Flappy Low B string issue. How can I Fix it? :(

[davio]

I did some research (read: I talked to greenboy...he's done craploads of string tension research and beta tests new strings for several companies) and:

 

Physics tells us that a certain string diameter is going to be at a specific tension to match a pitch. I got feeling this through-body talk is mostly smoke, but may help perception.

Correct.

 

Another idea that has been discussed here is to use a small piece of metal tubing between the bridge and the brass ring on the string to add some length at that point.

This would be the same as installing a ferrule (through body) but without the added benefit of better coupling with the body (read: sustain and resonance...but that's another highly debated subject).

 

How about a different brand of string with a thicker core? The overall string diameter may match what you have, bt a thicker core would feel firmer. I think, YMMV.

At this point, I think this is the best solution.

[b5pilot]

Thanks and thanks and thanks for the replys you people really know a lot about basses!

 

Im using long scale Daddario ProSteels strings REG LIGHT TOP/MED BOTTOM 0.45|0.65|0.85|.105|.135 The exact model it's EPS165-5

 

These are my bass specs

 

Douglas WPB-955

# Neck-Thru-Body construction

# Ash Body with Walnut lines

# Dual cutaway body is contoured and shaped

# Deep cutaways allow easy access to the entire 24 frets on this 34" scale bass

# Hard Rock Maple Neck with adjustable truss rod

# Rosewood fretboard with dot inlays

# Two Active 2JB Pickups

# Two band EQ plus volume and balance controls

# STH-5 Custom Bridge, Die Cast tuners, and chrome hardware

# Width of the neck at the nut approx: 1 13/16";

# Overall length approx: 45"

# Width at the widest point approx: 12 1/2", body thickness at the edge approx: 1 3/4" String spacing at the bridge is 2 1/2"

 

Out of curiosity, are you tuned to standard pitch or are you tuned lower? A .135 B string is pretty hefty. It shouldn't be that flubby.

Hmmm, B with a thicker core is not a bad idea

[rizzo9247]

Other things to add:

 

Low-cut nut, maybe?

 

Don't hit the B string that hard.

[Mau]

I tune my bass to standard pitch (440hz) every string. I don't know too much about tunning in a different pitch.

[jeremy c]

Have you had the work done on your bass yet?

[picker]

Another thing that might get you a little more tension is to get a String Retainer. That is metal button, bar or fixture that bolts to the headstock between the tuners and the nut to pull them down closer to the wood, like this or for your purposes, like this with this one. . The effect is to create more of an angle on the strings before they cross the nut to the neck, which puts more tension on the strings. The 2 string retainer goes on the B and E strings, and the 3 string part goes on the A, D & G. A lot of basses have them on the D & G to keep them from jumping out of their nut slots when they are plucked. Some Fender 5 strings use these two retainers so that all the strings have tension on them than they would otherwise.

If it were me, I'd get the two string retainer and put it on my B & E strings to see if it helps. at $9.99, it's a cheap fix. I'd ask a luthier or repairman about placement, because you will have to drill holes for it.

[Juancarlin]

400 U.S. $ for foreign currency expenditure on the ' net, 2.500 $ for travel allowances... Hey Mau... seems like we' re both Venezuelans! Where r u from? If in Caracas, we might arrange some meeting, we could either end up destroying your Douglas bass (Mwahahaha!! ) or either finding a way to make it work properly!

 

Greetings from a fellow Venezuelan Bass Player!

 

P.S. : By the way.. I had to do the string retainer trick on a heavily "customized" Peavey Foundation S with a not-so-angled headstock. Must say, it worked out pretty good. Along with Barts, was the best addition I could make to it (and stripping all the ugly "Barney-like" purple paint to get it in all it's woody beauty).

 

Just got ahold of a copy of "Toto: Falling in between Live". Saw Lee Sklar with a curious little red thingy hanging on his shoulders. Guess what? Fanned-fret Dingwall beast there. Got me thinking....

[davio]

Another thing that might get you a little more tension is to get a String Retainer. That is metal button, bar or fixture that bolts to the headstock between the tuners and the nut to pull them down closer to the wood, like this or for your purposes, like this with this one. . The effect is to create more of an angle on the strings before they cross the nut to the neck, which puts more tension on the strings. The 2 string retainer goes on the B and E strings, and the 3 string part goes on the A, D & G. A lot of basses have them on the D & G to keep them from jumping out of their nut slots when they are plucked. Some Fender 5 strings use these two retainers so that all the strings have tension on them than they would otherwise.

If it were me, I'd get the two string retainer and put it on my B & E strings to see if it helps. at $9.99, it's a cheap fix. I'd ask a luthier or repairman about placement, because you will have to drill holes for it.

picker, with as much respect as I can manage to convey over the internet, that's just not true. String retainers or string trees are for creating a more drastic angle for the string at the nut to keep the string from slipping out of tune as easily. Having a speaking length of 34" inches and a set gauge of string, there can only be one tension for it to be tuned to a certain pitch. Adding more tension in any way will raise the pitch. The same goes for adding a spacer or ferrule. You can't cheat physics. Although you can cheat a mind...some minds are more easily cheated than others.

 

The only ways to get a tighter string at a set pitch are to either use a heavier gauge string or put it on a longer scale instrument. Period.

 

You can do things like raise the string height to increase perceived tension but that creates intonation problems that get worse the further you play up the neck.

[davio]

Just got ahold of a copy of "Toto: Falling in between Live". Saw Lee Sklar with a curious little red thingy hanging on his shoulders. Guess what? Fanned-fret Dingwall beast there. Got me thinking....

I've been trying to tell everybody...it's the way of the future...but nobody will listen...

[Juancarlin]

I've been trying to tell everybody...it's the way of the future...but nobody will listen...

 

However.. the same was said more than 20 years ago of the original Steinberger XL-2 bass... then it came the Kubicki Factor (Lovely! ), before there were those Kramer aluminum neck ones (I think M00t had one of those, Me, myself, have a "Duke", which is a mix of BOTH, headless a-la-Steinberger AND aluminum core neck (*)), and so.. and both (although still lovely... or maybe it's just me) seem a little bit outdated today.

 

About the string retainer thing, at least it worked out fine with my Foundation bass. Maybe it has to do with the "perceived" tension thing, or it was just a matter of how it was the string's contact with the nut -we still don' t have info on that on my fellow constituent's bass - but it worked out fine on a less effective E string. Could it be there is some snake oil factor surrounding it?

 

...surrounding BOTH subjects? Mwahahha!!

 

(*) : And a kinda Stingray-like sound, maybe because of the somewhat weird "humbucker" made out of two tight-coupled J pups... it's a strange beast indeed, with its body-mounted tuning pegs and all, but have to admit, is a breeze to travel on an airplane with it. No truss rod to adjust, light and small, yet powerful sounding once you get to the gig. Besides, it served me well by remaining small, last time I traveled to a gig with it (will do exactly same gig in a week and a half, btw) it was to Margarita Island, which is one of our duty-free havens. Small bass footprint served, in compensation, for a huge luggage full of cheaply bought goodies

[picker]

picker, with as much respect as I can manage to convey over the internet, that's just not true. String retainers or string trees are for creating a more drastic angle for the string at the nut to keep the string from slipping out of tune as easily.

 

No, Davio, the string retainer is there to keep the string from jumping out of it's nut slot when played, by creating a greater downward angle as it breaks across the nut on it's way to the fretboard. It's why headstocks are tilted backwards on some instruments, to create a greater angle on the string at the nut so it so they don't require string tees or retainers to keep them in the nut. A string slipping out of tuning would most likely be about the tuners not being able to hold tension, it wouldn't have anything to do with the string tree/retainer.

 

Having a speaking length of 34" inches and a set gauge of string, there can only be one tension for it to be tuned to a certain pitch. Adding more tension in any way will raise the pitch. The same goes for adding a spacer or ferrule. You can't cheat physics. Although you can cheat a mind...some minds are more easily cheated than others. :Dt

The only ways to get a tighter string a a set pitch are to either use a heavier gauge string or put it on a longe scale instrument. Period.

 

Davio, with all due respect to you and the laws of physics, you've obviously never dealt with the tune-O-matic bridge/stop tailpiece setup of a lot of Gibson guitars. If you raise the tailpiece(located behind the bridge) away from the body, the angle the strings break across the bridge on their way to the tailpiece is reduced, and the strings get loooser, and easier to bend at the correct pitch. If you lower it, you increase the angle and they get tighter and sustain more. Why? Because due to the shape of the string in it's entirety, greater tension is needed to get the string up to pitch.

 

I have a Gibson Flying V with the bridge/tailpiece I am talking about, and I can't put the tailpiece all the way down against the body. If I do, the high E and B strings break either before I get them up to pitch or shortly after, and the other strings are a major pain to bend. If I set it where I have it now, about an inch off the body, the E & B strings don't break and the strings bend a lot more easily. That may not line up with the laws of Physics as you know them, but it is true, which makes me think you aren't familiar enough with the physics involved here.

 

Because of that, I respectfully maintain that putting the string retainer on the B & E strings so that the angle the strings break across the nut is increased will increase the amount of tension the string has to achieve to reach the correct pitch. This will, in turn, tighten the string up so that it doesn't feel as floppy. And, I'm pretty sure that if a string ferrule is inserted in the body under the bridge in a position that increases the downward angle of the string over the saddle piece, it will do very much the same thing.

[Juancarlin]

 

"... I'm pretty sure that

 

if a string ferrule is inserted in the body

 

under the bridge

 

in a position that increases the downward angle

 

of the string

 

 

over the saddle piece,

 

 

 

it will do very much the same thing.

 

 

You know... sometimes my mind gets really wild... when I read things like this out of context, I wonder, I really wonder about things.

[davio]

Sorry, I got the string tree on angled vs. straight headstock backwards while trying to respond this morning before I needed to get on a phone call. I don't know what I was thinking about it holding intonation rather than holding the string down. I'll blame it on not having coffee yet. Yeah, that's it.

 

I've set up Gibson Tune-O-Matic guitars a dozen times and I've never noticed that. I would have to get my hands on one to try it. I still don't see how that would change the physics involved. What other variables are involved besides speaking length, gauge and pitch to determine tension? I don't understand how the angle the string breaks across the nut or bridge would affect tension when retuned. If you lower the tail piece you'll have to retune the string (obviously) but I don't know how that could change the tension.

[picker]

Man, I have no idea why it's that way, but I know for a fact it is. When I first got my V, I tried to put the stop tail piece all the way down, like I had been told for all my Les Pauls, and it broke strings right up till I raised it, and after that it was fine. MY first LP was Deluxe Goldtop(and the worst sounding LP in the history of the instrument). I figured out that raising the tail piece made the strings easier to play. Later one, a guy who knew what was what with that setup lowered it all the way to the body, and the sustain increased dramatically, along with the difficulty of bending the strings.

[rizzo9247]

Ok, this thread has gone on long enough. Mods, please lock it. We cannot have this guitar discussion disrupt the harmony of the forum

[davio]

Man, I have no idea why it's that way, but I know for a fact it is. When I first got my V, I tried to put the stop tail piece all the way down, like I had been told for all my Les Pauls, and it broke strings right up till I raised it, and after that it was fine. MY first LP was Deluxe Goldtop(and the worst sounding LP in the history of the instrument). I figured out that raising the tail piece made the strings easier to play. Later one, a guy who knew what was what with that setup lowered it all the way to the body, and the sustain increased dramatically, along with the difficulty of bending the strings.

A lot of that I can understand...with your V, too much of a break angle would cause premature breakage (only logical). With the LP, lowering the tailpiece allows better coupling of the string with the body so it could help with sustain...but I'm still not sure why or how it could cause higher tension. I'm gonna have to check this out when I have some time.

[Mau]

400 U.S. $ for foreign currency expenditure on the ' net, 2.500 $ for travel allowances... Hey Mau... seems like we' re both Venezuelans! Where r u from? If in Caracas, we might arrange some meeting, we could either end up destroying your Douglas bass (Mwahahaha!! ) or either finding a way to make it work properly!

 

Greetings from a fellow Venezuelan Bass Player!

 

P.S. : By the way.. I had to do the string retainer trick on a heavily "customized" Peavey Foundation S with a not-so-angled headstock. Must say, it worked out pretty good. Along with Barts, was the best addition I could make to it (and stripping all the ugly "Barney-like" purple paint to get it in all it's woody beauty).

 

Just got ahold of a copy of "Toto: Falling in between Live". Saw Lee Sklar with a curious little red thingy hanging on his shoulders. Guess what? Fanned-fret Dingwall beast there. Got me thinking....

 

Oh hi! Im from the northen eastern coast of venezuela. Greetings to u too

[Mau]

I think I'd probably go with the retainers, that must slightly help I think so

[Juancarlin]

 

Oh hi! Im from the northen eastern coast of venezuela. Greetings to u too

 

Epale! Greets from Caracas! So, where exactly from? Puerto La Cruz? Barcelona? Porlamar? Btw I will be traveling to Porlamar next weekend to play.. If you' re near we could arrange a meeting maybe?

 

There is another forum member who is also a Venezuelan. The fanbase is growing.. maybe, MAYBE we could do a get-together thing as the British and American forumites do

[Mau]

 

Oh hi! Im from the northen eastern coast of venezuela. Greetings to u too

 

Epale! Greets from Caracas! So, where exactly from? Puerto La Cruz? Barcelona? Porlamar? Btw I will be traveling to Porlamar next weekend to play.. If you' re near we could arrange a meeting maybe?

 

There is another forum member who is also a Venezuelan. The fanbase is growing.. maybe, MAYBE we could do a get-together thing as the British and American forumites do

 

Puerto La Cruz, if u r gonna do a stop here we could meet.

 

That's nice and yes we could maybe do that..

[opp]

I'd say go with the spacer at the end of the string, it costs next to nothing and it helps 'a bit' Also, i would agree with many of the comments on familiarity with the differences between the string vibrations. The B string will always vibrate bigger and seem looser than say the "g" string for instance, no matter how expensive your bass or it's scale length. Of course playing the "B" closer to the bridge never hurts a guy either.

[davio]

The B string will always vibrate bigger and seem looser than say the "g" string for instance, no matter how expensive your bass or it's scale length.

False.

[Juancarlin]

"100% Dingwall tone, 1 fraction of the price"

Uh oh, here comes GAS again...

 

YUM!

[Rocky McDougall]

After reading all of the posts, I can agree with all of them. Without hurting your feelings, I would like to suggest that your problem might be your playing syle. Every string on your bass is "Floppier" than the thinner one beside it. A string must have a certain "vibration" to produce the cycles/Htz needed. I think your touch is too aggressive. I suspect you are playing hard rock and really digging in. The low B is a very delicate string and must be plucked correctly to get it to work as it should. Every sting on your bass actually takes a differnt touch beause of it's tension.

Rocky