vesterberg.se

I love the way you can affect the tone of your bass with just your fingers. Where you hit the string with your finger affects how the string will vibrate and how it will sound. You can pluck the string from the middle of the string above the fretboard all the way down to close to the bridge and vary your tone considerably.

If you play close to the neck you will get a warm, round tone. The fundamental tone is accentuated, that is your tone will be more like a sine wave. You will get a deep, bassy sound.

If you play closer to the bridge the harmonics are accentuated and the tone has more treble in it. The tone is dry and dirty. The string is stiffer, which means that it will be in the same place each time you hit it. You can play faster. On the other hand the volume is weaker than when you play close to the neck. More effort is needed to produce the same volume.

How you pluck also affects the tone. If you play with a pick or with your nails or hard fingertips more of the harmonics are retained. If you play with your pads the vibration of the string is dampened at the pluck and the tone has less harmonics.

Added to all this we also have slap and pop and playing with thumb. I try to give the basslines of each song we play in our group character by varying the way I play. As bass players we are limited in the possibilities of adding effects because of the nature of the bass sound. Too much of effects just make the tone diffuse and undefined and your sound disappears among the guitars. But with a mostly clean tone and fingers we can achieve much!