Author Topic: Dead spots on my Fender Jazz (Read 3960 times)

Lenny55 · « **on:** February 23, 2011, 02:31:42 PM »

Hi guys, shot in the dark here........

Any of my fellow musicians have one of these kicking around they'd like to part with? I've got a dead note on the 5th fret on the G string and I've been reading that one of these devices might help. Problem is that they're both discontinued and hard to find. So just wondering if someone has one that's just sitting around collecting dust and they want to sell it.

Thanks, Lenny.

faux fiddy · « **Reply #1 on:** February 23, 2011, 02:45:49 PM »

Hmm.. never heard of that. How does it work?

One time I cut grooves in a piece of Aluminum to clamp to my mandolin that had a warped fingerboard. I used a little bit of heat gun with it clamped to it. It worked for a while, but returned to being warped after a period of time.

Lenny55 · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2011, 03:05:01 PM »

Apparently, the neck will resonate at the same frequency as certain notes causing cancellation of sustain and tone. It's pretty obvious when you play that B on the G string on my bass. All the other notes sing out with lots of sustain except that one, and to a lesser degree, the frets on either side of it. They just sound "dead". I belong to the talkbass forum, and it's known as the "dreaded Fender dead spot". There are a ton of threads related to it. Different strings and truss rod adjutments will move it around a bit, but it's still there.

So what the above devices do apparently, is change the mass of the headstock so that the sympathetic frequency changes. Sometimes gets rid of the problem, sometimes shifts it a few frets up the neck to where its not really an issue anymore.

Lenny

tramp · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2011, 04:01:09 PM »

i take it you looked at your neck and it is straight and your frets are in good shape
what about your pick ups and thier position

Lenny55 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2011, 04:07:45 PM »

Yeah for sure. Adjusted the valve, cam chain, timing as per the Honda manual. Er.........wait a minute..........we're talking about guitars.

Everything is adjusted as per Fender spec. It's the perfect set up for me. Took a little relief out of the neck the other night, tweaked the action and intonation. Plays beautifully. The dead spot doesn't really bother me much, especially when I'm playing with the band. Just thought I'd see if anyone had either of these guys lying around and they wanted to part with it. See if all the hype is true. Apparently you can achieve the same results with a small C-clamp.

Haven't tried a straight edge to check the trueness of the frets............Don't know if there's anyone around these parts doing luthier work to that degree either. Hmmmmm

P.S. The pickups are set to spec as well. Actually an improvement on my previous tweaking.

azuredesign · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2011, 04:45:31 PM »

You might be able to get some 3 or 4 mm brass plate at a decent hardware store, cut it to the shape of the back of the headstock after removing the tuning machines, mark the holes for the posts and retaining screws and drill the plate to fit. You could even cut the plate in around the tuners and not even have to remove them, using some double sided tape to retain the brass. I kind of remember these being advertised in the '70's as improving sustain.
It's interesting that I remember putting the headstock of guitars up against the wrought iron handrail on my folks staircase, the staircase resonated sympathetically and amplified the guitar, making it also sustain longer. The problem with the headstock plate idea as I recall was it made the guitar neck heavy and one had to change the strap button positions to try to get the guitar to not tip towards the peghead on the strap.

Retro Rocket · « **Reply #6 on:** February 23, 2011, 05:04:10 PM »

That would annoy me greatly, i have never experienced it at all but if it happened to me on a Fender i would replace the neck. There are some pretty fine necks for sale in the states at very good prices, i treat my guitars like my kids.....they are special.....

Mick

Lenny55 · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2011, 05:14:32 PM »

I know what you mean. The bass is an American Vintage '75 RI. Bought it new in '07. Just about as nice as Fenders get before you get into the custom shop stuff. Suggested retail is $2500 dollars for %#$^s sake.

It's not really bad at all, but little things like that just drive me slightly crazy........ I just know its there.

Not sure if Fender would do anything about it at all, its supposed to be common going all the way back to the 60s, and not just with Fender. I'm not all that impressed with the fit at the neck pocket either.

Retro Rocket · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2011, 05:25:15 PM »

I only have one bolt on neck guitar which is a 1981 Fender Replica made by Tokai, it is a sensational guitar and now very collectable, all my others are Les Pauls with glued necks, the only time i have ever had a dead spot was due to fret ware, expensive but easily fixed....
I would buy another neck for yours and put the original neck away somewhere safe for the sake of originality if you ever sell it, its a shame but would really annoy me.......

Mick

70cbk0 · « **Reply #9 on:** February 23, 2011, 07:03:47 PM »

HI there, I'm a professional bass player, and yes, most Fenders have a dead spot. I remember those plates.......haven't seen them in a long time....The dead spot is usually the D note on the G string (7th fret). I just don't use it too much, especially if you need sustain. Play it up higher on the D string....I have to say, I own a lot of basses, and even with that problem, it's still the best one I have (63 Precision), and the most recorded bass of all time. Those metal plates (maybe they were called fatheads?) really just move the problem around, and I think they change the sound a bit too, although a dead E flat would be better!
Almost every bass I own has a weird little area where it's kinda #$%*ty, or not perfect, some worse than others. I found the old Mexican and Korean Fenders were pretty rough. I had a Mexican Jazz Squire that seemed like it had a hundred dead spots on it.
Sometimes I think you can move the dead spot around by just putting a capo on the headstock. (not across any strings, just clamped to the headstock)
So in short, it's probably not the relief on the neck, or the set-up.....
But I have to say it's like a lot of things in life, you just have to work around it. In motorcycle terms it's like saying, "My carbs seem perfect, except right at 3,500, it sputters for just a second" the answer is, just don't leave it there for long! Good luck,John!

Don R · « **Reply #10 on:** February 23, 2011, 08:15:39 PM »

Stick on wheel weight?

Lenny55 · « **Reply #11 on:** February 23, 2011, 09:59:11 PM »

Quote from: azuredesign on February 23, 2011, 04:45:31 PM

You might be able to get some 3 or 4 mm brass plate at a decent hardware store, cut it to the shape of the back of the headstock after removing the tuning machines, mark the holes for the posts and retaining screws and drill the plate to fit. You could even cut the plate in around the tuners and not even have to remove them, using some double sided tape to retain the brass. I kind of remember these being advertised in the '70's as improving sustain.
It's interesting that I remember putting the headstock of guitars up against the wrought iron handrail on my folks staircase, the staircase resonated sympathetically and amplified the guitar, making it also sustain longer. The problem with the headstock plate idea as I recall was it made the guitar neck heavy and one had to change the strap button positions to try to get the guitar to not tip towards the peghead on the strap.

Looks like it would be easy fairly easy to replicate.

Quote from: Don R on February 23, 2011, 08:15:39 PM

Stick on wheel weight?

That occured to me as well. I might try that.

Quote from: 70cbk0 on February 23, 2011, 07:03:47 PM

HI there, I'm a professional bass player, and yes, most Fenders have a dead spot. I remember those plates.......haven't seen them in a long time....The dead spot is usually the D note on the G string (7th fret). I just don't use it too much, especially if you need sustain. Play it up higher on the D string....I have to say, I own a lot of basses, and even with that problem, it's still the best one I have (63 Precision), and the most recorded bass of all time. Those metal plates (maybe they were called fatheads?) really just move the problem around, and I think they change the sound a bit too, although a dead E flat would be better!
Almost every bass I own has a weird little area where it's kinda #$%*ty, or not perfect, some worse than others. I found the old Mexican and Korean Fenders were pretty rough. I had a Mexican Jazz Squire that seemed like it had a hundred dead spots on it.a couple of days ago
Sometimes I think you can move the dead spot around by just putting a capo on the headstock. (not across any strings, just clamped to the headstock)
So in short, it's probably not the relief on the neck, or the set-up.....
But I have to say it's like a lot of things in life, you just have to work around it. In motorcycle terms it's like saying, "My carbs seem perfect, except right at 3,500, it sputters for just a second" the answer is, just don't leave it there for long! Good luck,John!

Thanks John, nice to know I'm not the only one. Had a terrible jam with the guys tonight........more than one dead spot on the neck, and the intonation sounded like it was all over the place even though the tuner said it wasn't. Weird overtones on the D and the G strings. Ruined my night. A couple of days ago I changed the strings to DR lowiders instead of the tried and true Rotos I've been using for the last 15 years. The DRs seemed to have a higher tension so I tweaked the neck and took out some of the relief, then adjusted the action and intonation. Seemed to be fine plugged into my house rig, but tonight when I got to the jam shack and plugged into my big rig it sounded terrible.

So......Rotos are back on and I tweaked the neck again, going to let it sit for the night and do another setup in the morning. I really want to love this bass, its the one Ive always wanted. I sure don't want to have to replace the neck like Mick suggests. Maybe the frets do need a dressing after all.

70cbk0 · « **Reply #12 on:** February 24, 2011, 08:15:38 AM »

Hmm Lenny, I think there's going to have to be some trouble-shooting, sounds like something else might be going on. Maybe it's partly that other amp? could be something wrong with it? When I have a problem you need to try changing all the variables... Take 2 basses (if you can) to the gig...take 2 guitar cables, try both. Cables can do very weird things when they go bad. Any chance the pickups have gone microphonic? Are you running through any floor pedals, they can be real tone-robbers! When you say the D and G strings sound bad, that sounds like something other than what you've thought of. I had a 73 Jazz that both pickups went bad....I don't think 1975 was exactly a stellar year for Fender. I personally don't think strings, tension, fret dressing or string height (unless it's REALLY too low) will cause these problems.
Good luck, but if I can say one more thing, (ha, maybe I've said enough), I've butchered SOOOO many basses over the years to try and correct stuff, and I've found you can only do so much, I don't think you can ever truly make an instrument great, that just wasn't. If I'm not loving one of mine, I just get rid of it and find something I do like. I spent years cutting up Fenders to install different pickups, necks, bridges, then I bought a 63 Pre and figured out I had been wasting my time. Pretty tough to beat the old ones. John.

Lenny55 · « **Reply #13 on:** February 24, 2011, 09:41:53 AM »

Hi John, good points all around. Let's see.......I was running some pedals and thought that was maybe part of the problem so I took those out of the loop, same thing. Tried another Jazz (Geddy Lee) thats around the jam shack and I was hearing different sorts of overtones with that one, but still weird things around the same notes. The setup is terrible on that bass BTW. Hard to imagine its the amp, I just bought a new rig last fall. Finally decided to sell the PIG (ampeg 810) that I loved so much and opted for something a little easier to get around. Bought a new Orange rig. Terror Bass 500, and an OBC115 & an OBC 410. Top notch stuff IMO. At home I run the Orange head through a Hartke HX112 for messing around.

Didn't think to try switching out my cables........

Hopefully its not my ears.......started wearing ear plugs for jams not too long ago.......dedided "THEY" were right after all

Anyhow, I'm going to do another setup with the rotos on and see whats up. Try different cable as well.

This gem looks pretty sweet........

http://www.capsulemusic.com/retail/basses.asp

The '78 jazz is the one I meant, the link only takes you to the main instrument page.

Radam · « **Reply #14 on:** February 24, 2011, 09:43:37 AM »

I'm just a drummer, not a "real" musician.

I'd say just get a Rickenbacker.

But what do I know?

Lenny55 · « **Reply #15 on:** February 24, 2011, 11:18:57 AM »

Ricks are nice for sure, but for me there's just something about the 70s Jazz basses. I love the block inlays and binding on the neck, and the big fat headstocks.

Retro Rocket · « **Reply #16 on:** February 24, 2011, 01:37:25 PM »

Do you have any guitar techs locally.? It could also be a combination of your bridge and the nut, when was the last time you had those 2 parts inspected, i have had some bum notes with a worn nut previously, the string was "floating" in the nut from using larger strings then going back to smaller gauge strings, the nut had worn and it was giving me some "ghost" type notes and some dead spots, only on the "G" string.......worth a look....

Mick

Lenny55 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 24, 2011, 02:13:37 PM »

Yeah, that's worth looking at as well Mick, thanks.

ZanVooden · « **Reply #18 on:** February 24, 2011, 02:54:36 PM »

Or you could just do what I did after getting fed up with a couple basses I played on for awhile, and build your own. (I'm a member on the talkbass forum as well)

Sure it isnt perfect for everyone, but it fits me and my playing style pretty well. I do have some things to fix in the next build, but this one works for now.
My next build I want to go a little crazy and make a 12 string bass (6-string, 2-course).

Lenny55 · « **Reply #19 on:** February 24, 2011, 05:14:58 PM »

Quote from: ZanVooden on February 24, 2011, 02:54:36 PM

Or you could just do what I did after getting fed up with a couple basses I played on for awhile, and build your own. (I'm a member on the talkbass forum as well)

Sure it isnt perfect for everyone, but it fits me and my playing style pretty well. I do have some things to fix in the next build, but this one works for now.
My next build I want to go a little crazy and make a 12 string bass (6-string, 2-course).

Wow! That's a sweet looking bass man......I've always thought building a bass would be a crazy project to unertake. Something I want to do before I die. Nice work!

What's your handle over on Talkbass?

ZanVooden · « **Reply #20 on:** February 24, 2011, 06:51:55 PM »

Thanks. Before I started working on these old honda's I did lots of little woodworking projects.

Its AllyourBass But I havent been on there for quite some time. Looks like my last login was 3-25-10.

I Just haven't had much time to play lately. I played with one band through college, but after everyone graduated we all got busy and moved every where. So now I just pick it up when I've got a free chance here and there, and hammer out some riffs.

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Author Topic: Dead spots on my Fender Jazz (Read 3960 times)