Bass guitar
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the
guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an
electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...
but with a longer
neck The neck is the part of the body in many vertebrates that connects the head to the torso. It supports the weight of the head and protects the nerves that transmit sensory and motor information between the brain and the rest of the body. Addition ...
and scale length. The electric bass guitar most commonly has four strings, though five- and six-stringed models are also built. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has replaced the
double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...
in
popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...
due to its lighter weight, smaller size, most models' inclusion of
frets A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the Neck (music), neck or Fingerboard, fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the Neck ( ...
for easier intonation, and electromagnetic pickups for amplification. Another reason the bass guitar replaced the double bass is because the double bass is "acoustically imperfect" like the
viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...
. For a double bass to be acoustically perfect, its body size would have to be twice as that of a cello rendering it unplayable, so the double bass is made smaller to make it playable. The electric bass with its pickups an amplifier addresses the compromises of a double bass by allowing the low notes to be amplified electronically. The bass guitar is usually tuned the same as the double bass, corresponding to pitches one
octave In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...
lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar (typically E, A, D, and G). It is played with the fingers and thumb or with a pick. Because the electric bass guitar is acoustically a quiet instrument, it requires external amplification, generally via
electromagnetic In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge via electromagnetic fields. The electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. It is the dominant force in the interacti ...
or piezo-electric pickups. It can also be used with direct input boxes, audio interfaces, mixing consoles, computers, or bass-effects processors which offer headphone jacks.


Terminology

The ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' refers to this instrument as an "Electric bass guitar, usually with four heavy strings tuned E1'–A1'–D2–G2." It also defines ''bass'' as "Bass (iv). A contraction of Double bass or Electric bass guitar." ''Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms'' begins its definition of the instrument as "A bass guitar that produces sound primarily with the aid of electronic devices." According to some authors the proper term is "electric bass". Common names for the instrument are "bass guitar", "electric bass guitar", "electric bass", and simply "bass". and some authors claim that they are historically accurate. A bass guitar whose neck lacks
frets A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the Neck (music), neck or Fingerboard, fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the Neck ( ...
is termed a
fretless bass A fretless bass is an electric bass guitar whose neck lacks frets and thus is smooth like traditional string instruments, and like the neck of an acoustic double bass. While the fretless bass is played in all styles of music, it is most common in ...
.


Scale

The scale of a bass is defined as the length of the vibrating strings between the nut and the bridge saddles. On a modern 4-string bass guitar, 30" (76 cm) or less is considered short scale, 32" (81 cm) medium scale, 34" (86 cm) standard scale and 35" (89 cm) long scale.


Pickup

Bass pickups are attached to the body of the guitar and located beneath the strings. They are responsible for converting the vibrations of the strings into analogous electrical voltage sent as input to an
instrument amplifier An instrument amplifier is an electronic amplifier that converts the often barely audible or purely electronic signal of a musical instrument into a larger electronic signal to feed to a loudspeaker. An instrument amplifier is used with music ...
.


Strings

Bass guitar strings are composed of a core and winding. The core is a wire which runs through the center of the string and is made of steel, nickel, or an
alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only metallic alloys are described. Metallic alloys often have prop ...
. The winding is a smaller gauge wire wrapped around the core. Bass guitar strings vary by the material and cross-sectional shape of the winding. Common string variants include roundwound, flatwound, halfwound (groundwound), coated, tapewound and taperwound strings. Roundwound and flatwound strings feature windings with circular and rounded-square cross-sections, respectively, with half-round strings being a hybrid between the two. Coated strings have their surface coated with a synthetic layer while tapewound strings feature a metal core with a plastic winding. Taperwound strings have a tapered end where the exposed core sits on the bridge saddle without windings. The choice of winding has considerable impact on the sound of the instrument, with certain winding styles often being preferred for certain musical genres.


History


1930s

In the 1930s, musician and inventor Paul Tutmarc of
Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
, Washington, developed the first electric bass guitar in its modern form, a
fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical inst ...
ted instrument designed to be played horizontally. The 1935 sales catalog for Tutmarc's company Audiovox featured the "Model 736 Bass Fiddle", a solid body electric bass guitar with four strings, a scale length, and a single pickup. Around 100 were made during this period. Audiovox also sold their "Model 236" bass amplifier.


1950s

In the 1950s, Leo Fender and George Fullerton developed the first mass-produced electric bass guitar. The Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company began producing the Precision Bass, or P-Bass, in October 1951. The design featured a simple uncontoured "slab" body design (with no edge contours) and a single coil pickup, both features similar to a
Telecaster The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele (), is an electric guitar produced by Fender (company), Fender. Together with its sister model the Fender Esquire, Esquire, it was the world's first mass-produced, commercially successfulLes ...
. By 1957, the Precision Bass began to resemble the
Fender Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of double- cutaway electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corpora ...
with the body edges beveled for comfort and the pickup changed to a separate halves split coil design. The Fender Bass was a revolutionary instrument for working musicians. In comparison to the
upright bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...
, the bass guitar could be easily transported. When amplified, the bass guitar was also much less prone than acoustic basses to
audio feedback Audio feedback (also known as acoustic feedback, simply as feedback) is a positive feedback situation that may occur when an acoustic path exists between an audio output (for example, a loudspeaker) and its audio input (for example, a microphon ...
. The addition of
fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical inst ...
s enabled bassists to play in tune more easily than on
upright bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...
es, and allowed guitarists to more easily play the instrument. In 1953,
Monk Montgomery William Howard "Monk" Montgomery (October 10, 1921 – May 20, 1982) was an American jazz bassist. He was a pioneer of the electric bass guitar and possibly the first to be recorded playing the instrument when he participated in a 1953 session r ...
became the first bassist to tour with the Fender bass, in
Lionel Hampton Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, percussionist, and bandleader. He worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, an ...
's postwar
big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...
. Montgomery was also possibly the first to record with the electric bass, on July 2, 1953, with the Art Farmer Septet. Roy Johnson (with Lionel Hampton), and Shifty Henry (with
Louis Jordan Louis Thomas Jordan (July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was an American saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "Honorific nicknames in popular music, the King ...
and His Tympany Five), were other early Fender bass pioneers.
Bill Black William Patton Black Jr. (September 17, 1926 – October 21, 1965) was an American musician and bandleader who is noted as one of the pioneers of rock and roll. He played in Elvis Presley's early trio, The Blue Moon Boys. Black later formed Bill ...
, who played with
Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the ...
and
James Jamerson James Lee Jamerson (January 29, 1936 – August 2, 1983) was an American bassist. He was the uncredited bassist on most of the Motown Records hits in the 1960s and early 1970s (Motown did not list session musician credits on their releases un ...
switched from upright bass to the Fender Precision Bass around 1957. The bass guitar was intended to appeal to guitarists as well as upright bass players, and many early pioneers of the instrument, such as
Joe Osborn Joe Osborn (August 28, 1937 – December 14, 2018Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...
were originally guitarists. Also in 1953, Gibson released the first short-scale
violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...
-shaped electric bass, the EB-1, with an extendable end pin so a bassist could play it upright or horizontally. In 1958, Gibson released the maple arched-top EB-2 described in the Gibson catalog as a "hollow-body electric bass that features a Bass/Baritone pushbutton for two different tonal characteristics". In 1959, these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass. The EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG in appearance (although the earliest examples have a slab-sided body shape closer to that of the double-cutaway
Les Paul Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009), known as Les Paul, was an American jazz guitarist, jazz, country guitarist, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid body ...
Special). The Fender and Gibson versions used bolt-on and
set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...
necks. Several other companies also began manufacturing bass guitars during the 1950s. Kay Musical Instrument Company began production of the K162 in 1952. Also in 1956, at the German trade fair "Musikmesse Frankfurt", the distinctive Höfner 500/1 viola-shaped bass first appeared, constructed using violin techniques by Walter Höfner, a second-generation violin luthier. Due to its use by
Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...
, it became known as the "Beatle bass". In 1957,
Rickenbacker Rickenbacker International Corporation is a string instrument manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California. Rickenbacker is the first known maker of electric guitars, with a steel guitar in 1932, and produces a range of electric guitars and bass ...
introduced the model 4000, the first bass to feature a
neck-through Neck-through-body (commonly neck-thru or neck-through) is a method of electric guitar construction that combines the instrument's neck and core of its body into a single unit. This may be made of a solid piece of wood, or two or more laminated ...
-body design in which the neck is part of the body wood. The Burns London Supersound was introduced in 1958.


1960s

With the explosion in popularity of
rock music Rock is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of styles from the mid-1960s, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdo ...
in the 1960s, many more manufacturers began making electric basses, including Yamaha, Teisco and Guyatone. Introduced in 1960, the
Fender Jazz Bass The Fender Jazz Bass (often shortened to "J-Bass") is the second model of Bass guitar, electric bass guitar created by Leo Fender. It is distinct from the Fender Precision Bass, Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midra ...
, initially known as the "Deluxe Bass", used a body design known as an offset waist which was first seen on the Jazzmaster guitar in an effort to improve comfort while playing seated. The Jazz bass, or J-Bass, features two single-coil pickups. Providing a more "Gibson-scale" instrument, rather than the Jazz and Precision, Fender produced the Mustang Bass, a scale-length instrument. The Fender VI, a 6-string bass, was tuned one octave lower than standard guitar tuning. It was released in 1961, and was briefly favored by
Jack Bruce John Symon Asher Bruce (14 May 1943 – 25 October 2014) was a Scottish musician. He gained popularity as the primary lead vocalist and ‍bassist ‍of Rock music, rock band Cream (band), Cream. After the group disbanded in 1968, he pursued a ...
of
Cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this proces ...
. Gibson introduced its short-scale EB-3 in 1961, also used by Bruce. The EB-3 had a "mini-humbucker" at the bridge position. Gibson basses tended to be instruments with a shorter 30.5" scale length than the Precision. Gibson did not produce a -scale bass until 1963 with the release of the Thunderbird. The first commercial fretless bass guitar was the Ampeg AUB-1, introduced in 1966. In the late 1960s, eight-string basses, with four octave paired courses (similar to a 12 string guitar), were introduced, such as the Hagström H8.


1970s

In 1972,
Alembic An alembic (from , originating from , 'cup, beaker') is an alchemical still consisting of two vessels connected by a tube, used for distillation of liquids. Description The complete distilling apparatus consists of three parts: * the "" ...
established what became known as "boutique" or "high-end" electric bass guitars. These expensive, custom-tailored instruments, as used by Phil Lesh, Jack Casady, and
Stanley Clarke Stanley Clarke (born June 30, 1951) is an American bassist, composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jazz-fus ...
, featured unique designs, premium hand-finished wood bodies, and innovative construction techniques such as multi-laminate neck-through-body construction and
graphite Graphite () is a Crystallinity, crystalline allotrope (form) of the element carbon. It consists of many stacked Layered materials, layers of graphene, typically in excess of hundreds of layers. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable ...
necks. Alembic also pioneered the use of onboard electronics for pre-amplification and equalization. Active electronics increase the output of the instrument, and allow more options for controlling tonal flexibility, giving the player the ability to amplify as well as to attenuate certain frequency ranges while improving the overall frequency response (including more low-register and high-register sounds). 1976 saw the UK company Wal begin production of their own range of active basses. In 1974 Music Man Instruments, founded by Tom Walker, Forrest White and Leo Fender, introduced the
StingRay Stingrays are a group of sea Batoidea, rays, a type of cartilaginous fish. They are classified in the suborder Myliobatoidei of the order Myliobatiformes and consist of eight families: Hexatrygonidae (sixgill stingray), Plesiobatidae (deepwate ...
, the first widely produced bass with active (powered) electronics built into the instrument. Basses with active electronics can include a
preamplifier A preamplifier, also known as a preamp, is an electronic amplifier that converts a weak electrical signal into an output signal strong enough to be noise-tolerant and strong enough for further processing, or for sending to a power amplifier a ...
and knobs for boosting and cutting the low and high frequencies. In the mid-1970s, five-string basses, with a very low "B" string, were introduced. In 1975, bassist Anthony Jackson commissioned luthier Carl Thompson to build a six-string bass tuned (low to high) B0, E1, A1, D2, G2, C3, adding a low B string and a high C string.


See also

*
Acoustic bass guitar The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than, a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar ...
*
Fretless bass A fretless bass is an electric bass guitar whose neck lacks frets and thus is smooth like traditional string instruments, and like the neck of an acoustic double bass. While the fretless bass is played in all styles of music, it is most common in ...
*
Bass guitar tuning Each bass guitar tuning assigns pitch (music), pitches to the strings of an electric bass. Because pitches are associated with Musical note, notes, bass-guitar tunings assign open notes to open string (music), open strings. There are several tech ...
* Bass instrument amplification *
Extended-range bass An extended-range bass is an electric bass guitar with a wider frequency range than a standard-tuned four-string bass guitar. Terminology One way that a bass can be considered ''extended-range'' is to use a mechanical detuner, a special machi ...
* Bass effects * Pickups *
List of bass guitar manufacturers A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
* List of bass guitarists


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * {{Authority control American inventions American musical instruments Amplified instruments Bass guitars Bass (sound) Blues instruments Contrabass instruments Electric bass guitars Folk music instruments Guitars Jazz instruments Rhythm section Rock music instruments String instruments Electric musical instruments