One of the basic things that you should learn when learning how to play the electric bass guitar is setting it up to sound well. A well set up guitar is one in which the sound is good, provides comfort when fretting and plucking, in tune, and suits your playing style.
To make your electric bass guitar sound well, you need to make adjustments on your instrument. One of the things you can adjust is the straightness of your guitar’s neck or what is called relief.
The neck of your guitar can either bend upwards or what we call up-bow or backwards what is called back-bow. There are two factors that can contribute to bending your guitar’s neck. One is the tension in the strings pulling it upward and the other is the truss rod pulling the neck backward.
The strings of the guitar place several pounds of tension on the guitar’s neck. On the other hand, the truss rod is found inside the guitar’s neck. It can be tightened or loosened. Tightening it puts more pressure on the neck bending it backward on the opposite direction of the tension. Loosening it eases the pressure increasing the relief.
Take extreme caution when adjusting truss rods. Over tightening it can result to snapping and in the process damage the bass of your neck.
The best choice is to sight your neck by holding the body of your guitar and making a bridge toward the nut. Sighting the neck will give you an idea of the amount of relief is in your neck.
String vibration moves in an elliptical manner. Their vibration is greater towards the middle of the length. Minimal relief is required so they would not hit the frets. In a straight or back-bowed neck, the strings may hit the frets that could produce unpleasant sounds.
Another thing you can adjust to make your electric bass guitar sound well is the intonation. This refers to the accuracy of your guitar hitting the right pitch. A bad sounding intonation can be easily determined by every member of the band.
Adjusting the intonation pattern of your electric bass guitar means matching or lining them up on locations where notes occur on the fretboard. If they are not properly aligned, the electric bass guitar will be out of sync.
To adjust the intonation of your electric bass guitar, simply move the saddle forward or backward. This would modify the length of the string from the bridge to the nut of the guitar. In the process of shifting the length of the string, the intonation will hit the spot where there are notes.
Setting up your instrument to make it sound in harmony with other instruments is one aspect of learning how to play the electric bass guitar.
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