more high mass bridge for double bass? A sort of 'double badass'.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1414755913' post='2592928'] Anyone who has tried my upright with a mag pickup has agreed that there is more to it than metal strings moving around, so the sound of the whole instrument is to some extent important. As for the OP the answer is no not much. [/quote] Well, the way in which metal strings move may well be affected by the construction of the instrument but still an electromagnetic pickup wants moving metal not moving air or wood. Either way, there's no extra energy coming from anywhere once the string is plucked. Perhaps there's a reason double basses have soft wooden bridges ... so that the movement, the energy, of the string is more easily transferred to the body and so to the large sound box. My guess is that a more rigid bridge on a double bass would lead to the string ringing longer but the volume would be reduced because there would be less transfer of energy to the body/sound box. YMMV.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1414742398' post='2592755'] I don't think that is how resonance works, to add sustain you want the whole bass, neck, body and strings to vibrate as a single piece, the solid bridge anchored well lets the strings and body become one rather than the bbot acting like a sponge bouncing the strings vibrations around and jumbling them up, less extreme but the same thing as stuffing a sponge behind the strings. [/quote] Well, as I say, I am not a physicist so I'd be happy to be corrected by whoever actually knows the maths of this, however .... I can see how what you say would apply to the sustain of an acoustic instrument but I don't understand how it would apply to an electromagnetic pickup that looks for moving metal not vibrating wood. The player puts a certain amount of energy into the string by plucking it. From that point on there is no further energy added. The more of that energy that stays in the string the longer the string will vibrate, which is sustain. The more of that energy which drains away either to a sponge under the strings or to the bridge and then the body, the less energy there will be in the strings and so less sustain. Therefore, for greater sustain on an electric instrument you would need a non-spongy bridge that did not drain away the energy from the string. Now, possibly, these higher mass bridges, being more rigid and less spongy, do resist absorption of energy from the string ... so more sustain not by absorbing the energy of the string and passing it to the body wood but by not absorbing the energy of the plucked string in the first place.

[quote name='Damonjames' timestamp='1414709427' post='2592656'] ... As far as I understand it from a science point of view is that assists in the transference of the vibration to the body. It "should" be more rigid than a BBOT and therefore absorb less of the vibration. Which "in theory" should give you better sustain ... [/quote] I'm not a physicist but that sounds contradictory. If the bridge transfers more vibrations to the body then how is it possible that the bridge also absorbs less vibrations from the strings so that there is more sustain? Surely, either the vibrations stay in the strings for more sustain or they are transferred to the body for less sustain. Besides which I've never had a bass that needed more sustain. Muting and damping is much more often needed than more sustain - in my experience.

You should be careful but that's not the same as not doing it at all. Try a quarter turn anti-cockwise - not a couple of turns - and wait a couple of hours or till the next day to set the saddles.

I wouldn't waste my money.

Also Mustang: http://youtu.be/fnHaMPIa-F4

Story has it that this features a Fender Mustang bass: http://youtu.be/pJV81mdj1ic

34" scale tuned down to DGCF, capo at second fret and you have a 30.3" scale EADG bass.

[quote name='redstriper' timestamp='1413996474' post='2584648'] [size=4]Most reggae music fits this description perfectly [/size] [/quote] http://youtu.be/n6U-TGahwvs

http://youtu.be/WTQ3co-aQsc

http://youtu.be/nFvRvSxsW-I

http://youtu.be/R_B7QZ9iUMM

Why not just buy a used Squier Bass VI for about £200?