A few questions about bass guitars...

[Cyclonus]

I might be buying some cheap ass bass off a friend, and I am wanting to do some research into it... I will tell you what it is, but I don't want people telling me I should fork out for a more expensive one, because I just wanna fuck around with it, then maybe later get a better one... it's a Samick or something, 4 strings... and... thats all I know about it... anyway, if someone could answer these questions that would be great...

It has 3 turning knobs things, I guess one is volume, and one is tone (what does that do?) and another that appears to do nothing at all. So whats up with them?

And that Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth) song by Metallica shows a very distorted sorta sound (if I have the right mp3...) which I couldn't get on this bass when I tested it out... like a really messy reverb or what not... I want that... but I take it it's not a normal mode on a normal bass?

Just any info on how the bass works and what things do will be very helpful.

Thanks.

(As you can well see, I know not much about these new fangled electic instuments...)

 

[The Wanderer]

samicks are actually decent, especially or the money. they are cheap but not too shabby. play decent and dont sound too bad.

if is active, the third knob might be a preamp control.

that distortion tone is all from your amp and has nothing to do with teh bass. its not giong to make that sound by itself.

 

[Cyclonus]

Originally posted by The Wanderer
that distortion tone is all from your amp and has nothing to do with teh bass. its not giong to make that sound by itself.

Heh, yeh I know that

Nah, tried it out with an amp connected and yeh, no distortion or reverb or whatever... so I dunno... maybe it was there and I didn't hear it... I dunno...

 

[xenophobe]

Cliff Burton's bass solo used effects like distortion and wah. He used stompboxes designed for the guitar....

A Crybaby wah I think.

Samick is cheap, but not horrible quality. Don't pay more than $50-$75 for it though. A lot of nice stuff is selling for cheap on ebay.

3 knobs, probably one volume one tone and one to pan between the two rows of pickups, if it has two.

 

[The Wanderer]

Yeah. you need stompboxes dude.

I have an old samick and the third knob is a preamp deal.

 

[Floyd]

What the third knob does depends on the model of the bass.
If it has 2 pickups it could have 1 knob to controll the tone and 2 knobs for volume-control (1 for each pickup). At least it's like that in the bass that I have (which does not mean, that it hast to be the same with yours).

"and one is tone (what does that do?) "

The tone-knob changes the tone
no, seriously: turn it up and you'll get a pretty "hard" tone (is "hard" the correct word in english???), turn it down, and your tone will get more soft (higher frequences of the tone are muted a bit).
I hope you understand what I want to say

 

[IcemanJ256]

Originally posted by Soilworker


Heh, yeh I know that

Nah, tried it out with an amp connected and yeh, no distortion or reverb or whatever... so I dunno... maybe it was there and I didn't hear it... I dunno...

most amps have a button to turn distortion on, and a knob for pre and post volume i think, and another one for reverb. you have to mess around with those. not all amps have everything though so amybe that one didn't.

 

[necroman666]

floyd your right but you got them mixed up turn up for soft and down for hard

 

[Heartless]

Hey, i used to have a Samick bass. Well i still have it... It may just be very similar to the one in question. The notable features it had were Lightning Bolts for fret markings (very glam/power metal!) and the machine tuning head was very curved and pointy like a beak. It was a dark crimson wooden finish that toned out to black at the edges. Pretty cool look overall.

I have to say, it was damn good for the price and defintiely a worthy choice to "fuck around" on. When you get serious, you can move onto something more upper market.

I ran my Samick through a Boss bass EQ pedal. Plus it also had an Active Pickup, to boost the sound immensely. I used it for about 4 years in multiple bands and i always got complimented for my bass sound. With recent strings and a enw battery for the active pickup that thing was a beast!

I moved up now to a warwick bass but still think the Samick rocked for what it did. being a bigger scale bass (24 frets) i also found it very easy to slip into the smaller, lighter, easier fret action of a Warwick.

anyway, if you can get it cheap, i say go for it.

Regarding Cliff Burtons pulling teeth solo on Kill Em All. definitely a defining moment for bass players in metal! But you will NEVER be able to achieve that sound through the bass and amp alone. He used stomp boxes, wahs, distortion pedals, etc to get that sound. Plus that big hard rockin Rikenbacker bass did the trick.

 

[Cyclonus]

Thanks for the help people.

I bought it, it's good enough for what I want to do, that is learn to play it heh... anyway... now to save up for effects equipment...

 

[xenophobe]

Originally posted by Heartless

I moved up now to a warwick bass but still think the Samick rocked for what it did. being a bigger scale bass (24 frets) i also found it very easy to slip into the smaller, lighter, easier fret action of a Warwick.

I love my Warwick. They're awesome basses. Great build quality and Dana B. Goods has great customer service and support.

The battery compartment for mine (not the electronics cavity cover) broke two days before my next gig, on my custom Thumb, and they fed ex overnighted one free of charge.

Warwick rules.