I purchased a cheap Chinese J-Bass (£50) with the intention of learning the bass. Yes I know it’s cheap and I cannot expect it to perform like a £500 bass. Its fine to play, action / neck are OK in fact it suits me as guitar player.

But, it sound so scratchy (if that is the right term) when the tone is on full

I play with Fender extra heavy pick..

Here is a short sample (tone was roll back on this I think), excuse the playing and just getting used to 4 fat strings so there are mistakes.

chinese bass sample

My question is what would you upgrade to try and reduce this scratchy sound, Pots, Pick Ups, Capacitor (if there is one), Strings.

Or should I just turn the tone pot down and live with it ?

Thanks in advance for any replies

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Madman_Greg

First up, playing with a pick can give quite a scratchy sound sometimes. If you are playing through a low power practice amp (especially a budget one) or DIing the bass then this will be noticeable. Small budget/practice amps don't really produce any bottom end so the scratchy top end is even more noticeable.

Try playing fingerstyle and see if the problems reduce or disappear. If they do, then your bass is just fine and rolling off the tone control is the only option if you amp doesn't have sufficient control of the top end.

What I would definitely advise against is changing pick-ups, pots, and capacitors as a problem solving exercise. They can all change the tone of an instrument to a greater or lesser degree, but I really don't think that they are the cause of your problems. Money spent on these would be far better saved for when you are ready to upgrade your amp or bass.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Thanks Andy. I only use DI'd into my sound card / interface at the moment. No plans to get a Bass Amp really this is only for fun and home recording

You are correct in playing with thumb and first finger (not quite managed any more fingers yet with the bass), the scratchy sounds goes away (nice warm round tone).

I think if I use a plectrum, I will record with the tone say at 3/4s, then EQ out the scratchy sound in my DAW as part of mixing. Or just turn the tone down if I am just playing along with a track for fun.

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Madman_Greg

That all makes sense Greg.

If you are recording or playing through your DAW, try out some VST bass amps. The natural voicings should reduce the problems a lot and the virtual tone controls should deal with the rest. And when it comes to playing along, rolling off the tone willbe just fine.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

I think it is fair to say that the price threshold for a decent-sounding bass is higher than that of a decent-sounding guitar. My untechnical explanation of this is:

(i) to get a good purely acoustic sound in the lower registers requires a very big instrument (a double bass), and asking a guitar-format instrument to work well down there is asking a lot. So it has to be made with a lot of care and out of decent materials

(ii) there is a bigger market for guitars, so you would expect bass production runs to be shorter. Thus the unit cost tends to be higher

Some instruments come alive in your hands when you pick them up, and some feel 'stiff' and scratchy. You can make the good ones even better, but the cheapies play badly and sound thin whatever you do to them.

If you want a 'magic bullet' for your problem, try spending the money on a secondhand Yamaha. They make good, hard-working basses for modest money, but for some reason the brand doesn't seem sexy enough to sustain high secondhand prices.

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

PS - don't worry about rolling off the tops on a bass. You will probably be a long way into your learning curve (and have emptied your gear piggy bank and your credit card) before you stop needing to do this.

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

I play a lot of fingerstyle guitar so maybe I have an advantage, but personally I use three fingers on the bass. Never use my thumb, bcos it doesn't have the same tone as fingers. I tend to dig in fairly well though on bass, mostly playing rest strokes, and use the thumb as an anchor. I've tried plectrum on bass, but never liked the clicky sound.

Thanks for the replies, especially the ones that stopped me spending money.

I did this sample, plectrum playing and think I can make this work, once my playing improves

bass sample


@Zen - I used as The Elf suggested some time back, duplicate the track so there are three copies, one as recorded (the DI), one track with a bass modeller, one with distortion- then mix to taste

When I practice, & with some rehearsal, I have the highs & high-mids set fairly high. All those squeaks & scratches keep me honest about precise playing. Once I've got a handle on it, I roll the curve off.

With a pick, work at addressing the face flat to the string. Don't "dig" too much; use just a bit of the tip. I've been using Dunlop Tortex Sharps for about everything, as I seem to saw the strings less.

Consider flat-wound strings, or even tape-wound (though these don't last as long against frets). While tacitly denigrated, these almost eliminate fretting squeak & are very unlikely to get much noise even if you rake a pick down the length.

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resident troublemaker, http://forum.frugalguitarist.com/

There is always the option to roll off the tone pot, that's at least what I do on my cheap Korean Vantage.

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www.descentintomadness.com