Good action for good slappin'

[RickyV]

Ok, I like a nice low action on my bass for my usual finger-style playing. Trying my hand at a bit of slap tho and all I am getting is fret clatter and not much in the way of nice noises. Is there an optimum sort of set-up/action for playing slap bass or is it more down to technique? Any advice appreciated. Many thanks.

[HowieBass]

Possibly a bit of both; that doesn't help I know but it's likely true. I'm sure I've seen somewhere that a super-low action makes for better slapping but that hasn't been my experience and though I try to get the action the same on my basses I find some more amenable for slapping than others. I think sometimes the action might be a little too low so the notes choke; in your case I'd try raising the action a little on all the strings by the same amount (say one turn of the height adjustment screws) and see if it improves. It's like any other technique in that you'll improve with practice but for some they never get along with the technique and are better sticking with a pick or fingerstyle (eg. Peter Hook). A part of the technique is also about damping the strings after you've struck them; there are plenty of online videos around that illustrate the main points... here's a master at work http://youtu.be/U-N54p2YlQg

[JTUK]

Low and light, but that also depends on how hard you are going to hit.
If you play thumb under then then lighter but many copy Flea and hit hard
so you would need the action higher.

Another reason I say light is because you are going to give your hands quite a bashing over 30 years or so
so that might help preserve them
Watch any video of Louis J and Flea and you'll get what I mean...

Whose playing do you like..??

Edited July 8, 2014 by JTUK

[zero9]

No, there is no 'optimum', as it depends entirely on your technique. However, if you persevere, you should be able to learn to slap with very low action. If you've only just started it will take a while to get a clean slap sound.

[Tdw]

Ive always found the lower the better, i once set up my status eclipse to be really low, it was almost unusable for fingerstyle but so easy to slap on.

[RickyV]

Thanks chaps for the responses. Looking at a couple of Victor Wooten's videos, I am clearly hitting the strings too hard and my technique is going to take a lot of work but at least that has steered me in the right direction. More research. More practice.
Cheers.

[visog]

Actually you need a lot of 'clatter' to punctuate the pitched notes. Experience will help corral these noises into intentional percussion.

Low action is the way to go to enable economy of motion particularly in right-hand.

Also worth experimenting with is your tone - a 'smiley face' EQ will boost your bassy pitched notes and turn your percussive sounds from an over-bearing full-range clank to more of a high-end click which sounds better and takes up less sonic space, also is also easier to manage technique-wise.