My bassist's bass is peaking like crazy, making horrible noises!

[Mattayus]

NOt the bass track, I mean the actual bass guitar.

My bassist just came round to try to track some bass for the album with his new Ernie Ball Music Man, and I noticed it has this horrible high end peaking/popping. This isn't just on his DI tracks, I mean even just listening to him play, it's something inherently wrong with the bass guitar itself.

I've tried all the obvious stuff, all the onboard EQ is neautral, pickup is sat quite nicely in the body of the guitar, not too close to the strings (I thought the strings were making contact with the pickup at first, because that's what it sounds like, but they're not at all), all connections are fine.

Anybody got any suggestions? He has another bass we can use but this one just sounds insane, so I'd prefer not to.

 

[xFkx]

Post clips

 

[Mattayus]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4128689/nmrihbass.mp3

 

[Bromigo]

Does it use active pups? If so, try changing the battery.

 

[CJRayson]

does the bass sound like that acoustic?

how low is your tuning?

I have a stingray and I've never had a problem, except when my pickups got to close to the strings.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Does it use active pups? If so, try changing the battery.

Unless he's changed the pickup out, they come stock with passives IIRC, but with active circuitry

 

[AudioPhile777]

Thats what it sounds like when the string is hitting the pickup housing.

 

[arv_foh]

Thats what it sounds like when the string is hitting the pickup housing.

yep that is 100% shitty technique that you're hearing, if you have izotope RX you can use the pop/click repair to try and fix it

 

[chrisjmp]

If it's one of the Musicman basses with 5 knobs, it actually has Peizo pickups in the bridge and one of the knobs is the balance between the 2 pickups. I have had a similar issue with the bass player in my band and finally looked up his bass online. I haven't had a chance to record it since making the discovery, so I don't know if it totally fixed the problem. Rolling out the Peizo's made the amp sound a little better, but it was mostly noticeable on the DI's

 

[Mattayus]

Does it use active pups? If so, try changing the battery.

Yeah it is active, I never thought of trying that, I can't see how that can cause it? I'll give it a bash!

yep that is 100% shitty technique that you're hearing

Haha, no, it most certainly is not. I know exactly what strings clanking the pickups sounds like, and this aint it, because....

does the bass sound like that acoustic?

... it doesn't do it unplugged, that was the first thing I checked. I'll give the battery change a go and get back to you, but if that doesn't help then I don't know what the fuck is going on.

Thanks for the help so far dudes

 

[AHChris]

Yeah low batteries can cause the weirdest noises like pops and clicks, distortion, white noise... My guess would be the battery.

 

[aortizjr]

I have run into a bass player that had the same thing, same bass as well. But he actually liked the sound. And his bass was shredding.

Essentially what happens is the amp peaks and distorts and it does give a certain sound. I had a HELL of a time dealing with it. At first I thought it was just killing my DI's, but no in the end it was the bass.

I think I ended up using a SansAmp GT-2. Or I know I used something to simulate a bass amp from a DI. We did mic his amp too. So in the end it was probably a mix of DI, amp simulated DI, and Amp mics. Ohh or it could have been a free TLS tube limiter, love that thing on bass. But I don't remember if that was before or after the project... oh well.

I am just glad to hear someone else is having the same problem! I am doing their full length at some point this year, so I am definitely open to ideas.

Here is the band:

http://www.myspace.com/illgottenmusic

Rhinosofear I think shows it best. In the end though, I think it came out pretty good all things considered. I think it is a pretty cool sound and fits what he is doing.

 

[Fifth_Horseman]

Listened to the clip, now I'm not sure...

My first idea from reading your post was "Battery!!!" as well, because I once had an issue at a gig... put a new battery in right before the soundcheck and suddenly got weird loudass clicks and pops, mostly when playing low notes. Couldn't figure it out, ended up using my backup bass for the gig. Next day I investigated further... turned out the new 9V battery was SMALLER than usual (with totally straight sides instead of slightly rounded) and rattled in the battery box due to the vibrations in the body when playing, thus disconnecting and reconnecting at random.

Now, that clip to me totally sounds like the strings are hitting open pickup poles on some notes. But you said that's not the case... so I don't know. Dying battery could be the culprit.

 

[Jordon]

I don't mean to dredge up an old thread, but I just wanted to add that I've encountered the clicking/popping issue with ever Ernie Ball Music Man bass I've ever used/tracked (and that's not a small number).

 

[BLUElightCory]

I've encountered this issue tracking Music Man basses as well...

 

[Jordon]

It sounds almost like the pickups are too powerful for the on-board preamp. At least that's how my ears are perceiving it.

 

[arvoitus]

Funny, i just had the very same issue during a live gig. With the exact same popping and clicking, it was very annoying cause all those peaks/pops were very noticeable in the mix.

@Mattayus, did you already figured out what was causing the problem?

 

[BrettT]

Try rolling off the volume knob. My Jazz bass has active p'ups and with really fresh batteries it will sometimes do similar things...it's like the internal preamp is clipping.

 

[DestroyTheColossus]

+1 for turning the volume on the guitar down if it has active pickups.

I recorded a bass player who was having that problem and we finally narrowed it down to that. His bass had a little notch in the volume knob at about 50% up and that seemed to be neutral where above was boost and below was cut. If we went anywhere above that notch it started to pop and sound ugly in general. He normally played with the knob at 100%... you think someone would learn what everything on their instrument is about if they payed hundreds of dollars for it.