Thumping sound when playing A string?

Technique
1

Hello, I’ve been playing for a month now but every time I play the A string and pluck, it always makes a ‘thumping’ sound of my plucking fingers hitting the E string. I do the same thing with the D and G strings as I need to pull across, not pluck up, but they don’t produce any noticeable finger noises.
What should I do in this case?

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2

It sounds like you might not be muting the E string. When you play the A string, try resting your thumb on the E string. That should be enough to mute it when you follow through from plucking the A string.

5 Likes
3

In assuming this is a Fender or Fender style headstock…
Try this test….
Push down a little on the A string ABOVE the nut (yes, the tuning peg seed of the nut). Does it go away?

Some basses are notorious for A string noise due to a basic design flaw. If this solves it…

Solutions:

  1. Get a fret wrap and put it up there.
  2. Make sure your string is wound on the tuning peg so it comes off the peg as low as possible.
  3. When changing the strings, leave a bunch extra on the A string so it forces the string down and keeps it there.
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4

@Scansy Pop across to the Introduce Yourself thread and say hi to everyone

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5

Practice … I had this issue early on and found it went away now that I’ve been playing for 18 months. Not sure when that happened but I used to notice the thumping too, now I dont!

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6

Thanks everyone for the suggestion. After further testing, it seems like this is mostly me plucking the strings too hard and maybe a bit of the design flaw that @John_E said (my bass is a classic vibe jazz bass). I also made sure that I mute the E string to reduce the noise.

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7

Oops forgot to do that, sorry.

2 Likes