Written by Malphas on 05.10.2014 at 17:30

Yeah, a change of climate can have such effects, and it's gonna take time to adjust to the new one.

Now that you mentioned action, a strange thing happened to me when i lowered my Yamaha's action. I was playing with high action (maximum on the B string) because i wanted to avoid that clucking on the strings and since my RBX375 is actually a 4 string bass with a little wider neck and +1 string (it wasn't originally built for 5 strings, it's a modification of the 4 string model) it's a 34" neck length so it's 1" shorter than the B string would like it lol, long story short i had difficulties playing technical and brutal death because of the left hand speed and precision those genres require and with high action it's just impossible to play so i lowered the action, starter playing and it was a revelation...it's like i instantly became 10 times as good as before lol. So even though that clucking sound is annoying while practicing at home, the aggressive tone it produces (when i crank up my amp) is actually quite good, so i've been using low action ever since and i'm loving it. Now to the strange part...a few notes/frets just completely lost the sound. When i play them they just don't produce any sound whatsoever, neither acoustic nor through the amp. How can i describe it? eerrmmm....it's like that dull sound when you don't press down on a string hard enough, when your touch is too light, and they seem to be random frets (2 on the D string and 3 on the G string- of which 2 (one on each string) are on the first octave, and the rest are on the second octave (12+ fret)). I checked both the frets and the fingerboard, there's no damage, i checked the strings and there's no damage either. No idea what the action has to do with it or even what the problem is maybe it is time to change my strings though cuz i haven't done it even once on this around 3 year old bass haha

Well, it's probably to do with the bowing of the neck. Every neck has a slight bow and you don't normally notice it affecting the sound, but that becomes more apparent when you lower the action on the bass. For mine, I've had trouble with a few frets in the middle of the fretboard because the neck was actually bending forward towards the strings. Because the neck is pretty low quality, even if I adjusted the truss rod (which controls the bow) it would still bend back into that curve within a day or so (actually I didn't have this problem in humid climate!). Basically, the space between the string and the fret are too narrow to create the note that you are playing.

I actually fixed it by raising the bridge saddle and the nut itself, it made the action a tad higher but that's a good thing when you play with a pick. As long as I can get B standard and have decent intonation when playing every note, that's good enough for me.

It sounds like 1. the neck is bending forward in the middle as well (like mine) causing those notes in the second octave to go dull and 2. perhaps the nut (the part of the bass where the strings extend from the peg to the fretboard) is actually lower than it needs to be, making the beginning notes in the fretboard dull.

I don't know how comfortable you are with adjusting the action yourself because it might mean spoiling what you have right now that you are comfortable with. But if you are OCD like me go for it

I actually checked the intonation (with harmonics) and it's perfectly fine, but what you're saying makes sense and yeah the easiest way to fix it would be to increase the action a bit. Thanks

Written by Malphas on 06.10.2014 at 00:05

I actually checked the intonation (with harmonics) and it's perfectly fine, but what you're saying makes sense and yeah the easiest way to fix it would be to increase the action a bit. Thanks

By the way, is there other stuff besides DM that you like playing?

Well, i do like to play some prog shit like Gojira, Persefone, Ne Obliviscaris (the last one being extremely difficult but fun as fuck), even stuff like Dream Theater or Epica are fun to play for a change. Also i play some black metal from time time, including Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth (mentioning them separately because people usually don't consider them to be black metal, i honestly don't care about that though ) because it's fun and also pretty neat for your right hand stamina (finger style). Meshuggah aren't death metal either...oh and i enjoy playing some stuff by Kreator too. What i play outside of metal is classical music, covering some famous pieces on bass is awesome and Muse...they have some good songs, especially on bass. So yeah, that's more or less it, but sooner or later i find myself shredding Cryptopsy again

what about you? what are your ventures outside the comfort zone?

Cool, yeah Ne Obliscaris can be complex but they have some awesome bass lines.

Yeah, like I said before - I like playing crust/post hardcore/hardcore, I like those really meaty bass lines. Alice in Chains, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Journey, Queen, and a myriad of other stuff. I guess I lean more towards the blues side of things as opposed to classical. Besides DM, I play Watain, Scar Symmetry, Dark Tranquility, Soilwork, Devildriver.

Nice, it's always good to play a wide array of different genres as they all have something specific which you can pick up and incorporate into your own style