Thanks Scott

[TheGreek]

https://scottsbasslessons.com/blog/bass-maintenance?vgo_ee=RQ%2FlNc7odyOWvz85he%2BWsul9lMud%2F

 

Bass Maintenance: How to Take Proper Care of Your Bass

10/05/2024

In the quest for bass mastery, there are habits every bass player should develop.

Practicing scales is one. Playing at the same time every day—and daily—is another.

But one habit that’s overlooked in favor of more fun practice routines is regular bass maintenance—-and it’s arguably one of the most important.

Today, I’m going over the basics of bass maintenance to show you how taking preventative actions now can save you headaches down the line.

So, if you want to know how to ensure your bass plays and sounds smooth for a long time, you’re in the right place!

Safe Storage and Handling for Your Bass

The first step to stellar bass maintenance is keeping your bass safe and secure.

Bass guitars are made of wood, which can be affected by humidity and temperature changes.
Careful storage and handling are essential to prevent damage from regular use.

Let me break down the important factors to keep your bass in top shape.

 

1. Humidity and Temperature

Climate control is your friend when it comes to maintaining a great bass tone. Without it, your bass can quickly get out of whack.

The wood shrinks if it gets too cold or dry, making your bass sound brittle. In extreme situations, the wood can shrink to the point where it begins to crack.

On the other hand, when it’s too warm or humid, the wood starts to expand, and your bass sounds dull. If the wood expands enough, you might get fret buzz when you play.

If left in extreme heat or humidity, your bass might begin to warp or crack, leading to permanent damage.

Another thing you have to watch out for is extreme temperature changes. Don’t leave your bass in the trunk of your car in the middle of winter only to bring it into a warm room.

Ideally, the humidity should be 45% to 55%, and the temperature should be 65-75°F. But you'll be fine as long as you stay at 30% to 70% humidity.

If you’re concerned about humidity, I suggest getting a humidity gauge. It’ll tell you how high the humidity is so you can adjust as needed.

 

2. Storage

Storage is a simple step that will save you a lot of heartache (and broken basses).

Now, there are lots of different options out there, but my recommendations for storage are stands and hard cases.

A stand is a solid option if you want to show off your bass. It keeps it off the ground and, depending on where you place it, in a safe location.

The downside of stands is that they will collect more dust and dirt than hard cases.

Hard cases are hands down the safest storage option. They can be more expensive than stands, but they protect your bass from inevitable bumps and scratches.

Choose a storage spot for your bass away from direct sunlight and excessive dust. The sun can fade or crack the finish, while dust and debris can gather in the electronics and hardware. This buildup can cause problems in the future.

 

3. Handling

When you pick up your bass, always use both hands—one supporting the neck and the other cradling the body.

This helps to avoid dropping or bumping the bass.

Investing in a quality strap is also a smart move. It’ll help prevent any heart-stopping slips while you’re jamming out.

 

How to Clean a Bass Guitar

You’d be amazed at how much your sound can improve after a thorough bass cleaning!

Your bass needs regular cleaning, but remember that this process isn’t a one-size-fits-all sort of thing—different parts require different cleaners..

Let’s break it down step by step.

 

1. General Cleaning

For day-to-day stuff, keep it simple.

All you need is a soft, dry cloth.

That’s it. Nothing fancy.

Once you’ve got your cloth, wipe down every inch of your bass to remove fingerprints or dust. Make sure to get between the tuning heads on the headstock and underneath the strings.

 

2. Fretboard Cleaning

There’s more to fretboard cleaning than wiping it down after playing. You’ll want to clean your fretboard regularly to prevent grimy buildup.

I usually clean my fretboard when I change my strings. Without the strings, it’s easy to get into all the nooks and crannies without worrying about harming my strings.

To clean your fretboard, you’ll need:

Soft, dry cloths

A toothbrush

Lemon oil or fretboard-specific oil

A fret cleaner

Once you’ve removed your strings, grab a soft, dry cloth and wipe the fretboard down. This is to get rid of any dirt or grime.

If there’s particularly stubborn grime, gently scrub around the frets with the toothbrush.

After that, you can moisturize the wood with lemon oil or fretboard-specific oil. You don’t need a lot of oil for this. Just put a little on the dry cloth, then rub it into the fretboard. Let it sit for a few minutes, and then grab a clean cloth to remove any excess oil.

Use a fret cleaner and an unused cloth to clean the frets. There are a ton of different kinds of fret cleaners out there. Just be careful when you use them so you don’t get them all over the wood on the fretboard, as that can harm the finish.

 

3. Body and Hardware Cleaning

Just like when it comes to cleaning the fretboard, you want to be careful about where you apply guitar cleaner.

To clean the body of your guitar:

Grab a clean cloth and spray guitar polish onto the fabric. One or two squirts are fine.

Rub the guitar polish into the body of your bass. Make sure you hit the front and back of the body, the back of the neck, and the headstock. Avoid the wood of the fretboard, as anything that’s not fretboard-specific can potentially damage the wood.

Guitar polish is essential because it keeps everything shiny and prevents corrosion to the finish.

Hardware cleaning is more straightforward.

The hardware refers to all of the brass or metal parts attached to the wood that are not pickups or frets—the bridge, strap pins, and tuning heads.

To keep them looking fresh, use a clean cloth to rub everything down to remove dust or fingerprints. If wiping it down doesn’t work, you can use a mild brass polish.

Make sure to use the brass polish on the hardware only. Getting it anywhere else can cause damage to the finish of your bass.

 

4. Electronics Maintenance

Cleaning around electronics is tricky. They’ll accumulate a lot of dust, so you need to be very careful when cleaning them.

Use a cotton swab around the areas where the wood meets the metal, and wipe around any areas where you see dust.

Do NOT use liquid around any of the electronics. It’s important to keep the electronics dry. If they get wet, they can short-circuit, and it’s game over.

If you think the electronics need more TLC and the internal parts need cleaning, put down the cleaning supplies and call a professional.

 

How to Boil Bass Strings

Boiling bass strings is an old-school trick for removing the grime on your strings and improving their sound. It might sound a little out there, but it works!

When you boil your bass strings, they expand and release all the dirt and oil that builds up on them. The sound goes from dull and lifeless to bright and crisp.

Some bassists boil their strings to make the strings last longer. However, you can only do this once or twice per set of strings before the strings get weak and run the risk of snapping.

To boil your strings, you’ll need:

A set of strings

A saucepan

Tongs

A clean cloth towel

The first step is to remove the strings from your bass and coil them individually. Make sure that they’re tight enough that they’ll fit in the saucepan.

Next, fill the saucepan with water and place it on your stovetop. Turn the burner on high. Once the water starts to boil, use the kitchen tongs to place the coiled strings into the saucepan.

Let them boil for ten to fifteen minutes—don’t let them boil longer than that.

Lay your towel on a flat surface. When the time is up, use the tongs to remove them from the water and lay them on the towel. After a minute or two, they should be cool enough to touch.

Once you can touch them safely, uncoil them, lay them on the towel, and pat them dry to remove any excess water.

Only put the strings back onto your bass when they are completely dry.

 

How to Make Minor Bass Guitar Repairs

Bass guitar repair doesn’t always require a trip to your local music shop.

In fact, you can resolve many common issues with knowledge of the various parts of your bass and basic tools!

This knowledge can save you time and money, so it’s definitely worth knowing. Let’s check out a couple of repairs that are easy to tackle.

1. String Replacement

Unfortunately, bass strings don’t last forever.

You have to replace them regularly to maintain tone and playability.

To remove the strings, loosen the tension on each string by turning the tuning head toward you. If the string's pitch lowers as you pluck it, the tension is loosening.

Once it’s loose enough, you can remove it from the tuning peg and the bridge.

Next, feed the new string through the bridge, ensuring it sits properly in the saddle. Wind the string around the tuning peg, keeping it slack enough to wind more than once.

Repeat the process for each string, and then tune it up. Use our online bass tuner to help you out.

For a closer look at the process, check out this in-depth video showing exactly how to change your bass strings!

2. Adjusting Action and Intonation

Regardless of how well you maintain climate control for your bass, the wood will shift over time.

As it shifts, it changes the action (string height) and intonation (string length) of your bass, requiring you to set up your bass.

If the action is too high, playing can be difficult; if it's too low, you may experience fret buzz.

Here’s how to adjust the action on your bass:

Use a hex key or flathead screwdriver to turn the saddle height adjustment screws at either end of the bridge saddle

Turn them clockwise to raise the action or counterclockwise to lower it, making quarter-turn adjustments

After each adjustment, retune your bass and play a few notes on each string to check for buzz and playability

Repeat until you find a comfortable action without fret buzz

Intonation, on the other hand, controls how your bass sounds. You can check the intonation by comparing a natural harmonic to its fretted counterpart.

A natural harmonic is where a bell-like sound plays if you touch the string lightly above the fret itself and pluck it.

Here’s how to adjust the intonation on your bass:

Tune your bass accurately and play a natural harmonic at the 12th fret of each string

Compare it to the fretted note at the 12th fret. If the fretted note is higher in pitch, the string length is too short; if it's lower, the string length is too long.

Use a Phillips head screwdriver to turn the intonation screws at the back of the bridge saddles

Turn the screw clockwise to move the saddle back (lengthening the string) or counterclockwise to move it forward (shortening the string)

Retune the string and recheck intonation by comparing the natural harmonic and fretted notes at the 12th fret

Repeat the adjustment steps until both notes match in pitch, then move to the next string and repeat the process as needed

3. Tightening Hardware

Vibrations from playing can cause the hardware to loosen over time, leading to annoying rattles, buzzes, and other issues.

Regularly checking and tightening any loose hardware is a good idea to keep everything secure.

For tuners, you’ll want to ensure the nuts are snug against the headstock. Locate the nut on the tuner on the front of the headstock. Use a flathead screwdriver to tighten them. Be careful not to over-tighten them, or you could strip the threads.

If your input jack feels wobbly, you can usually tighten it by unscrewing the nut on the outside of the jack and giving it a quarter turn or so.

And if your strap buttons feel loose, you can tighten them with a small screwdriver.

Just be gentle and don’t force anything—that goes for all hardware! If something seems stuck or stripped, it might be time to take your bass to a professional to look it over.

4. Nut and Bridge Maintenance

The nut and the bridge are two of the most important parts of your bass, keeping it in tune and playing smoothly.

The nut is a small piece of material that sits at the top of the fretboard just underneath the headstock and keeps all the strings in place.

The bridge, a larger piece at the bottom of the bass, anchors the strings to the bass guitar's body.

Over time, dirt and grime can build up in the slots of the nuts and saddles of the bridge, causing issues with tuning and playability.

You'll want to clean these regularly to keep everything clean and playing smoothly. I recommend doing nut and bridge maintenance when you change your strings.

Use a soft-bristled brush to remove any grime.

If the nut slots or bridge saddles need lubrication, you can use graphite or nut sauce (a lubricant for the slots in the nut) to help the strings move freely and stay in tune.

If your bass is out of tune after you’ve cleaned it, you may need to set the nut height.

Take Your Bass Maintenance (and Playing) Up a Level

Regular bass maintenance is a necessary part of every bassist’s life.

It prolongs your bass's life and helps keep your sound consistent.

While I covered many key areas in bass maintenance, there’s still more to learn.

If you want to dive deeper, we have a course specifically focused on bass maintenance taught by custom luthier Chris May that walks you through setting up your bass.

It’s one of many courses from the SBL Academy that covers everything you need to know about the bass, taught by some of the world's best bassists.
 

 

[tauzero]

2 hours ago, TheGreek said:

For tuners, you’ll want to ensure the nuts are snug against the headstock. Locate the nut on the tuner on the front of the headstock. Use a flathead screwdriver to tighten them.

 

Use a WHAT to tighten them? Get a spanner, you wretched neanderthal (that's Scott, not @TheGreek).

 

2 hours ago, TheGreek said:

If your input jack feels wobbly, you can usually tighten it by unscrewing the nut on the outside of the jack and giving it a quarter turn or so.

 

If you're looking at the input jack, then you have problems distinguishing a bass from an amp. It's an OUTPUT jack.

 

And while his description of doing intonation is OK for Fender type bridges, there are other types out there.

 

It's not a bad guide to maintenance, I'm being a bit picky - except for the spanner. Use a bloody spanner, either a proper one or an adjustable adjusted to be a snug fit. And make sure all screwdrivers, spanners, sockets (the spannery sort) and hex keys are a good fit, not a sloppy one.

 

 

[Reggaebass]

Boiling strings- The first step is to remove the strings from your bass..

I knew I was doing something wrong 😁

[Cliff Edge]

19 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

Boiling strings- The first step is to remove the strings from your bass..

I knew I was doing something wrong 😁

yes that’s how I got a short scale. 

[KingPrawn]

As if Scott does any of this himself!