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I've been intrigued with a hand made electric bass a friend of mine recently build. It is his n° 50 or so, a very beautiful "through the body" neck, 5 strings with maple/padouk top. The bass sounds great but a strange harmonic (?) appears when the fifth string (C) is played from the 12th fret up and sounds like the notes were somehow "doubled" .
PU checked, wires checked, fretboard checked, everything seems to be perfect but the perfect instrument has this strange sound, only when the 5th string is played. I don't remember if this argument has beeen already discussed here and would really appreciate experienced advice from those of you who build electric instruments; what do you think this problem could depend on and how can we have it fixed?
Thank you so much.
Luigi

It sounds like the pickups might be too close to the strings, that's the typical
effect it would have. Try lowering the PUs, especially on the treble side.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Yeah, try backing off the pickups first, go from there. When fretting higher up, the pickup gets too close to the string, and the magnetic field does funny things.

Plus there seems to be a terrible fad of using rare earth pickup magnets like neodymium and samarium cobalt, especially in bass pickups. Very foolish in my opinion, because to the field is so strong that the pickups have to be rediculously far from the strings to keep this problem at bay. Of course Alnico magnets will do this as well if they get to close, but are more reasonable.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Well I'll try to lower the PUs on the treble side and let you know. It would be a pity, this bass looks very well made
Thank you so much
Luigi

Definitely the pickups are too high it happens on strats all the time.
Evan

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http://www.NewYorkGuitarRepair.com

Problem fixed, you guys are wonderful . Laurent, Mattia, David and Evan I owe you a beer
Thank you so much again.
Luigi

[QUOTE=ggdelazzer] Problem fixed, you guys are wonderful . Laurent, Mattia, David and Evan I owe you a beer
Thank you so much again.
Luigi
[/QUOTE]

Hey, drop by in Amsterdam, and I'll take you up on that offer. There's this nice belgian beer bar...

;)

Mattia

Oh no Luigi and Mattia in a bar together! there is gonna be a ton of broken hearts in Amsterdam!