slap bass?

[clint_41]

so i am looking to get real good at slap bass. i have been slappin and poppin away for the past 2-3 hours and i have a wicked soar middle finger, so i am taking a break to ask some questions here.

i dont even own my own bass. right now i am borrowing a friend's squier pbass, but there is a fender deluxe pbass specail (with active PJ pups) on the way that should get here any day. it will be excellent indeed.....

so in the meantime i am practicing more and more, especially with slapping. so i was wondering how pbasses and jazz basses compare when slapping and popping. the cheap p bass i am using right now seems to be doing fine, but i only have access to a pbass neck and pickup. the bass i am getting will have a jazz neck and a PJ combo. this should work well for slap, no? is there any stringth heighth that works better for slap? any specific strings? pup upgrades?

anything you guys know would be of value. thanks.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: slap bass?

Either will do, but jazzes are more often thought of as slap-friendly. HB-equipped basses like the Stringray are even better regarded among the most traditional thinking on slap. But I've heard (and performed) nice slap on a P. The sound tends to be harsher than on either a jazz or an MM -- I once heard Ed Friedland compare the sound of a slapped P to a serrated blade vs. the Jazz's razor and I think he's dead on -- but can be quite effective.

Overall, a PJ bass is, imo, the single best do-everything configuration out there, and active EQ only makes it more versatile, so you're in good shape there. I wouldn't worry too much about how perfect it is or isn't for slapping (again, according to general thinking) because really, you're likely to hear more slapping in a five minute walk through a GC than you would in dozens of hours of listening to 99.9% of actual bands' actual songs. It's a fun technique, and certainly popular with people demoing instruments (or simply demoing their ability to slap) but it's not something that many bassists get called upon to do very often.

 

[The Golden Boy]

Re: slap bass?

I don't dig the bass slapping. It's a perfectly legitimate playing technique, many use it to great effect; it's just not one that suits anything that I wish to do.

You will want a lower action to do it.

 

[Jeroen]

Re: slap bass?

I've tried various setups for slapping, but right now my favourite has to be my Yamaha TRB5II with two passive low output humbuckers and preamp. It has a very round and thick tone, but with a slight edge. I can get a good slaptone out of it on any clean amp, I just love that bass. I also really dig an active PJ-setup though, like on my Ibanez Soundgear. That bass has a big fat thumping sound, which fits slappin' & poppin' perfectly. Passive works fine too, by the way.

As mentioned in St_Genesius' post, many people consider a Stingray the ultimate slapbass. I only partially agree, I think it would have been perfect if there had been a neck pickup too. I just feel that parallel 'in-between'-setting sounds best. So I recon the ultimate slapbass would have to be Lakland, with the added singlecoil in the neck position, or anything similar . Never played one yet though, it's hard to find a lefty here in the Netherlands. And I can't afford them, too :fingersx:

 

[BASSMAN64]

Re: slap bass?

I agree with what they say about the Jazz bass being a more slap happy bass lol. I've experimented with slapping before but I'm not that good at it. I think a medium to low for string heighth. Also Warwick make a good option for the slapping style. any how good luck and keep practicing and have fun.

 

[slash857]

Re: slap bass?

definitely the p/j combo is a great bass for virtually anything. if you want you can always upgrade the pups to suit ur needs. my mark hoppus bass sounds pretty good when i do some slap stuff on it. duncan makes a bunch of active p and j pickups that probably sound really good. id reccomend the qp's but they arent active.