[quote=burntgorilla]How high should you action usually be for easier slapping?[/quote]

Good question. Mine is moderately low - too low and you'll get fretbuzz, too high and you may find you have to slap harder and fast fretwork gets harder - I recommend taking an Allan Key, or Screwdriver, or whatever you need to adjust the action on your bass and experimenting.

[QUOTE=BlessTheMartyr4]Okay I've read all this watched that movie on that site and read that. And I'm still clueless on what to do. I put my hand over the bass sharply turn my wrists, using the knuckle of my thumb I hit the string right where the neck ends and when I bring my finger up I pluck the string...if I'm doing this right it sound just like if I were to play normally. I don't see a difference in tone or anything except for the annoying metal click.


:wave: [/QUI know this could sound stupid, but...do have an Active Bass? if youve onlyu got a assive, slap just dont work! hope this helps...

You mean that slap/pop technique works only on active basses??

I have a passive bass, and it works fine too, also if slap is not just the right kind of sound my instrument was designed for!

I think he only needs exercises or a friend who shows the right technique.

Somethings can be learned only when you look at with your eyes...

Slap and pop work on both passive and activ instruments.

With popping, you pull it directly away from the fretboard, yes? What does it sound like (I can't find a video that doesn't have slapping as well)? I sometimes pull too hard and it buzzes like hell, I'm assuming it's not pulled that hard. Also, with slapping, is the string meant to hit off the bottom frets?

Like some others....I'm sitting here following what I've read, etc, but I have a feeling I'm not doing it right. I'm trying to just do some slap on the E string, but my wrist doesn't really "twist sharply", it's more like my thumb is moving really fast.
And then, when I'm trying to pop, what should I do with my thumb? I mean, if someone is slapping and popping in a song, do they ever rest their thumb against the bass? I pretty much always rest mine on the pickup, because I've never tryed to slap or pop before. :-/

[QUOTE=bass-kiddo]Like some others....I'm sitting here following what I've read, etc, but I have a feeling I'm not doing it right. I'm trying to just do some slap on the E string, but my wrist doesn't really "twist sharply", it's more like my thumb is moving really fast.
And then, when I'm trying to pop, what should I do with my thumb? I mean, if someone is slapping and popping in a song, do they ever rest their thumb against the bass? I pretty much always rest mine on the pickup, because I've never tryed to slap or pop before. :-/[/QUOTE]

Well, usually when a song is slapped or popped or both, it has a flow to it, and usually when I pop after a slap my thumb is just freelanceing in the air. Slap and pop is a technique that comes good with lots of practice. Don't expect to get it in 5 minutes. Your rist should not snap sharply but flick and the force from the flick should be pushed to the thumb where you get your slap sound. Its all about accuracy too. Just keep practicing and it should come to you.

Rite all i can do is slap on E, but i put my hand in a ball pointing down and stick out my thumb and hit with the knuckle, wen i slap it hit all the strings and buzzes! HELP!
i dnt understand the wrist movement...can u help!

you are meant to slap with the thumb, not the knuckle. The wrist movement shold be a flick.

Have you read the opening post? I go into some detail on how to do that - give it a read if you haven't already.

[quote] know this could sound stupid, but...do have an Active Bass? if youve onlyu got a assive, slap just dont work! hope this helps... [/quote]

Assuming assive means passive... this is absolutely wrong.

I have a passive bass, and I can get a very good slapping tone out of it. Why wouldn't I be able to? There's nothing you can do on an active you can't do on a passive.

[QUOTE=BassBoy12]i dnt understand the wrist movement...can u help![/QUOTE]
The movement is like when You shake a thermometer to get down the mercury (turning just the wrist and not all the arm!!), but with the thumb raised up and relaxed. In fact, the thumb as to quickly hit the string bouncing over it.

I think I've got it, but it sounds much lower that it does on videos I've seen on slapping. What's the cause of that? Also, if I fret a note, especially near the head, it's nearly impossible to get a sound without clicking. How can I do that right?

Some click is to be expected - the string does hit the frets, after all - but if you're amplified you won't hear it.

If it's a real problem, try raising your action a little.

Is the string actually meant to hit the top few frets? I get the clicking from the bottom frets, obviously depending on which one I'm playing.

How loud are you being amplified?

Not that much, really. I turned it way up once, and the clicking almost seemed to get louder with the amp.

Hmm - It shouldn't do. Are you using a little practise amp, or a big one? Because at low levels you should expect some clattering, but if you're being very loud, it shouldn't. If you aren't using a large amp, try and track one down in a practice room or something similar and see if it really does get much louder.

In theory, at least, as you turn it up, the clicking will be drowned out.

Well, it's only 20W, so it's not massive. I also find it harder to get a sound from slapping when fretting a high note, but I'm assuming it's also volume related?

That's natural - if you think about the physics of it, you'd have to slap a lot harder to get it to hit the frets properly. Basically, either try to pop it, or move to an equivalent note on a different string.

Hmm, raising the volume did seem to sort it out, a bit of practise and I'll be away. Two last questions: why does the slap sound so much lower than it does on videos (like in the Warwick survival one), yet playing normally sounds higher than in songs? Also, in popping, how far should you pull away from the fretboard, and do you just basically straighten your finger to let it go?

Not sure what you mean by the first question - surely as ever that just depends on which note you fret?

And as for popping, I don't change how straight my finger is at all, I just only hook the string with the tip of my finger so that when I pull away it just slips off.

Glad to be of help.

What I meant was, if I slap open E, it sounds low, but then if I watch a video of someone slapping the same string, it sounds higher.

Edit: To try and explain, here's a little wav file: [url]www.psyvision.co.uk/slapping.wav[/url] (it plays twice as fast as it should in winamp, for some reason). It's all on E, and you can hear the clicking sound in the strings.

maybe its the tone, it can make a big difference on my bass when im slapping with an amp...

How did you record that? if it was putting a mike up to the amp, I'd expect a lot of clicking, but not that much if you're running a lead direct from the amp to the pc.

It sounds like you may be slapping too hard, or have the action too low - try slapping the back of your left hand (assuming you're right handed) if it hurts at all you're doing it too hard.

It was through a mike, but the only background noise was some hissing, so any clicks must've been me.

Yes, but if you're using a mike it can pick up the acoustic clanging of the strings, which the pickups do not pick up on.

I had a hell of a time getting it to pick up on the sound of the bass, I had to turn the amp up to full and dangle the mic in front of it. I don't think it would be able to pick up on the acoustic bits.

You might be surprised - I remember recording an mp3 for someone and realising I'd also recorded on of the 'Yeah, I know' sketches from Little Britain.

What I do to record is plug a cable from the heaphones jack on the amp to the line-in jack on the soundcard of my pc. There's no mike, so there's no background noise. (but a more complete guide to home recording can be found in the Bass Forum Archive)

Hmm, I think I've got it now, though Higher Ground sounds much lower than it does on the CD. Thanks for the help.

Glad to help.

okay, well i've been learning how to slap and pop but sometimes when i slap on the higher strings, my thumb hits the string that is lower, is this something that will improve with practice or am i not doing it right?

It's simply a practice thing. Keep at it, keep practicing on slapping the higher strings.

Track down 'Golden Boy' by Primus, that's a handy one for that.

Your accuracy will improve over time.

I know im gonna sound REALLY dumb here but wat the hell r the octaves, and mute exercises? i dunno wat everyones talkin about. someone please help me

You know how the musical scale runs ABCDEFG? Well after the G comes another A, and the whole thing repeats.

[size=4][b]A[/b][/size]bcdefg[size=4][b]A[/b][/size]bcdefg

The two As here are octaves to each other.

To play an octave, you want to move up 12 frets (semitones). Another way to do it is to move up two frets and two strings. Try it (for example the 2nd fret on the E string and the 4th on the D string) and you'll see they fit together very well, as they are the same note in different octaves.

Now try slapping the 2nd on E and popping the 4th on D, and presto! You're slapping and popping octaves!

Technically that was a theory question, rather than a slapping one, but never mind.

As for the mute exercises, let me first ask: Do you know what a ghost note is?

Sweet, finaally a good topic to talk about, but i have one more thing to add. most bassists do an octave slap (like u were just talking about), but many dont do a kind of riff like such... (btw, its in G)

---------------------------------------------
---------5--------5--------5-------5-------- (Pop)
----------------------3h5------------------- (Pop)
---3-3-------3-3-------------3-3----------- (Slap)

Most bassists just do a simple octave, try this (this i believe is in G major blues scale, not sure tho). If you add more poping to something, u can be heard better and u sound really cool ;-).

Ok, ill shut up now...

oh,, just wondering WINTERMUTE but is that an albino stingray in ur pic?

Actually it's a shot of my Stingray replica, but with the colours reversed in Jasc Paintshop Pro 7. I wish they were made like that though...

Yea, that looks REALLY cool, especially the black strings and white pickup. Im gonna submit that idea to Musicman... heh...

I have a 5 string. I can slap a little bit but the b-string is pissing me off. i got a private slap lesson once and they said to use palm mute which i know I use my right hand palm (outer edge of palm) to mute...but one thing I dont know how to do.

the whole time while slapping and popping and whatnot your doing flicking movements with the wrist which brings the palm off the strings right...so how does that work?