Sustain???

[krkozbassman]

What is all the talk about sustain? Sustain is the ability of a note to continue ringing, right? Unless your playing whole notes at 50 BPM, why do you need a note to sustain so long? Please enlighten me, thanks.

 

[Florin]

Well, there are notes longer than eights, so you can play long notes even on high tempo
A bass with a good sustain is visible in the first part of the note. A bass with a bad sustain usually dies immediately after the attack, while a bass with a good sustain will keep a nice and clean note (even if not too long)
Am I making sense to you?

 

[krkozbassman]

Sort of. I don't hear anything missing from my bass, I don't think "this dies off too soon". Really I just want to know what I am missing with my Thumb BO vs. NT. Do you know of any sound clips with a NT and lots of sustain that may help me understand?

 

[Florin]

Hm, I never noticed a difference in sustain between BO and NT. More between 34 and 35 inch. 34" Warwicks have a lot of sustain, so if you alreadu have any Warwick bass, nevermind about the sustain

 

[EVOLVEBASS]

I always make this face: when I read discussions about BO's having better attack and NT's having better sustain. Quite frankly, I think Warwick BO's have great sustain and NT's have great attack. I can't say there isn't something to it, but I don't see the point in overthinking it. The only thing I can add is that NT's do seem to have a certain 'presence' or 'fullness' that isn't as noticable with a BO, but there again, that feels like overthinking. It's certainly far less important than having the electronics and woods you want in a bass...

 

[budget bassist]

It's handy having good sustain for when you want it to ring for a while, it doesn't happen often in my band, but when it does and it doesn't sustain for long, it really gets on my nerves.

 

[Pedro]

rest your finger lightly on the fret line between the fifth and sixth fret then pluck...thats probably the best sustain you'll ever get out of your bass!

 

[TylerDurdenPSSC]

I always make this face: when I read discussions about BO's having better attack and NT's having better sustain. Quite frankly, I think Warwick BO's have great sustain and NT's have great attack. I can't say there isn't something to it, but I don't see the point in overthinking it. The only thing I can add is that NT's do seem to have a certain 'presence' or 'fullness' that isn't as noticable with a BO, but there again, that feels like overthinking. It's certainly far less important than having the electronics and woods you want in a bass...

That 'fullness' attribute could be due to the different preamps, yeah?

Personally, as far as the great sustain debate of ought nine, I stick with Maple bodied bass geets for a reason. :d

(Set'ah freshies, a good scrub down, and HOLY HEAVEN, I'm there!)

 

[EVOLVEBASS]

That 'fullness' attribute could be due to the different preamps, yeah?

In the context of Thumb NT (3-band) and Thumb BO (2-band) I suppose that could be a factor. But I was actually speaking of my basses that have had the same pickups/preamp, but NT versus BO.

 

[TylerDurdenPSSC]

Ah, gotchya.

In that case, it could very well be the fact that there is no transfer of vibration from one piece of wood to another. (Let alone, one species to another.)

Considering the strings are affixed to opposite ends of one piece of wood, as opposed to two different pieces bolted (or glued) together one third of the way (give or take, no need for accuracy) from the bridge, the sonic frequencies are not disrupted, and thus carried out uninterrupted.

Yes, that was my shot at pretending to be the PK for the day.

 

[golem]

..... it could very well be the fact that there is no
transfer of vibration from one piece of wood to
another. (Let alone, one species to another.)
..........

I always put a latex barrier [and some lube]
in the neck pocket, and have had no problem
with interspecies tranfer ......​

 

[krkozbassman]

Hm, I never noticed a difference in sustain between BO and NT. More between 34 and 35 inch. 34" Warwicks have a lot of sustain, so if you alreadu have any Warwick bass, nevermind about the sustain

Thanks I like that answer!!

 

[golem]

Rick O'Shea and the Good Vibrations

.. ......... .........

Considering the strings are affixed to opposite ends
of one piece of wood, as opposed to two different
pieces bolted (or glued) together one third of the
way (give or take, no need for accuracy) from the
bridge, the sonic frequencies are not disrupted,
and thus carried out uninterrupted.

............ ........ ...

Inneressin to thingaboud ....

Aftroll, the neck IS vibing, you can feel it.
Likewise the body likewise. It MUST be the
string vibing the wood. I mean, what else?

So, the wood, collectively, is vibed by the
string. If it's one hunk of wood maybe the
vibes just kinda Rick O'Shea all back and
forth thru the uninnerupted wood like the
CERN nookyewlar exhilerator. OTOH, with
two pieces of wood whose only connection
is some metal bolts, metal perhaps acting
as a 3rd species in the materials mix, each
piece of wood is still vibed by the action at
its end of the string ... cuz you CAN feel it
in both body and neck wood, but now each
end of the string's vibes are limited to the
domain defined as the wood on that side
of the bolts. No CERN Rick O'Shea fun, no
collisions, no vibrionic exhileration across
the midway barrier. But the fun can still
happen within EACH wooden domain, feed
back into the string and have its collisions
within the string.

Maybe a NT keeps it's collisions in the full
length wooden beam while the BO has its
collisions in the string [and nowhere else].
If this is true, or at best kinda sorta true,
it would be the collisions happning in the
string that limits sustain for the BO.

Of course a coupla things were left out of
the picture here, like the bridge, frets and
FB .... but were tryn to be elegant in our
simplicity, not simple in our elegance. Or
the other way round. Which evverrrrr .....
​

 

[golem]

More is NOT Better

...... A bass with a good sustain is visible in the
first part of the note. A bass with a bad sustain
usually dies immediately after the attack, while
a bass with a good sustain will keep a nice and
clean note (even if not too long) ............

Hey I just noticed that Flo differentiates
good sustain from long sustain ! Not that
he makes them mutually exclusive, but
most importantly he does NOT make
them synonamous.

This is the 1st rational argument I've ever
heard for IMPROVED sustain, cuz improved
doesn't automatically mean LONGER. It can
mean better, in a qualitative rather than a
quantitiative way.

Other than Flo's post, the rest of this thread
just reitierates the same tired old schidt that
equates "better" sustain with "long" sustain.
I never could see the need for longer, not
when there's usually already way too much ...
but I do dig the idea of BETTER, as explained
above by Flo ! ! !

Read him. The idea of BETTER sustain is NOT
at odds with having a fairly early decay !
​

 

[greybeard43]

I saw an amazing bass player with a blues band. He had a little metal clip attached to his headpiece. It swiveled so that in one position, it touched the neck, and in the other position it didn't. He used it for sustain in his bass solos. That was on an old p bass. So I imagine sustain has to do with the neck and headpiece as he played a lot of harmonics and got them to ring a long time with that piece in the position where it touched the neck. Hope this helps stir up some more controversy.

 

[Gastrok]

I saw an amazing bass player with a blues band. He had a little metal clip attached to his headpiece. It swiveled so that in one position, it touched the neck, and in the other position it didn't. He used it for sustain in his bass solos. That was on an old p bass. So I imagine sustain has to do with the neck and headpiece as he played a lot of harmonics and got them to ring a long time with that piece in the position where it touched the neck. Hope this helps stir up some more controversy.

I seem to recall Lee Sklar playing with one of these gizmos you describe. can't find a picture of the bass with it though...

got beard?

 

[BassPlyr Randy]

Way back when, you know, the olden days when Golem was just a Philosopher Prince, I knew several bass players that said you can add sustain to your bass by adding mass to your headstock and they would clamp a pair of vise grips to the head of their bass. Personally I don't think that I could hear any difference and thought it just looked really ghetto. I think they would have achieved better results from clamping the vise grips to their own ... ummm ... headstock, at least that way they would be able to hit them high notes in the chorus better.

Sorry, only mentioned it because the last to posts made me think of it and I think its funny the lengths that bass players will go to achieve more sustain, like it is some magical mana from the heavens that will compensate for poor technique.

 

[Florin]

I play in a pop rock band, and we have a lot of ballads, with loooong bass notes.
Still the most important thing for me is how the note is in it's first part, after the attack, not the actual length of the sustained note, because I can always play the same note again to have the desired length
Anyway, a bass with a good, healthy sustain, will usually have a long sustain too, why not...
The technique is a great help for a good sustain. Usually big attack means less sustain ...
So if you want looong, niiiice, round notes, with healthy sustain, then a soft touch is desirable.

 

[golem]

..... most important thing for me is how the
note is in it's first part, after the attack,
not the actual length of the sustain ......

Ya see ? He said it again !

I think he needs to say it a zillion times over
cuz either nobody's lizstnin or nobody wants
to hear it. Too real I spoze ....
​

 

[james brunnning]

Talking about gizmos for sustain I think the name was Fatfinger looked like a big money clip.There used to be a company that made a thin brass plate that went on the back side on the headstock.You had to take the tuners off put the plate on and reinstall the tuners.Don't know how well it worked and never saw one in person but talk about helping to induce neck dive.