Positioning your bass pickups correctly is essential to creating the optimal sound from your instrument. Low pickup settings produce muddy tones that reduce overall effectiveness of tone production.
Most body-mount pickups include a dense foam piece to push them upward when secured to your guitar body. Use a feeler gauge to depress strings at the last fret in order to check pickup height.
Scale Length
Typically, the longer a guitar’s scale length is, the lower its action and better bass response it provides. However, some players with smaller hands find short scale guitars more comfortable. No matter the scale length chosen, make sure that its pickups are placed optimally to achieve good tone; too close together and they won’t sense fundamental frequency of strings, leading to thin tones while too far apart can produce muffled boomy tones.
The Jazz bass was introduced in 1960 as an ergonomic, streamlined instrument designed for comfort. Its offset waist design shifted the body mass closer to the neck when sitting, which more closely corresponds to how most bassists hold their instruments while playing seated. Furthermore, its back contour was slightly more balanced than on Precision basses.
Jazz basses often utilize either a bridge and middle single-coil pickup configuration or PJ set, both of which allow users to create various tones; the latter offers particularly versatile settings that can recreate vintage P bass tones with split coil pickups in the middle position.
Polepiece spacing on a Jazz bass is also key to its tone; closer pickups to strings enable more effective sensing of fundamental frequency; while cutting in half their distance increases sensing strength by four times.
Most modern Jazz basses feature 3.6″ polepiece spacing, as is standard among bass pickups in general. Older instruments may still utilize 4″ spacing; the American Elite Jazz Bass released in 2016 features a 3.6″ polepiece spacing with an exclusive noiseless pickup made of samarium cobalt designed to sound warmer than nickel-plated dual coil pickups typically found on vintage instruments.
A jazz bass’s dual single-coil construction enables it to produce an array of tones, from bright snappy sounds to deeper tones with greater warmth. Both pickups are typically wound in opposite directions to cancel out any potential hum when both pickups are switched on at once; this can be particularly helpful when employing slap techniques because eliminating unwanted frequencies from their signal is simplified using two pickups instead of just one.
String Gauge
Adjusting string height is often essential for finding your ideal tone, whether purchasing used guitars or replacing factory set pickups in new ones. A bass guitar’s pickup height directly affects its harmonic response of its strings – closer it is, the more bass tone will resonate back through. Conversely, further away it reacts less.
Choosing a string gauge requires taking into account both your musical style and personal preferences, such as how often you bend your strings for blues playing (using thinner gauges like 9-gauge allows this). Conversely, 11-gauge strings may be better for rock/metal music that prefer bassy tones or drop tunings due to maintaining tension when tuning down to lower notes.
Setting your bass pickup height can be accomplished quickly and easily with just a screwdriver and pocket ruler. Start by depressing both bass and treble strings at their final fret (closest to your pickups), using a machinist’s rule, before measuring from bottom string to pole piece; account for gaps or vibration allowances as necessary before using your screwdriver to adjust pickup height until it meets factory specs.
Keep in mind that you must follow this procedure for each pickup on your guitar. Aiming for equal output across each one and maintaining an even balance between bass and treble should help avoid drastic variations when turning up and down the tone knob.
String Thickness
Establishing the ideal string height can be one of the more daunting aspects of setting up a bass guitar. The optimal string height depends on various variables such as gauge and type of strings as well as player preference; generally speaking, though, an ideal string height would hover about two millimeters from the 14th fret in order to allow free vibrating without fighting against magnetic pull of pickup pickup; any string that’s too high could produce warbling or too low may not produce enough output.
Guitar strings come in an assortment of thicknesses, or gauges. In general, the higher a string gauge number is, the thicker and heavier it becomes. Thicker strings tend to have lower frequencies compared to thinner strings of similar length and tension; this difference in sound comes from mass of string. A larger mass requires more force for vibrational set off; consequently producing lower frequency notes.
Roundwound and flatwound strings for guitar are two of the most widely used types, featuring smooth surfaces that are easier on fingers and frets, while flatwounds produce deeper tones while being less friendly to fingernails. Electric guitars typically use roundwound strings while acoustic instruments usually prefer flatwound strings.
Other key considerations when it comes to string thickness include its material and how it’s wound, along with factors like durability and cost. Abrasion resistance, durability, and cost should all be given careful thought – nylon strings are commonly used; steel or brass might also be utilized. Abrasion resistance is particularly crucial for bass guitar strings due to constant contact with fretboards which could otherwise damage them over time.
Tonal differences among strings depend heavily on their purpose for use; light gauge strings tend to suit jazz players who wish to play more freely with lighter attacks; thicker gauge strings are better suited for guitarists using drop tunings because they maintain greater tension levels.
String Height
If the pickups are too low, they could actually interfere with string vibration and make your strings go out of tune, leading to quiet or thin sound quality. This could make for poor pickup performance in general and result in an unpleasant sound quality as a result.
Acclimatizing jazz bass pickups to standard is relatively straightforward and cost-effective; all it requires is a screwdriver, pocket ruler and comfortable working conditions.
First, depress the last fret on the bottom string (low E) and use a ruler to get an accurate measurement of the gap between its string and the Low E Pole. Repeat this step for each string and make adjustments as necessary until both strings meet manufacturer-spec specifications.
Now that your string is in its proper place, adjust the pickups for a comfortable playing height. You can do this either by removing and setting aside one of the pickups or by using an adjustable set screw on one of the bridge saddles to raise or lower string action as required.
To accurately establish string height, you can also utilize a string action gauge designed for this task. These gauges have markings every 0.10″, so that when they line up with the bottom of your string this indicates its proper height.
If you do not possess a string action gauge, an alternative way of testing string action might be using a small hammer to lightly tap each fret and listen for any sound produced when hitting. This will tell you whether there is enough gap between your string and fret to enable comfortable playing.
One popular method of adjusting guitar pickups is placing standard ink pen springs around their mounting screws to fine-tune pickup height for optimal string height. Fender Jaguar and Jazzmaster owners frequently employ this modification.