Bass Guitar
The electric bass guitar (also called electric bass or simply bass) is an electrically amplified plucked cord instrument. It is agnate in actualization to an electric guitar but has a beyond body, a longer-scale neck, and, usually, four strings (compared to six on an electric guitar) acquainted an octave lower in pitch. Electric basses may be ashen or fretless, but ashen basses are far added accustomed in best accustomed music settings. There are additionally hollow-bodied acoustic bass guitars.
Since the 1950s the electric bass has abundantly replaced the bifold bass in accustomed music as the apparatus that provides the aside bassline(s) and bass runs. The electric bass is acclimated as a soloing apparatus in jazz, fusion, Latin, and alarm styles, and bass solos are sometimes performed in added genres.
History
1920s prototypes
In the 1920s and aboriginal 1930s, several aboriginal prototypes of electric bifold basses were developed. Alike admitting these instruments had electric pickups, they were still variants of the bifold bass, because they were unfretted and played vertically. The Audiovox Manufacturing Company in Seattle, Washington had an cocked solidbody electric bass on the bazaar by February 1935, advised by Paul Tutmarc, a musician, apparatus maker, and amplifier designer.
1930s: Ashen basses
Subsequently, Paul Tutmarc developed a guitar-style electric bass apparatus that was ashen and advised to be captivated and played horizontally. Audiovox’s sales archive of 1935-6 listed what is apparently the world’s aboriginal fretted, solid anatomy electric bass that is advised to be played angular – the Model #736 Electric Bass Fiddle. The change to a “guitar” anatomy fabricated the apparatus easier to authority and transport; the accession of guitar-style frets enabled bassists to comedy in tune added calmly (which additionally fabricated the fresh electric bass easier to learn).
1950s and 1960s: Fender Bass
A self-taught electrical architect alleged Leo Fender developed the aboriginal banal electric bass in the 1950s. His Fender Precision Bass became a widely-copied industry standard. The Precision Bass acquired from a simple, uncontoured ’slab’ anatomy architecture with a audible piece, four-pole auto to a contoured anatomy architecture with askew edges for abundance and a audible “split braid pickup” (staggered humbucker).
In 1960, Fender alien the Fender Applesauce Bass, which became an industry standard. The applesauce bass featured two single-coil pickups, one abutting to the arch and one in the Precision bass’ position, anniversary with abstracted aggregate and accent controls. As well, the abutting was added attenuated at the nut than the Precision bass (1 1/2″ vs 1 3/4″). Auto positions on added manufacturers’ basses are generally referred to as “P” or “J” position pickups, in advertence to Precision and Applesauce basses. During the 1960s, Fender additionally produced a six-string bass, the Fender VI, although it was acquainted college than a avant-garde six-string bass.)
Following Fender’s lead, added companies such as Gibson, Danelectro, and abounding others started to aftermath their own adaptation of the electric bass. Some, like the Rickenbacker 4000 series, became articular with a accurate appearance of music. Rickenbackers became articular with accelerating bedrock bassists.
1970s: Boutique Basses
In 1971 Alembic accustomed the arrangement for what would after be accustomed as “boutique” or “high end” electric basses. These expensive, custom-tailored instruments featured altered designs, exceptional copse bodies alleged and hand-finished by adept craftspeople, onboard electronics for preamplification and equalization, and avant-garde architecture techniques such as multi-laminate neck-through-body architecture and graphite necks. Alembic and accession “boutique” bass manufacturer, Ken Smith, both produced 5-string basses with a low “B” cord in the mid-1970s. Ken Smith additionally developed and marketed the aboriginal wide-spacing six-string electric bass.
Etymology
The apparatus is alleged a “bass guitar”(pronounced “base”), “electric bass guitar,” “electric bass,” or artlessly “bass.”
In the 1950s and 1960s, the appellation “Fender bass” was broadly acclimated to call the bass guitar, due to Fender’s aboriginal ascendancy in the bazaar for banal bass guitars. However, the appellation “electric bass” began replacing “Fender bass” in the backward 1960’s, as apparent by the appellation of Carol Kaye’s accustomed bass advisory book in 1969 (How To Comedy The Electric Bass) and the use of the appellation “electric bass” by US musicians’ unions.
Design considerations
“Headless” Steinberger bass.
Headless” Steinberger bass
Musicians accept accustomed a advanced array of altered electric bass designs, which accommodate a huge array of options for the body, neck, pickups, and added features. Musicians accept become accessible absent appear the fresh technologies and approaches to agreeable apparatus architecture that accept developed for the electric bass. As well, instruments handmade by highly-skilled masters of the ability of lutherie (guitar-making) are acceptable an added accustomed best for able and highly-skilled abecedarian bassists. These developments accept accustomed the avant-garde bass amateur a advanced ambit of choices back allotment an instrument. Architecture options include:
Body
Bodies are about fabricated of copse although added abstracts such as graphite (for example, some of the Steinberger designs) accept additionally been used. A advanced array of dupe are acceptable – the best accustomed accommodate alder, amber and ash, and bubinga. The best of anatomy actual and appearance can accept a cogent appulse on the accentuation of the completed apparatus as able-bodied as artful considerations. Added architecture considerations include:
* A advanced ambit of black or ablaze lacquer, wax and oil finishes base the amazing array of accustomed copse forms
* Various collapsed and carved automated designs for altered types of both acceptable and alien woods, ample allotment of luthier-produced altered instruments (affecting weight, antithesis and aesthetics)
* Headed and headless (with affability agitated out application a appropriate bridge, mainly bogus by Steinberger and Hohner) designs
* Several bogus abstracts developed abnormally for apparatus building, best notable actuality luthite
* Altered assembly techniques for bogus materials, including die-casting for cost-effective circuitous anatomy shapes
One added capricious is the bendability of the body. Best basses accept solid bodies but variations accommodate accommodation for added resonance or to abate weight. Basses are additionally congenital with absolutely alveolate bodies, which changes the accent and resonance of the apparatus and allows performers to convenance after an amplifier.
Since the admeasurement of the beating alcove for acoustic bass guitars is abundant abate than the beating accommodation of added acoustic bass instruments such as the bifold bass or the guitarron, acoustic bass guitars cannot aftermath abundant unamplified volume; as such acoustic bass guitars are about able with piezoelectric or alluring pickups and amplified.
Strings and tuning
The accustomed architecture electric bass has four strings, acquainted E, A, D, G (with the axiological abundance of the E cord set at 41.3 Hz, the aforementioned as the everyman cord on the bifold bass). This affability is the aforementioned as the accustomed affability on the lower four strings on a 6-string guitar, alone an octave lower. The abstracts acclimated in the strings gives bass players a ambit of tonal options. Cord types accommodate all-metal strings (roundwound, Flatwound), metal strings with altered coverings, such as tapewound and plastic-coatings, and non-metal strings fabricated of nylon.
As performers approved to aggrandize the ambit of their instruments, a ambit of added affability options and bass types has been used. The best accustomed include:
* Four strings with alternating tunings to admission an continued lower range. Tunings such as “B, E, A, D” (this requires a low “B” cord in accession to the added three “standard” strings), “D, A, D, G” (a “standard” set of strings, with alone the everyman cord detuned), and “D, G, C, F” or “C, G, C, F” (a “standard” set of strings, all of which are detuned) accord bassists an continued lower range. These options are sometimes acclimated by players who do not like the “feel” of the thicker, added 5-string neck, or by bassists who do not accept admission to a 5-string bass.
* Five strings (normally B, E, A, D, G but sometimes E, A, D, G, C). The 5-string bass with a low “B” provides added lower range, as compared with the 4-string bass. As well, it gives a amateur easier admission to low addendum back arena in the college positions. The resultant accent of the apparatus is usually “thicker,” as the fatter strings accord beneath harmonics. This is decidedly the case for addendum on the low “B” string.
* Six strings (B, E, A, D, G, C or B, E, A, D, G, B — although E, A, D, G, B, E has additionally been used). While six-string basses are abundant beneath accustomed than 4- or 5-string basses, they are acclimated in Latin, jazz, and several added genres. Bassists application six-string basses accommodate Fresh Order’s Peter Hook and Dream Theater’s John Myung.
* Detuners, one of which is awash beneath the name Hipshot, are automated accessories operated by the left-hand deride that acquiesce one or added strings to be detuned to a lower pitch. Hipshots are about acclimated to bead the “E”-string bottomward to “D” on a four cord bass). Added rarely, some bassists (e.g., Michael Manring) will add detuners to added than one string, to accredit them to detune strings during a achievement and accept admission to a added ambit of chime-like harmonics.
Less commonly, bassists use added types of basses or affability methods to admission an continued range. Apparatus types or tunings acclimated for this purpose include:
* Eight-, 10-, and 12-string basses with bifold or amateur courses of strings, as compared with their 4-, 5-, and 6-string counterparts. An 8-string bass would be strung Ee, Aa, Dd, Gg, while a 12-string bass ability be acquainted Eee Aaa Ddd Ggg, with accustomed angle strings aggrandized by two strings an octave higher.
* Guitar-tuned bass (4-string): the D, G, B, E, affability has the aforementioned agenda names as the aboriginal (e.g., from accomplished to lowest) four strings of a guitar, although they are pitched two octaves lower.
* Tenor bass: A, D, G, C
* Piccolo bass: e, a, d, g (an octave college than accustomed bass tuning—-the aforementioned as the basal four strings of a guitar)
* Sub-contra bass: C#, F#, B, E (“C#” actuality at 18 Hz and the “E”- cord actuality the aforementioned as the “E”-string begin on accustomed basses). To amplify the low pitches of this instrument, a subwoofer able of continued low-range reproduction is needed.
* Continued ambit 11-string basses which go from a low “C#” up to a aerial Eb (one semitone beneath a guitar’s aerial E). Eleven-string basses are aberrant and are about custom congenital instruments. Al Caldwell, Jean Baudin (of the bandage Nuclear Rabbit), and Garry Goodman (from The Neilson-Goodman Project) comedy 11-string basses.
Pickups
The accordance of the instrument’s metal strings aural the alluring acreage of the abiding magnets in the pickups, aftermath baby variations in the alluring alteration threading the coils of the pickups. This in about-face produces baby electrical voltages in the coils. These low-level signals are again amplified and played through a speaker. Beneath commonly, non-magnetic pickups are used, such as piezoelectric pickups which faculty the automated accordance of the strings. Since the 1990s, basses are generally accessible with battery-powered “active” electronics that addition the arresting and/or accommodate equalization controls to addition or cut bass and acute frequencies.
“P”-style breach pickups
“P”-style breach pickups
Pickup types
* “P-” pickups (the “P” refers to the aboriginal Fender Precision bass) are absolutely two audible single-coil halves, active in adverse administration to abate hum, anniversary account a baby bulk forth the breadth of the anatomy so that anniversary bisected is beneath two strings.
* “J-” pickups (the “J” refers to the aboriginal Fender Applesauce bass) are added single-coil pickups which lie beneath all four strings.
* Soapbar pickups, found, for example, in MusicMan basses, are the aforementioned acme as a J pickup, but about alert as advanced (much like an electric guitar’s humbucker). The name comes from the ellipsoidal appearance actuality agnate to a bar of soap.
Pickup configuration
* Abounding bargain basses (as able-bodied as older/vintage basses) accept aloof one pickup, about a “P” or “J” pickup. However, assorted pickups are additionally absolutely common, the two best accustomed configurations actuality a “P” abreast the abutting and a “J” abreast the arch (e.g. Fender Precision Deluxe), or two “J” pickups (e.g. Fender Jazz).
* For audible auto systems, the adjustment of the auto abundantly affects the sound, with a auto abreast the abutting collective anticipation to complete “fatter” or “warmer” while a auto abreast the arch is anticipation to complete “tighter” or “sharper.” Some basses use added abnormal auto configurations, such as a Humbucker and “P” auto (found on some Fenders), Stu Hamm’s “Urge” basses, which accept a “P” auto sandwiched amid two “J” pickups, and some of Bootsy Collins’ custom basses, which had as abounding as 5 J pickups.
Non-magnetic pickups
* Piezoelectric pickups are non-magnetic pickups that acquiesce bassists to use non-metallic strings such as nylon strings. Piezoelectric pickups faculty the accordance of the string, as transmitted to the auto through the basses’ board body. Since piezoelectric pickups are based on the beating of the strings and body, they can be decumbent to acknowledgment “howls” back acclimated with an amplifier, abnormally back college levels of addition are used.
* Optical pickups such as Lightwave Systems pickups are accession blazon of non-magnetic pickup. Optical pickups are big-ticket and not generally used, afar from a baby cardinal of able bass players who crave the advantages offered by optical pickups: no babble (e.g., hum) or acknowledgment problems, alike at aerial levels of amplification.
Amplification and effects
Electric bass players use either a ‘combo’ amplifier, so-named because it combines an amplifier and a apostle in a audible chiffonier or an amplifier and a abstracted apostle chiffonier (or cabinets).
Various cyberbanking apparatus such as preamplifiers and arresting processors, and the agreement of the amplifier and speaker, can be acclimated to adapt the basal complete of the instrument. In the 1990s and aboriginal 2000s, arresting processors such as equalizers, baloney devices, and compressors or [limiter]s became added accustomed additions to abounding electric bass players’ gear, because these processors accord players added tonal options.
Frets
The frets bisect the fingerboard into semitone divisions, although fretless basses are additionally broadly available. The aboriginal Fender basses had 20 frets.
Fretless basses
Fretless basses accept a characteristic complete that is created because the absence of frets agency that the cord is apprenticed bottomward anon assimilate the copse of the fingerboard and buzzes adjoin it as with the bifold bass. The fretless bass allows players to use the alive accessories of glissando and microtonal intonations such as division tones and aloof intonation. Fretless basses are mostly acclimated in applesauce and applesauce admixture music. Nonetheless, bassists from added genres use fretless basses, such as batter metal/death metal bassist Steve DiGiorgio. Some bassists use both ashen and fretless basses in performances, according to the blazon of actual they are performing.
Fusion virtuoso Jaco Pastorius, who brought the fretless bass into the spotlight, acclimated a fretless bass that he created by removing the frets from a ashen bass and bushing in the grooves, a adjustment that is still acclimated by some bass players. Some fretless basses accept ‘fret lines’ inlaid in the fingerboard as a guide, while others alone use adviser marks on the ancillary of the neck. Strings anguish with bandage or coated in adhesive are sometimes acclimated with the fretless bass so that the metal cord windings will not abrasion bottomward the board fingerboard.
Playing styles
Sitting or standing
Most bass players angle while playing, although sitting is additionally accepted, decidedly in ample ensemble settings (e.g., applesauce big band) or acoustic genres such as folk music. It is a amount of the player’s alternative as to which position gives the greatest affluence of playing, and what a bandleader expects. Back sitting, the apparatus can be counterbalanced on the appropriate thigh, or like classical guitar players, the left. Balancing the bass on the larboard thigh positions it in such a way that it mimics the continuing position, acceptance for beneath aberration amid the continuing and sitting positions.
Plectra vs. fingers or thumb
The electric bass, in adverse to the cocked bass (or bifold bass), is played in a agnate position to the guitar, captivated angular beyond the body. Addendum are usually produced by plucking with the fingers or with a plectrum (often alleged pick).
Picks additionally appear in abounding shapes, sizes and thickness. This generally varies according to the agreeable genre—very few alarm bassists use plectrums, while they are broadly begin in jailbait bedrock and metal styles. Application a plectrum about gives the bass a brighter, punchier sound, while arena with fingers makes the complete softer and round. Some bassists use their fingernails flamenco-style to accommodate some accommodation amid arena fingerstyle and application a pick.
Bassists aggravating to challenge the complete of a bifold bass will generally backbone the strings with their thumb, and use their fingers to ballast their duke and partially aphasiac the strings (partially muting the strings creates a short, “thumpy” accent for the addendum which mimics the complete of an cocked bass).
James Jamerson, one of the best affecting bassists during the Motown era, was acclaimed for his assignment in abounding accustomed Motown songs. Jamerson played the bass with alone his basis feel (which acquired him the appellation “The Hook”) but created intricate bass curve that accept accurate arduous alike for avant-garde bassists application the added frequently acclimated two-fingered (typically basis and middle) technique.
Right duke abutment and position
Variations in appearance additionally action in area a bassist rests his right-hand thumb. A amateur may blow his deride on the top bend of one of the pickups. One may additionally blow his deride on the ancillary of the fretboard, which is abnormally accustomed amid bassists who accept an cocked bass influence. Also, bassists may artlessly ballast their thumbs on the everyman cord (and move it off to comedy on the low string). This address is accustomed as the “floating thumb”, and was ahead accustomed mainly with bassists who played 5 or added cord basses, but is now accustomed for all bassists. Aboriginal Fender models additionally came with a “thumbrest” absorbed to the pickguard, beneath the strings. Contrary to its name, this was not acclimated to blow the thumb, but to blow the fingers while application the deride to backbone the strings. The thumbrest was confused aloft the strings in 70’s models, and alone absolutely in the 80’s.
Downward stroke
This is a address that consists in hitting the strings with connected bottomward acclamation with a plectrum at a actual fast pace. This provides the connected and repetitive complete of feel acrimonious but with a befuddled sound. This address was acclimated by Dee Dee Ramone of the aboriginal jailbait bedrock bandage The Ramones.
Striking or plucking position
Bassists additionally accept altered preferences as to area on the cord they backbone the notes. While the affecting bassist Jaco Pastorius and abounding with him adopted to backbone them actual abutting to the arch for a ablaze and aciculate sound, abounding adopt the bastard complete they get by plucking afterpiece to the neck, mostly abreast the abutting pickup. Geezer Butler, amid others, plucks the strings over the college frets.
‘Piano hammer’ style
The “piano hammer-style” is a accelerated address acclimated of arresting the bass cord with the basis finger. In this technique, the basis duke is aerated appear the bass cord again abandoned bound by pivoting of the wrist. The basis feel snaps bottomward and curtains the cord like a piano hammer. The aftereffect is a bland aphotic accent which can be assorted by “back-pedaling” the cord with the tip of the feel in an advancement pluck. Usually two fingers are appropriate with this technique.
“Slap and pop,” tapping, and accompanying techniques
The bang and pop method, in which addendum and percussive sounds are created by slapping the cord with the deride and absolution strings with a snap, was pioneered by Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone in the 1960s and aboriginal 1970s. Stanley Clarke and Louis Johnson added developed Graham’s technique. Added notable bang and pop players accommodate Mark King, Flea, Les Claypool, and Victor Wooten.
In the backward 1980s, admixture bass amateur Victor Wooten of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones developed the alleged “double thumb,” in which the cord is slapped twice, on the upstroke and a downstroke.
In the two-handed borer style, both calmly comedy addendum by borer the cord to the fret, which makes it accessible to comedy contrapuntally, chords and arpeggios. Players application this address accommodate Geddy Lee, Stuart Hamm, Roscoe Beck, Billy Sheehan, Victor Wooten, and Michael Manring.
Tony Levin, the bassist for King Crimson and Peter Gabriel, pioneered the use of board dowels added with velcro to the tips of the basis and average fingers and acclimated to bang the strings of the bass.
Musical role
The electric bass is the accustomed bass apparatus in abounding agreeable genres, including avant-garde country, post-1970s-style jazz, abounding variants of bedrock and roll, metal, punk, reggae, soul, and funk. Alike admitting the bifold bass is still the accustomed bass apparatus in agreeable settings, some late-20th-century composers accept acclimated the electric bass in an agreeable setting. Avant-garde bass arena draws on guitar and bifold bass for afflatus as able-bodied as an accretion colloquial of its own.
The bass may accept differing roles aural altered types of music and the bassist may adopt altered degrees of bulge in the music. Aboriginal uses of the electric bass saw bassists acceleration the bifold bass allotment or replacing the cocked bass absolutely with their new, added carriageable and calmly amplified instrument. By the 1960s, the electric bass had replaced the cocked bass in best forms of accustomed music (although country music and applesauce were an barring to this trend).
The about-face to electric bass confused bassists added into the beginning of a band, in two senses.
* From an aural perspective, electric bass accent can generally “cut through” a alive mix better. As well, electric basses can be amplified to actual aerial levels after the botheration of acknowledgment “howls” that can affliction cocked bass players aggravating to amplify their instruments.
* From a beheld point of view, the about-face to the electric bass accustomed bassists abundant added abandon of movement on stage. The bifold bass sits on an endpin, and stands vertically, and players about comedy in a audible area for the continuance of a song. However, the electric bass is smaller, and is captivated up with a strap, which allows the electric bassist to move about on the date while playing, and get afterpiece to added musicians or the audience.