Does my bass need a setup?

Gear
1

I purchased a new Ibanez bass 2 months ago when starting the course as an absolute beginner.

Recently I’ve noticed a pretty distinct buzzing noise when playing a variety of notes on the E, A, and D strings. It’s less noticeable when playing through the amp, but still an issue.

Would a setup fix this? I have not had the bass set up, since it sounded good to my untrained ear at the time of purchase.

Could it be something else causing this?

Thank you all for your help!

Here’s a video for context: Does my bass need a setup? - YouTube

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Yes, your bass needs to be set up.

I recommend this video, very easy to do yourself.

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3

@howard gave good advice

It’s winter, humidity’s changing, heat is on, truss rod adjustments are common. Will probably need a setup again come spring/summer. It’s a wood thing

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4

So setup is a thing. It really is. I haven’t been playing long. Only about 8 months. But I’m ok mechanically.
What it sounds like they’re is you’ve got some rattle on the lowest 5 frets?

There’s a couple big things here…
Finger pressure. As beginners we dummy have the requisite strength in the fingers to properly fret. This usually resolves quite quickly.
String height.-
If your bass has the string height settings out it will cause some of this.
Truss rod adjustment- this works the curve of the neck. They aren’t specifically straight. There is a rather delicate balancing act occurring.
The neck is actually bowed away ( convex ) and being pulled back to straight by the string tension.

All of these are fairly easy to fix, but don’t go tooling on your bass just yet
Do some research. Watch some videos from setup techs on YouTube. Look up some articles from actual trusted sources.
If you feel competent with a few small tools and some measuring, you’ll be fine.

But. The better idea is to maybe take it to your local shop/luthier and get a setup done.
They are typically not real expensive, and totally worth it if it solved an issue that affects play.
Also, they can probably gone you a few tips on what to look for from a well adjusted instrument. That’s pretty important for us beginners.

Hope it helps. Keep making noise!

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Thank you all for the helpful advice! Awesome to have such a great community here

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