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New to bass and have a issue tuning
Hey all, I am new to playing bass, anyway I have it tuned to the standard E,A,D,G anyway when playing especially on the first three frets I have almost no tone at all its more of like a dull vibration any advice on how to fix or adjust this?
How old are your strings?
Could be defective strings, but odd if all 4 are doing the same thing.
Sounds very much like the intonation is out and the fretted notes are playing flat, you will need to adjust the bridge saddles so the open notes are also in tune at the 12th fret
If the notes are flat move the bridge saddle forward and the back if it’s sharp,hopefully this will do the trick for you
Welcome to the site, and the low end of things!
First thing I'd check is the volume on the bass itself - is it up? I'm guilty of that on my first bass - long, embarrassing story.
If you have an active preamp change out the battery - a dead/dying battery will do stuff like this.
Check the Gain on your amp, if it has one - turn it up a bit. Gain adjusts the input signal strength, so if it is too low the amp won't have enough signal to do anything with.
It could also be a bad cable - try another if you have one.
Let us know if none of that helps, and some more details on what you have - the type of bass and amp would be helpful in troubleshooting.
First few frets of which string(s)?
What kind of amp/cab/combo/headphones are you using? Is the equipment suitable for reproducing low frequencies?
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Hey all, I am new to playing bass, anyway I have it tuned to the standard E,A,D,G anyway when playing especially on the first three frets I have almost no tone at all its more of like a dull vibration any advice on how to fix or adjust this?
Hi there. If your new to bass I mean brand spanking new. What the other guys are suggesting is great but I think you are just going to get confused dealing with all that at first. Just take your bass into your local neighborhood music store and ask them to help you sort it out. That's what they are there for. The guys I deal with are fantastic for finding quirky little problems and sorting it out. They will help you make the fix and give you some pointers along the way. I have a Schecter Stiletto Stealth 4 bass that was giving me all sorts of grief on different frets. It turned out to be the electronics and the signal and not the frets at all. It is a fantastic bass now. The one I play the most. Best just take it in and let the pros look at it until your ready to deal with working on your own bass. You can just make matters worse trying to adjust things if you don't know what you are doing.
Hi all and thank you all for the advice…but I took my bass into a local music store and the girl who checked it out said my actions were to low, and she adjusted the pick-ups and changed the strings…she said it was factory settings…it seems to be working ok…but she did say I would have issues in the future because of the bass, I bought a Ibanez Talman from Amazon, she said Ibanez was a good brand but this bass is one of their poor quality one…I dont know. Any advice on this? But again thank you all.
I never played a bad Ibanez. I've owned one of the cheaper instruments, a GSR200EX, for 9 years. It's a flawless, stable bass. I took out the pre-amp, because I like passive a little more than active. I changed the tuning to B, E, A, D. I play this bass a lot. This cheap Ibanez is a real player!
B,E,A,D…I will try, I have just been trying to learn on the standard
I've heard the Talman basses can be pretty iffy out of the box, but with a good setup (which it sounds like you got) they can be very solid.
Just stick with EADG tuning. BEAD is a 4th lower tuning - you'll likely need different strings, which then requires changing the nut (replacing it or widening the slots), and…
Taking a typical 4-string to that tuning isn't trivial.
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B,E,A,D…I will try, I have just been trying to learn on the standard
To tune BEAD, you'll have to swap strings. The thickest four of a 5-string set will do. This, of course, does not improve your bass, it just changes tuning.
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