A little advice from those in the know...

[Grand Wazoo]

Hi guys, I have found a cheap bass to use as a beater, one I don't have to worry too much about knocking it about and getting it damaged.

The bass in question is a Squier Classic Vibe P-bass 1950's as in the pic below:



First of all I have watched a review from bass Maestro Ed Friedland on youtube here: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Cd98DH__U"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Cd98DH__U[/url] and I was quite impressed, but then again it is said that even a stick on a tea crate sounds good in Ed's hands.

Then I decided to go and try one for myself and was lucky enough to find one at the Gallery in Camdem Town, London, I played it through a Mark Bass Jeff Berlin (the one without the high freq. horn) and I realy liked it, excellent playability, decent built quality, and gave a very convincing "vintage" sound. Now in all fairness this bass having just one pickup only does one thing, you have one volume and one tone controls and all you get is 2 options one with tone fully on and the other fully off. Anything else in between is inaudible really. But what concerned me about this bass was the fact that it was very difficult to get harmonics out of it, the only "clear" harmonics you could get were on 5th 7th and 12th fret, but if you tried 4th, 8th and 3rd frets or those in betweent fret ones you get on good basses you could forget about it. Maybe I am spoiled because my main basses are a Stingray 5 and a Bongo 5 where you just need to feather a string with your fingertips and harmonics would inevitably come out but what I'd like to know is:

why is it that this Squier bass hardly had any harmonics? The strings were new, is there meant to be something wrong with it, when a bass doesn't play harmonics through most of the fretboard or is it something that really only come out on very good quality instruments?

Thanks for your time

Edited December 10, 2009 by bass5

[stevebasshead]

As I understand it, it's probably nothing more than the position of the pickup. If it had been mounted even just 1/2 and inch left or right of where it is, the harmonics would've come through differently. Back when the original of which this bass is, er, based on, playing with harmonics was barely done and certainly the inadequate bass amplification of the day would've ensured they were lost in the mix! So the design choice of where exactly the pickup was positioned was based on the normal playing style of the day.

It's kinda hard to explain but when a string is plucked for a harmonic, it doesn't vibrate equally all along it's length and there can be little null points where not an awful lot is happening and if hte pickup is under one of those spots for a given harmonic then it barely rings out at all. So if the pickup was positioned elsewhere it would have got a stronger signal if you see what I mean?

[geoffbyrne]

+1 to the above - you can't get the harmonic on the 5th fret of a Strat or Tele if you use only the neck pickup, as it's sat exactly on a nul point.

G.

[Grand Wazoo]

Thanks to both of you gentlemen, I guess its a done deal, I'll go and pick that bass on Monday.

So now I have learnt that the harmonics are depending on where the pickups are placed, and you know I am baffled by geoffbyrne comment on the Statocaster neck pickup concept. I have another bass, a Paul Reed Smith, with a neck pickup virtually placed at the end of the fingerboard (see pic below) and I've just tried to hear how the harmonics come out with that pickup, and stange enough I can get most of them as I get with the other pickups, perhaps this particular pickup was cleverly placed so close to the neck for that reason. Thanks again.

[Bloodaxe]

[quote name='bass5' post='680085' date='Dec 10 2009, 11:48 AM']Thanks to both of you gentlemen... ... and you know I am baffled by geoffbyrne comment on the Statocaster neck pickup concept.[/quote]

If you hit an open string, the string vibrates along its whole length. If you were to hit the harmonic at the 12th fret, the string vibrates in two distinct sections - the 12th fret point is where they meet & theoretically doesn't move. Each half vibrates out of phase with the other, so when one half is going down the other is going up. The 5th fret harmonic splits the string into 4 equal sections - the 5th, 12th, & 24th fret positions being the "null points" where the swing/vibration changes direction.

If you were to put a pickup directly at the 24th fret position & hit a 5th fret harmonic, in theory the pickup would have nothing to amplify as there's no vibration going on above it. Move the pickup a bit either way & it'll get it.

Pete.