Dick was a member of Sounds Incorporated a legendary 60’s band who toured with the Beatles on their world tour and backed all of the Rock N Roll stars visiting the UK including Little Richard and Gerry Lee Lewis. Dick wrote this for us a few years ago and it all still stands true now.
When Eddie of Fret Music asked me to write something on the above subject I decided that the way to go would be to target the beginner / intermediate player as the professional / virtuoso guys would, having reached those giddy heights, one assumes, have all the qualifications necessary to make their own judgments.
Firstly What Is A ‘Bass Guitar’?
Simply put, it is an instrument that provides the low end harmonic and rhythmic content in nearly all forms of popular music. Taking over from the double bass in an ever increasing way, since Leo Fender, first brought it to the world many many years ago. His ‘P’ precision , and ‘J’ jazz models have become the benchmarks for bass guitar design for more than four decades. It is a testament to his original designs that they are still used today in a brand new century in bands seen on current TV music programmes, promo videos etc., the bass player, more often than not is using a Leo Fender based instrument.
The instrument itself has, as its name suggests, a ‘guitar’ type body coupled to a longer neck to give the increased scale length necessary to accommodate the longer and heavier gauge strings. These reproduce the lower frequencies required to emulate the double bass . These scale lengths can vary from short / medium (some of the early Gibson models like the EB2 had a 30 inch scale ), too long, like the Fender’s which is 34 inches . The longer scale gives, without doubt, the superior sound and has become the accepted norm for four stringed basses. In recent times, some five string instruments have had their scale length increased to 35 inches to allow the much heavier low ‘b’ string to achieve its intended potential.
From the above, we can deduce that the beginner would probably benefit by choosing a long scale bass either in the ‘P’ or ‘J’ pick-up configurations. While an American built instrument would have a price penalty there are many instruments of similar construction in the market place that would from both playability and price considerations. Less than £150.00 will get you a very playable instrument. Some models to consider are the Squire Affinity P-bass , the Peavey Milestone , which has a lovely slim neck, a plus for the total beginner, and the Aria Legend . The build quality of all of these Far Eastern manufactured basses has really come on in recent times. How I wish they had been around in 1961, when I and many other early rock ‘n rollers were forced, by lack of availability / choice, to play Gibson EB2s , Hofners and the like – especially at the price they would have been then.
Squire Affinity P-bass
When addressing the needs of the intermediate player, they almost fall into the professional virtuoso category. It really depends on how they wish to develop their playing styles and sounds, types of music etc.. The options are many-fold including the following:-
1). Fretted or fretless .
2). Bolt on or through neck.
3). Active or passive eq. (see below).
4). Standard 20 fret 21fretto give a high ‘e’ on the g string or extended dual octave 24 fret
5). 4 string , 5 string or 6 string etc.
6) Standard wood neck with maple , rosewood or ebony board , or graphite / composite neck possibly matched to a rosewood or similar board.
7). Single pick up / multi-pick up , with or without pick up blend control.
8). Gauge and type of strings fitted – round wound , flat wound , etc.,
The above can all be interwoven giving almost endless permutations. It’s a case of ‘you pays yer money and makes yer choice’ – which really ought to be the other way round – choice first money later. I guess the old adage of ‘buy the best you can afford’ still holds good and the other main ingredients should be, not necessarily in this order – comfort / feel / playability/ accessibility to the higher frets, sounds available etc.,
I remember an occasion that illustrates perfectly two of the above. In the mid to late seventies, I worked as an international salesman for General Music Strings who owned the Picato brand at the time. I was on a sales trip to Scandinavia and part of my brief was to service the Hagstrom guitar company in Sweden we supplied unpackaged guitar and bass strings for manufacturing purposes. I had to wait to see my contact and in the office there was, right next to me, sitting in an open case, was a fretless bass . I naturally picked it up to while away a few minutes. Within seconds I knew I had to have it. Beautifully made in mahogany with a delightful ebony board and quality hardware, but it was the ‘Instant’ feel and playability that won me over. I wasn’t concerned about the electronics as they could have been fixed if necessary. I’m glad to say that Hagstrom let me buy it and on getting the bass home, I took the neck off and wrapped it lovingly in my dirty washing to protect it during the flight. The electronics proved to be as excellent as the rest of the instrument. I’ve still got it today some twenty years later.
Passive / Active EQ:
Simply put, the difference between the two is that passive eq is normally just an unpowered (passive) treble cut circuit, giving the impression to the ear of adding more bass.
Active eq is a powered circuit usually using one 9 volt battery allowing the addition as well as cut-off the selected bass / treble frequencies.This renders a much enhanced variety of tonal options becoming available, especially on a multi pick up instrument which usually has a plus/minus eq circuit for each pick up
A reminder on amplification:
Physics tells us that bass frequencies demand a lot of power to reproduce them as opposed to high end ones; the lower the frequency the more power needed. So the conclusion here is, for the intermediate player upwards, to buy the most powerful amp you can afford, bearing in mind transportation considerations. For the beginner practising at home, price is usually the number one consideration, especially if buying the complete starter package. The one to check out here is the Peavey Microbass . It has, as all other models in the Peavey bass amp range, a unique patented circuit called ‘ddt’ – (distortion detection technique). In essence this allows the player to have a usable average power of 50% of the rated amp output leaving 50% as ‘headroom’ to accommodate the loud bits by holding back damaging distortion . For sound reinforcement (pa) , applications The Audio Engineering Society recommends running power amps at an average of – 10db . This is roughly equivalent to 10% of the rated output leaving enough ‘headroom’ for the ‘loud bits’ to avoid damaging distortion. This could also apply to the power amp stage of a bass guitar amp which, if subject to sudden variances of demand, eg a quick change during a performance from light ‘finger style’ to heavy ’slap’ playing, might need to be run in a similar manner. This will prevent the power amp section being overdriven. However, in my opinion, it goes without saying that the most cost effective route to help minimise this unwanted phenomenon is to buy an amp with ddt .
