Bass guitar

The bass guitar, often called the electric bass, is the instrument with the lowest pitch in the guitar family. It looks and is built much like an electric guitar, but its neck and scale length are longer. Most electric bass guitars have four strings, though models with five, six, or seven strings are also made. Starting in the mid-1950s, the electric bass guitar largely took over from the double bass in popular music.

Scale

This happened because it is lighter, smaller, and easier to carry; most versions have frets that make playing in tune simpler; and its electromagnetic pickups allow for amplification. The electric bass guitar is usually tuned the same way as a double bass, which means its notes are one octave lower than the four lowest strings of a regular guitar. The standard tuning is E, A, D, and G. Five-string models often add a low B, while six-string models typically add a high C. Players can use their fingers, thumb, or a pick to play it. Because the electric bass guitar is quiet on its own, it needs external amplification, usually through electromagnetic or piezoelectric pickups.

Terminology

It can also be connected to direct input boxes, audio interfaces, mixing consoles, computers, or bass-effects processors that have headphone jacks. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians calls this instrument an "Electric bass guitar, usually with four heavy strings tuned E1'–A1'–D2–G2." It also defines "bass" as a contraction of either double bass or electric bass guitar. Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms starts its definition by saying it is "A bass guitar that produces sound primarily with the aid of electronic devices." Some writers argue that "electric bass" is the proper term. Common names include "bass guitar," "electric bass guitar," "electric bass," and simply "bass," with some authors claiming these are historically accurate.

A bass guitar without frets on its neck is called a fretless bass. A bass's scale is the length of the vibrating strings from the nut to the bridge saddles. On a modern four-string electric bass guitar, 30 inches (76 cm) or less is short scale, 32 inches (81 cm) is medium scale, 34 inches (86 cm) is standard scale, and 35 inches (89 cm) is long scale.

Long scale is more common on five-string basses and above because it helps the low B string resonate better. The double bass is "acoustically imperfect," like the viola. For a double bass to be acoustically perfect, its body would need to be twice the size of a cello, which would make it nearly impossible to play, so it is built smaller to be usable. The pickups in an electric bass guitar solve the double bass's compromises by allowing low notes to be amplified electronically.

Pickup

Pickups are attached to the guitar's body under the strings. They turn the vibrations of the strings into changes in a magnetic field, which is then converted into an electrical voltage that is sent to an instrument amplifier. Bass guitar strings have a core and a winding. The core is a wire running through the center, made of steel, nickel, or an alloy.

Strings

The winding is a thinner wire wrapped around the core. Bass strings differ based on the material and the cross-sectional shape of the winding. Common types include roundwound, flatwound, halfwound (also called groundwound), coated, tapewound, and taperwound strings. Roundwound and flatwound strings have windings with circular and rounded-square cross-sections, respectively, while half-round strings are a mix of the two.

Coated strings have a synthetic layer on their surface, and tapewound strings have 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 greatly affects the instrument's sound, and certain winding styles are often preferred for specific musical genres. During the 1930s, musician and inventor Paul Tutmarc from Seattle, Washington, created the first electric bass guitar in its modern form.

It was a fretted, four-string instrument meant to be played horizontally, like a standard guitar. The 1935 sales catalog for Tutmarc's company, Audiovox, listed the "Model 736 Bass Fiddle," a solid-body electric bass guitar with four strings, a 30½-inch (775-millimeter) scale length, and a single pickup. About 100 of these were made at the time.

Audiovox also sold their "Model 236" bass amplifier. In the 1950s, Leo Fender and George Fullerton developed the first mass-produced electric bass guitar. The Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company started making the Precision Bass, or P-Bass, in October 1951. Its early design had a simple, flat "slab" body with no edge contours and a single coil pickup, much like a Telecaster.

By 1957, the Precision Bass began to look more like the Fender Stratocaster, with beveled body edges for comfort and a pickup changed to a split coil design with two separate halves. The Fender Bass was a game-changer for working musicians. Compared to the upright bass, it was easy to transport. When amplified, it was also much less likely than acoustic basses to cause audio feedback.

The addition of frets let bassists play in tune more easily than on upright basses (the "precision" of the Fender model) and helped guitarists adapt to the new instrument. In 1953, Monk Montgomery became the first bassist to tour with the Fender bass, playing in Lionel Hampton's postwar big band. Montgomery may also have been the first to record with the electric bass, during a session on July 2, 1953, with the Art Farmer Septet. Other early Fender bass pioneers included Roy Johnson (with Lionel Hampton) and Shifty Henry (with Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five).