New Fodera Adjustable ramp

[AndyTravis]

Saw this, liked it - doubt I’d use it…

Daren’t look for a price.

Like the modern look though.

[JapanAxe]

I never got the whole ramp thing - it always looked like a crutch for players who haven’t sorted their finger-style technique.

👀

[ped]

Just now, JapanAxe said:

I never got the whole ramp thing - it always looked like a crutch for players who haven’t sorted their finger-style technique.

👀

I see what you mean but that’s like saying low action is a crutch for those with bad fretting technique. 

[OliverBlackman]

52 minutes ago, ped said:

I see what you mean but that’s like saying low action is a crutch for those with bad fretting technique. 

I once tried a pre owned MTD at the gallery and the action was set so low I could barely play it. Sounded thin and nasally  too. Probably was perfect for someone else.

Edit: it’s a no from me on the Fodera. Looks like a Chinese copy of a Monarch that went wrong in the machine.

Edited May 20, 2021 by OliverBlackman

[AndyTravis]

I just don’t like the amount of switches 

[Lfalex v1.1]

At least it's different(ish)

It'll also be at least £60,000... 🙄

Edited May 21, 2021 by Lfalex v1.1
Edit- Which is expensive for something likely to be mistaken for a Strandberg or an Ibanez with a bite taken out of it.

[Lfalex v1.1]

Also..

"Ramp on, Ramp off, Daniel-San"

[fretmeister]

8 hours ago, JapanAxe said:

I never got the whole ramp thing - it always looked like a crutch for players who haven’t sorted their finger-style technique.

👀

Yes. Just like all those DB players playing over the fingerboard.

Clearly a crutch.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, JapanAxe said:

I never got the whole ramp thing

I never got the whole being anxious about technique thing. The bass got invented by a non-musician trying to be helpful, and bassists found that it wanted to be played differently. Some people found one way worked for them, some people found another way worked for them, and another group decided that their way was the "correct" way, and managed to persuade huge swathes of bassists to believe them, possibly because it looks so fastidious and artificial. If a classical singer has an incorrect technique, you can literally hear it interfering with their tone. If someone is playing a bass with a ramp, what's the negative impact on the tone? If you've anxiety in need of something to do, take up the piano and worry about over-using the sustain pedal, the greatest crutch there is 😁

[OliverBlackman]

48 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

If someone is playing a bass with a ramp, what's the negative impact on the tone? If you've anxiety in need of something to do, take up the piano and worry about over-using the sustain pedal, the greatest crutch there is 😁

Just to be pedantic, if you use the ramp for your thumb it is limiting where you pluck on the bass slightly as you have the gap between neck pickup and neck and bridge pickup and bridge. With the floating technique you can pluck anywhere hassle free.

And yes I am trying to get away from the sustain pedal 😂

[ped]

21 minutes ago, OliverBlackman said:

Just to be pedantic, if you use the ramp for your thumb it is limiting where you pluck on the bass slightly as you have the gap between neck pickup and neck and bridge pickup and bridge. With the floating technique you can pluck anywhere hassle free.

And yes I am trying to get away from the sustain pedal 😂

It’s actually more about the feel under the fingers rather than a thumb rest. 

[fretmeister]

I like them. I don't have them at the moment, and I don't need them, I just find them very comfortable.

And I'm not convinced that Gary Willis or Billy Sheehan could be accused of having poor finger technique and needing a crutch.

[Lfalex v1.1]

All of which moot in the case of this bass;

If you don't like ramps- Ramp Off.

If you like ramps- Ramp On.

😀

[Doctor J]

Surely the important issue is the amount of wood remo.... sorry, I almost forgot... the amount of tonewood removed from the core path of the strings? It's almost as if they don't care 😢

[Doctor J]

The way the ramp is radiused and the pickups are not is not befitting a bass with a price tag like that. The amount of work which went into this and to mismatch like that is, quite frankly, wack, cuz.

George Michael never sang "If you're gonna do it, do it wrong!" for a bloody good reason.

[bloke_zero]

When you watch Jaco play sometimes he is moving his right hand along the strings to get different tones - surely something like this would faciliate that?  a lot of what I do is trying to remove the difference between notes and I'd have thought having a solid base for the thumb would also help that? I don't want one but if someone else does then cool!

[OliverBlackman]

1 hour ago, ped said:

It’s actually more about the feel under the fingers rather than a thumb rest. 

Ok now I’m intrigued. Why would you want your fingers to hit something? Surely that will have an impact on how much pressure you put on the string?

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, Doctor J said:

The way the ramp is radiused and the pickups are not is not befitting a bass with a price tag like that. The amount of work which went into this and to mismatch like that is, quite frankly, wack, cuz.

George Michael never sang "If you're gonna do it, do it wrong!" for a bloody good reason.

something like this makes more sense
  

[JapanAxe]

Probably time for me to clarify!

Why I never ‘got’ ramps - because I never found myself thinking, ‘It would really help if there was a surface a small distance under the strings beneath my picking fingers.’

Why I thought it looked like a crutch for technique - I assumed it was to ensure that the player is always contacting the string with the same part of the picking finger; and to aid fast playing by preventing the fingers from going too far below the strings. I hadn’t considered the fact that it would make the playing area feel more like that of a double bass.

My anti-gear-snobbery mantra (to myself principally!) is: Use what works for you. So my bad for casting aspersions on ramps in general, crack on and ignore my ill-judged comment.

  

 

[Belka]

2 hours ago, OliverBlackman said:

Just to be pedantic, if you use the ramp for your thumb it is limiting where you pluck on the bass slightly as you have the gap between neck pickup and neck and bridge pickup and bridge. With the floating technique you can pluck anywhere hassle free.

And yes I am trying to get away from the sustain pedal 😂

Floating thumb technique is perfectly applicable to basses with ramps, it doesn't hinder it in any way.

[OliverBlackman]

9 minutes ago, Belka said:

Floating thumb technique is perfectly applicable to basses with ramps, it doesn't hinder it in any way.

I wrongly assumed the ramp was there to rest the thumb. @ped has corrected me.l although I’m now more confused about its relevance.

[Bigwan]

12 minutes ago, OliverBlackman said:

I wrongly assumed the ramp was there to rest the thumb. @ped has corrected me.l although I’m now more confused about its relevance.

It restricts how much you dig in on the strings. Works REALLY well for that actually. I had an adjustable ramp on a Shuker 6 I ordered years ago. My current ACGs have pretty large pickup enclosures so don't really need a ramp.

13 hours ago, JapanAxe said:

I never got the whole ramp thing - it always looked like a crutch for players who haven’t sorted their finger-style technique.

👀

Tell that to Billy Sheehan who's been using his P pickups as ramps for YEARS... Or maybe Gary Willis who's a fan of them... But different strokes for different folks!

Edit: I see somebody beat me to the Sheehan/Willis comment, but I think it bears repeating...

Edited May 21, 2021 by Bigwan

[BigRedX]

I'll just leave this here:

[Guest]

58 minutes ago, OliverBlackman said:

I wrongly assumed the ramp was there to rest the thumb. @ped has corrected me.l although I’m now more confused about its relevance.

I presumed that it was to give players who like to rest their thumb on the pickups a wide range of places they could do that, to give them more tonal variety, so I'm nicely confused now, too 🙃 As my relatively-oversized thumb likes to rest flat on the body, relaxing alongside the E string, there's no danger of my ever wanting one, so my ignorance isn't a problem. But, still, curiosity is curiosity......

[fretmeister]

2 hours ago, OliverBlackman said:

Ok now I’m intrigued. Why would you want your fingers to hit something? Surely that will have an impact on how much pressure you put on the string?

Not really.

When I play without a ramp my finger hits the string at about 45 degrees. So not flat with the board like a plectrum would, and not a vertical impact like slap.

A ramp changes the angle of attack - it's like pulling your finger across a flat surface and there just happens to be a string in the way. It's very much a horizontal interaction with the string. If you look at different players fingers, without a ramp the plucking finger comes to rest against the next string, sometimes causing a bit of a thump and the joints are all are gently bent.

 

With a ramp the next string doesn't need to be touched at all and the finger geometry is a bit different (for me anyway) in that the proximal phalanx stays straighter with the main part of the hand, and the middle phalanx bends down more to allow that more horizontal movement.

 

It does need a bit of technique adjustment - just hammering away like Steve Harris won't work with a ramp - the angle of approach to the string is different.

 

It's easy to try - bit of old smooth wood and double sided tape. Don't worry about curving the top, just get the idea. It's definitely not for everyone, but I like it.