{"id":2598,"date":"2012-12-20T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/?p=2598"},"modified":"2014-06-26T12:21:05","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T17:21:05","slug":"do-you-prefer-fret-buzz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/article\/do-you-prefer-fret-buzz.html","title":{"rendered":"Do You Prefer Fret Buzz?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting part of bass tone is that some players actually <em>prefer<\/em> having fret buzz. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but there are certain instances where buzz actually makes the tone sound better.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n<h3>1960s Overdriven Tone<\/h3>\n<p>Certain acid rock and psychedelic rock songs of the 1960s featured bass players that purposely overdrove the sound and buzzed all over the place very much on purpose.<\/p>\n<p><em>My Generation<\/em> by The Who is a great example of that fuzzy, buzzy sound.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe height=\"337\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cH9IgJZCx4c\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"600\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Late 1970s\/Early 1980s hard rock and metal tone<\/h3>\n<p>Many bass players of this era took fret buzz to a whole new level where they picked hard, had their strings set low, distorted the tone on purpose and created this amazing hard driving sound.<\/p>\n<p>A classic example is Lemmy of Mot\u00f6rhead fame wailing away on his Rickenbacker bass.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe height=\"337\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1iwC2QljLn4\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"600\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>1970s Disco tone<\/h3>\n<p>Disco bass tone is interesting in that just a <em>slight<\/em> amount of fret buzz is preferable here. Why? Because it cuts through the mix better. In the example video below you&#8217;ll hear just a tiny bit of buzz, but it totally works.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe height=\"337\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GZKUWyhXklA\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"600\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Slap\/Pop tone<\/h3>\n<p>For many, the ideal slap\/pop tone on a Fender Jazz Bass is where you can really hear the clack when the strings hit the frets. And of course when clacking around, fret buzz is there &#8211; but it sounds great.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe height=\"337\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HxJTw2kvV4k\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"600\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>What can you learn from this?<\/h3>\n<p>Having fret buzz on a bass is not a bad thing for certain types of music. Granted, for particular types, fret buzz is a no-no. But if you haven&#8217;t explored adding a little buzz to your bass, try it out. You might like it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Can you have both buzz AND no-buzz on a single bass guitar?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, but not for the reasons you might first guess.<\/p>\n<p>Setup is an important part of getting your bass guitar playing properly, but what ultimately allows you to have both buzz and no-buzz on your instrument is <em>you<\/em>, the player.<\/p>\n<p>For example, a simple (in theory) way of having a bass buzz or not buzz when you want is to set the strings low, play lighter when you want no buzz, and then play harder when you do want buzz. This will probably involve you having to change the way you play, but if you want buzz and no-buzz &#8220;on command&#8221;, so to speak, yes, you can have it.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, you&#8217;ll have to find that &#8220;happy medium&#8221; concerning your personal bass setup (i.e. what you prefer for string height, neck relief, gauge of string etc.) so you can choose when you want fret buzz and when you don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting part of bass tone is that some players actually prefer having fret buzz. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but there are certain instances where buzz actually makes the tone sound better. Here are a few examples: 1960s Overdriven Tone Certain acid rock and psychedelic rock songs of the 1960s featured bass players &#8230; <a title=\"Do You Prefer Fret Buzz?\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/article\/do-you-prefer-fret-buzz.html\" aria-label=\"More on Do You Prefer Fret Buzz?\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}