Clear B string

[bubinga5]

Most good amps, cabs can handle and articulate a low B. A great defined B string comes from the bass. Period.The source. 

[cheddatom]

you can tell from playing it acoustically can't you. I have 3 6 string basses and they all sound very different un-plugged. One of them has a B string that's as punchy as the rest of the strings, and this one sounds best plugged in too

[bubinga5]

On 03/03/2019 at 19:21, Dan Dare said:

Afraid it is pretty well all to do with the amp/speakers. As someone else points out, even Barefaced only claim a lower frequency extreme of 37 hz, whilst low B comes out at 31. It may sound good on headphones or at practice levels, but reproducing those kinds of frequencies at any kind of volume is a big ask.

Its the feel and tension of strings, as well as other factors. I know unplugged when a B string is going to sound floppy and dull amplified. Maybe, just maybe that floppy B string is down to string/adjustment/fitting. The amp sound if its set flat is just the end result of what is put through it. I find it quite strange that anyone might think that the amp is making a difference.(or maybe if you EQ it in a way ?) You might try, but imo you can't amplify a good tone if the tone in the first place isn't good.

Edited March 5, 2019 by bubinga5

[Owen]

On a different tack, I plugged a bass which has weedy B tone into a TC spectracomp (multiband compression in a tiny box) and I had tone to rule the world with a properly integrated B string. And they are dirt cheap. 

[Chris2112]

On 03/03/2019 at 09:25, HazBeen said:

I am a Bart “convertee”, I never liked Barts and felt they lacked character. Then I heard them in a passive setup and they were warm, articulate and defined. Then spent some time on understanding which preamps get the most out of Barts, end of story I now have Bartolini pickups in ALL my basses.

 

 

 

Barts are easily my favourite pickups. Not strictly by choice, but three of my four basses have them in (and the Peavey Palaedium's pickups were obviously created to mimic Barts). They can be quite varied in sound depending on the bass they're in. My passive Cort Rithimic sounds nothing like my active Bogart. For my taste, the beauty of Bartolini pickups is that they sound great no matter what I try to do with them. 

 

On the subject of the big B string, I have never heard a low B with quite the impact or punch of my brother's Raro TM bass. It's an absolutely massive singlecut 35" bass, looks a bit like a Ken Lawrence. By god, that thing can shift some air but it really should do so as it's got more mass than some planets. It has some very trick active electronics that surely help it along. In terms of other basses with a great low B, the SKC Bogart Blackstone I have now is a high point for me. I've had graphite necked basses before but this really brings something else to the mix, more than just bright low B harmonics, it gives massive fundamental. The B string feels tonally incorporated, rather than being distinct from the rest of the bass in terms of timbre. Pedulla neck thru basses also always have an awesome low B, very smooth and present by dint of the neck-thru design. There are many ways to achieve a decent low B these days without having to resort to something like fanned frets. 

Some of the worst low B's I have ever heard have been on Fender basses. I don't know what it is that makes them so uniquely bad. Hollow, floppy sounding rubbish. I know this isn't the case with all Fender basses, mind. 

[chris_b]

My Laklands, Wals, Mike Lull's and Sadowsky all had great sounding B strings. My Stingray and Fender Jazz were good but not in the same league as the first list.

So far I've found that scale and strings made no noticeable difference to me. Maybe it was the manufacture and/or materials or maybe they were all made with a higher level of human input and skill.

I'm guessing. I don't know how to analyse any of this stuff. I just play them.

Barts have been a favourite sound of mine since my first set in the 80's. I know a guy using Barts and an East Uni-pre. He's getting the best sound I've heard in decades.

[Muzz]

On 03/03/2019 at 10:55, Bobthedog said:

Agreed, hence me getting rid of the Combustion; I never could get the sound I wanted. When I played the AB1 it was worlds apart, I suspect down to the pick ups and perhaps the pau ferro fret board?

My ABZ sounds very different from the Combustion I tried...then again, I put a John East pre and two of the (Dingwall) P-Tone pickups in it...but importantly, it felt very different to the Combustion. It absolutely sings acoustically. You'd kinda expect that, as the Combustion is a cheaper range, and there's gotta be compromises somewhere... I had an AB1 for a while, and that was on a similar level, but smoother than the ABZ - then again, it had different pickups and was passive...

On topic, the string tension and consistency of my Dingwall is up there with the best I've experienced on any bass.

[dmccombe7]

I had a Peavey 5 string cheaper range and the B string was really nice on it. 34" length neck thru. Its as good as my Dingwall NG2 or my Overwater Custom 6er.

Ranging from Under £500 for the Peavey to circa £3k for the Overwater and the B strings sound good on them all.

Dave

[Pinball]

18 hours ago, cheddatom said:

you can tell from playing it acoustically can't you. I have 3 6 string basses and they all sound very different un-plugged. One of them has a B string that's as punchy as the rest of the strings, and this one sounds best plugged in too

I agree with this, if the sound isn't there the electronics will struggle to bring it out. I have had a a few basses and my Ibanez ATK and BTB were great in this respect as is my American Dimension..they really sing and aren't .

[Guest ixlramp]

On 18/02/2019 at 16:29, dub said:

Has anyone found a make of B string that will produce a very clear fundamental note?

The fundamental harmonic of a B is 31Hz and a barely audible and extremely dark tone, it can have tonal quality but that is not what creates audible clarity, all harmonics are important.

Besides, most amplification does not reproduce 31Hz, and the fundamental harmonic also has little amplitude relative to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th ... harmonics.

Most bassists are only hearing the 2nd harmonic at 62Hz and higher harmonics.

On 19/02/2019 at 06:48, lowdown said:

What I don't understand is, if the combined gauges are not a good tension together, or not compatible, with the B string being woefully under tension, why on earth have Warwick been selling them for years? (45-135).

The reason for the traditional low tension is because a B is so thick the disadvantages of the stiffness of a larger gauge equal tension string can outweigh the benefits of equal tension, for some people.

Equal tension E-B pairs are:

.090 .120

.095 .125

.100 .135

.105 .140

.110 .145

On 19/02/2019 at 11:22, Hellzero said:

Don't expect to hear your low B if you don't have at least 500 Watts and a cabinet designed to reproduce these lower frequencies. In studio or on records, you'll hear it, for sure, but on your 30 Watts Ashup, I'm not even sure you'll hear anything...

Not so. A B string produces an unimportant 31Hz fundamental with small amplitude, a 62Hz 2nd harmonic with more amplitude, which any amplification will reproduce, plus all the higher harmonics which any amplification will reproduce. You''ll hear it on anything, not saying the tone will be great though.

This is the common misunderstanding where people focus on the fundamental harmonic when thinking about low bass strings. This misunderstanding is very common in discussions of the lower F#, C# strings ("it's below the range of human hearing").

On 19/02/2019 at 11:22, Hellzero said:

the scale length is not THE solution, ask Ken Smith as he sticked to 34 inches scale and his basses have a very good tight low B. 

Tightness is just down to choosing a large enough gauge, you can have a tight B on 30" with a large enough gauge.

Although a B can be good on a 34" scale, helped by everything else being high quality as a Ken Smith will be, scale length is certainly the primary issue, because the primary issue with a B is the extreme thickness required resulting in excessive stiffness. The extreme thickness is a result of the shortness of the scale. Tension at pitch is determined by scale length and gauge.

Remember that acoustic contrabasses are around 41" for E. Fender chose 34" as a compromise between playability and tone for a bass guitar, and now we're using the B below. The fact is that we are using scales not long enough for the pitches we want, compensated somewhat by the development of more flexible roundwounds.

The effective flexibility of a string is determined by length / gauge, which is why an E string effectively becomes stiffer as you play high up the fretboard.

When you increase scale length the required gauge for a desired tension falls, so not only is the string more flexible due to being longer, it's more flexible due to a lower gauge.

The result is, for the Kalium Quake 40" scale bass (which is reported to be surprisingly easy to play), the B has the effective stiffness of a light gauge E, it's so clear it sounds like an E string.

Edited March 10, 2019 by ixlramp

[Guest ixlramp]

On 03/03/2019 at 10:20, Woodinblack said:

And I never really got the 1" of a difference (or 3" in this case) making that much of a difference in the context of string scaling.

3" makes a huge difference, you can see this by doing the 'effective flexibility' maths.

1" helps but only a little.

On 03/03/2019 at 19:21, Dan Dare said:

Afraid it is pretty well all to do with the amp/speakers. As someone else points out, even Barefaced only claim a lower frequency extreme of 37 hz, whilst low B comes out at 31. It may sound good on headphones or at practice levels, but reproducing those kinds of frequencies at any kind of volume is a big ask.

Your points only apply to the fundamental harmonic, which has low amplitude, is hard to hear, and is unimportant to reproduce.

Often when people refer to 'the fundamental of a B' they are actually referring to the 62Hz 2nd harmonic, not the fundamental, because the fundamental has less amplitude, is poorly reproduced by most amplification, and is harder to hear.

Scale length is the primary factor in B quality, those who were unimpressed by longer basses were so due to other factors. With all else equal the difference will be very clear.

Edited March 10, 2019 by ixlramp

[Soledad]

57 minutes ago, ixlramp said:

not the fundamental, because the fundamental has less amplitude

agree with all this, but can't see why the amplitude of a string would be less than its first harmonic? I accept there are points along the string where the is1st, 2nd etc amplitude will vary relative to fundamental, but stuck on the basic point.
Another interesting point (to me) - headless basses. What is the view and bottom line re Headless v head?

[Guest ixlramp]

1 hour ago, ixlramp said:

Often when people refer to 'the fundamental of a B' they are actually referring to the 62Hz 2nd harmonic, not the fundamental, because the fundamental has less amplitude,

 By this i mean: The fundamental harmonic has much less amplitude than the 2nd harmonic, and less than the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th harmonics from a frequency analysis i did on a recorded E string.

I'm not saying the total amplitude of a string is less than the 1st harmonic (the fundamental), of course that is impossible.

Note: Fundamental = 1st harmonic, 1st overtone = 2nd harmonic, etc.

A headless bass has a shorter length of string outside the vibrating length, so the strings are less 'stretchy', with less potential for the string to slightly move back and forth over the nut. This makes the nut end anchoring point of the string slightly more solid.

The method of securing the nut end of the string, either by double ball end or string clamp, keeps the string straight and is a more solid way to anchor than curving the string around a tuner post, which is a little more 'springy'.

[Bolo]

52 minutes ago, Soledad said:

agree with all this, but can't see why the amplitude of a string would be less than its first harmonic? I accept there are points along the string where the is1st, 2nd etc amplitude will vary relative to fundamental, but stuck on the basic point.
Another interesting point (to me) - headless basses. What is the view and bottom line re Headless v head?

Look up the concept of 'timbre', what we often call the tone is an amalgamation of frequencies produced by ringing a string consisting of the fundamental frequency and the harmonic overtones. 

Please don't derail the topic with a head/headless discussion, other threads exist.

 

 

edit: ixlramp explains better than I can, the posts crossed 🙂

Edited March 10, 2019 by Bolo

[Hellzero]

Funny to read all this as @ixlramp is saying all and its exact opposite with the second harmonic strength (on badly designed basses and poor quality strings) and then suddenly speaking about the pitch of a string according to it's length (so hearing the fundamental). I think that you've never played a Leduc or a real luthier bass (but they are really only a few, sorry). On all the Leduc I've owned or played, which is around 30 basses, the fundamental of each note is present and well heard when played unplugged which is the sign of a well designed instrument. I'm the owner of the Audiokinesis Hathor 18134 cabinet made for the Quake bass, just because I want to be able to hear the low B perfectly reproduced on my system which also includes a Warwick JH PR40 preamp and a GSS Sumo 1000 Watts RMS power amp. This is the system I've been looking for for years to hear the low B as well as all other notes. And if you can't hear at 31 Hz, it's about time to go and see a specialist for an hearing test which I do each year as it's utterly important. If you look at the node of the fundamental of a low B, you'll see that it has twice the power of the second harmonic and so on. I recommend that you read some studies and books about lutherie and talk to a classical luthier as you are mismatching a lot of facts. The quality and construction of a string is another important fact to the tone reproduction.

Sorry to be a bit harsh, but it's a bit upsetting to read the same things (to be polite) on fora.

[Woodinblack]

5 hours ago, ixlramp said:

3" makes a huge difference, you can see this by doing the 'effective flexibility' maths.

1" helps but only a little.

Please tell me more - not sure what you mean about effective flexibility. Do you have a link or a paper I can look at?

[Soledad]

4 hours ago, Bolo said:

Look up the concept of 'timbre', what we often call the tone is an amalgamation of frequencies produced by ringing a string consisting of the fundamental frequency and the harmonic overtones. 

Please don't derail the topic with a head/headless discussion, other threads exist.

Did you mean to say this?

I don't need to look up timbre or tone or much about fundamentals and harmonics.
Regarding my point/question concerning headless v headed - the OP heading is 'clear B string'. It is not possible to consider or discuss the real-world behaviour of the string in isolation, the entire system must be considered. If it helps, the creator of physics agrees with me. Given the termination points of the string are really important parts of the system, my point is relevant to the thread topic. And you don't own the thread.

[Woodinblack]

4 hours ago, ixlramp said:

 By this i mean: The fundamental harmonic has much less amplitude than the 2nd harmonic, and less than the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th harmonics from a frequency analysis i did on a recorded E string.

Almost agreed with you there. I recorded my B string, and the fundamental was several dB down on the 2nd harmonic and similar to the 3rd (much higher than the others). Then I thought about it, and dragged the scope out and looked. The fundamental was about the same amplitude as the 2nd harmonic (I also found out that my fireman is clipping - need to do something about that), indicating that the device I was using as a computer interface was filtering more on 31hz than 62 (which bearing in mind it is fundamentally a guitar interface which doesn't need anything below 80 is reasonable).

However, this is a derail really, the clarity of a B string isn't really affected by the presence or absence of any even harmonic.

Ibanez 5005 bart pickup

 

Ibanez 2605 Nord pickup

 

[Stub Mandrel]

On 19/02/2019 at 06:48, lowdown said:

What I don't understand is, if the combined gauges are not a good tension together, or not compatible, with the B string being woefully under tension, why on earth have Warwick been selling them for years? (45-135).

Oh dear, this set of elites on the shelf are 45 - 130...

 

On 19/02/2019 at 19:47, Hellzero said:

Headless basses tend to have better low B's, better intonation and better string to string balance, just because of the construction as @BigRedX mentioned.

 

Fortunately for a headless bass...

[lowdown]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Oh dear, this set of elites on the shelf are 45 - 130...

Good grief !! Extend article 50.

[Stub Mandrel]

53 minutes ago, lowdown said:

Good grief !! Extend article 50.

Well I was looking for a set to match the ones it came with (wait for it, fetches digital calipers - actual measurements not rounded to the nearest 5) 45-64-85-105-126(!)

[BreadBin]

You're not exactly spoilt for choice when it comes to 5-string DBE sets.

[lowdown]

12 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Well I was looking for a set to match the ones it came with (wait for it, fetches digital calipers - actual measurements not rounded to the nearest 5) 45-64-85-105-126(!)

Will Lee's signature set might mess with your head, they are in 7's...

 

https://bassstringsonly.com/product/dms_2694/

[Stub Mandrel]

Modern speaker design has broken all the old rules about driver diameter/size and frequency response. You can get pod speakers that will deliver 32Hz audibly. You no longer need Tandy speakers with "18" wooofers for bass you can really feel"TM on your HiFi.

The natural frequency response of the ear varies with frequency so you need a much greater SPL to get the same perceived loudness at low frequencies and by the time you get that low the difference is big. To get 32Hz to sound as loud as 40Hz you need a hefty boost in SPL. 10dB at low levels but as little as 2-3dB at high volume.

With your practice amp at bedroom levels, you have the headroom to wind the bass control right up and get the 10:1 power ratio you need, go to a practice session and the extra boost applied to the B-string gives you horrible distortion.

Play at gig volumes through a PA and you only need a small boost to achieve the same perceived volume so it puts less demands on the equipment.

With a hefty combo, you might be better turning overall volume down a touch to give low notes more headroom?

[Stub Mandrel]

13 minutes ago, BreadBin said:

You're not exactly spoilt for choice when it comes to 5-string DBE sets.

More choice out there now than there was in 1995!