|
Some guys have found creative ways of making the clickety clack a part of their sound, but I'm personally not a fan and do my best to remove it. It could be the result of one or any combination of issues, from the bass of choice, setup/action, to your technique and/or how hard you play, your arm/wrist angle to the strings, etc. Some basses I've found are more prone to it than others (Precision, Rickenbacker), while others are more forgiving.
Here's a few things you can do that might help:
1. Raise the action, or keep your action/touch consistent with one another: results in a thicker, fuller tone. Especially if you're digging in. Likewise, a lighter touch helps as well, though not for everyone. I actually keep my action fairly low but play with a lighter touch now and let my amp do the work, so I've eliminated clickety clack heading in the opposite direction as raising the action.
2. Lower the pickups: raised pickups will result in a hotter response and accentuate the highs and attack where nasty clickety clack resides.
3. Work on your fretting/plucking hand coordination: Sometimes the clacking is a result of your fretting hand coming off the fretboard too high and slapping down on it when fretting notes, not the plucking hand, while your plucking hand may not be in perfect sync with your fretted notes either. So resist the urge to lift your hand off the fretboard.
4. Pluck over the strings, not behind them: I fell into the poor habit of resting my plucking forearm on the top of my bass when playing, which results in a bent wrist and placed my attack of strings at an angle behind them (or above/parallel). I found I eliminated a lot of my clickety clack problems and had a smoother, more consistent even response by adjusting my plucking hand/arm to eliminate most of my bent wrist with my fingers plucking almost perpendicular to the strings. If you're used to a bent wrist approach, altering your wrist angle and arm will feel awkward at first, but eventually you'll get used to it.
I can honestly say that after making various adjustments mentioned above (with probably the adjustment to technique being the most important), I can play virtually any bass now and have minimal clickety clack. Used to be a big problem for me, especially on my P and Rick basses.
|
