basses with no pickguards, even if you use fingerstyle....

Resetti

New member
do you find that there will be a lot of small little dents on the body of the bass, caused by when you are plucking the strings, your fingernails actually hit the body?

i have quite A LOT small shallow dents on the body created this way near the pickups. you can't see them but if you hold the body of the bass against the light you can see the small dents.

anyone has this problem as well?

edit: changed "quite a few" to "quite A LOT" ! :P
 
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yeah! i noticed MANY little 'scratch-like' things due to my nails. but i really don't fancy the pickguard look on a bass. guess we have to deal with the 'macho-ness' of the wear and tear look! hahaha.
 
if it is mojo-ed like hell then maybe it will look nice lah. but imagine if your pristine brilliant gloss finish bass kena one teeny tiny DENT in it... and you can see the lacquer crack etc... my goodness that one is heartache to the MAX :( :(
 
Haha, back when I was contrabassist for my cj guitar ensemble, I think I mojo'ed the brand new spankin' 3k contrabass... My legacy lives til today...

OH wait! My current band's drummer is STILL continuing this mojo'ing job on the same contrabass! Haha. At first, I was thinking why the bass's finish was so lousy and peeling off above the 6th string (contrabass have 6 strings, tuned EADGBE 1 octave lower than guitars). It wasn't until I played a very crazy fast bassline that I realised that the dents might actually have been caused by my squarish deadly nails.

When I showed the coolest instructor in the world (Balraj Gopal) the new decors (pretty much an overkill) on the spankin' new $3k contra, he gave me this classic look: O_O

Haha it was classic I swear!
 
But you play the contrabass by pulling the strings away from the body and letting them snap back, instead of normal plucking towards your thumb right? that way how does the finger nails mojo the body?

I assume you're talking about Niibori's contabass?

Sorry, my bad, that was guitarron... contrabass is still built like a acoustic bass guitar, but with 6 strings and tuning is 1 octave down.

YEAH MOJO BABY!!!!!!! (dont' know whether to laugh or cry for a mojo-ed bass).
 
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Yup modelled after a Niibori Contrabass

If it was a real Niibori Cantrabass... ...Let's just say that I wouldn't be intentionally playing percussive lines with my fingernails on the sound board on it while whacking the 6th string! lol
 
the thing about guitars...when they're new, you wanna keep them pristine..and yet when the first scratch happens, you look forward to more battle scars! mojo ftw!
 
First ding on my guitar damn heart pain...
Second ding, still heart pain...
I can't remember when but i guess i don't really care about how many dings there are on that guitar now...
 
When the first scratch on my bass, i was like OMFGWTF!@$%#
and the subseqent one was like, not again -_-
Now i don't even care about the looks, i just hope the dings and scratches don't affect my sound :D
 
Dings

Heh, i have the same problem tons of little deep scratches and dings just above the area i usually pluck my strings. I just picture that area as the condemned area and try to keep everything else pristine. = )
 
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