...is nice.

That's pretty cool!

Just a heads up... If the strings were low enough to pop on contact with the metal pole pieces than it is also likely that they are low enough for the magnetic field to "pull" the strings inwards towards the pick ups a slight bit. That can adversely effect the sustain and the tuning of the sustain.

If it's possible, would you consider lowering the pickups as another solution?


best regards,
mike

oh and BTW,

I suggest that you put the electrical tape on the pickup and not the string.

It is transparent to the pickup's function and it will not dampen the string vibration.

Yeah... I'd put the tape on the pickup...if you absolutely have to have it.  Placed on the string, it will affect the vibration and could also get in the way of your fingers.  Nothing like the gooey sticky stuff that is on the back of electrical tape to funk up the string. Stuck to the pickup, the gooey stuff will get on that too..... not good. 

Working in the electrical biz, I tend to use a bunch of electrical tape... from the cheap stuff to the good stuff. I have used it plenty of times to wrap screwdriver shafts and tool handles, and trust me when I say, that gooey stuff will eventually cause a real mess. 


A better opting is as was suggested....lower the pickup a bit.

Or learn and use a better hand/finger technique. 

Hi, Mike. I was actually moaning about this a couple weeks ago to the forum. SOMEBODY broke the housing on the pickup so I can't lower it on the low E side. I am ever so pissed about it and can't afford to replace it right now. I raised the action up but it wasn't enough. I was actually going to put the tape right on the pick up as you mentioned but I opted to put it on the strings instead. It actually gives it a very nice soft tone to the sound which is great for the blues track I'm currently working on. However when I REALLY dig in I'm still getting a the odd pop because there is still just a little bit of the strings exposed above the pickups so I might go ahead and put a couple of strips above and below the poles to eliminate that as well. When I use a pick they aren't really any problems so I may remove the tape on the strings for heavier stuff like my metal tunes to get more attack. Just thought I'd share with the forum. :-)

@guitarhacker... Actually I was just going to avoid plucking where the tape is (it covers very little surface area) but the top of the tape is super smooth and I'm not getting any residue (yet) so it's actually kind of nice to pluck on the taped part. Gives the tone an even smoother sound too. I'm kind of digging it.

note: when I first started to read the topic..... my mind saw it as....

I wrapped my bass strings with BECON!!!!

what a disappointment to see it was electrical tape....certainly not as delicious.

Hi Beepster,
 Thanks for elaborating. It's interesting to hear how you can sense the difference in tone by doing this.

 Cool stuff.

 :-)

best,
mike

Yeah... you know how finicky and hairy bass can be on recordings sometimes (especially for a guitar player such as myself). This seems to reign it in a little. I want to avoid a lot of limiting/compression if at all possible because I think that really takes away from a performance. Also... BECAN!!!

I've seen it done plenty of times Beep... especially in the studio.

There are many ways of 'damping' the strings I've seen employed to give a duller tone richer in subs, most common way I've seen it done is by the bridge cover being packed with foam, or foam just being layered beneath the strings to kill off some resonance.

The 'problem' if you can call it a problem isn't to do with the pups, or technique at all it's in the resonance inherent in the strings, flatwounds can help but sometimes I've noticed that either the engineer or bassist has wanted an even 'flatter' tone with really shortened sustain to work with.

Sometimes I've seen it done actually where the pick is striking to keep the picked tone yet softening the attack still.  Whatever gets you where you want to go I say.

Like you say, instead of having to alter the set up of the guitar pup height and stuff, it's easy enough to reverse when you want the brightness and attack back.

If there was a 'proper' way to do stuff we'd all be sounding the same you can do all sorts of stuff when nobody is looking to make stuff sound edgy, different and original then people will be asking how you did it!