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Boogie.Man

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If I understand my bass electronics, the pickups respond to the vibration of a string and convert the results into a signal.

So whay makes you hear fret noise through the amp? It seems like you would have to have a microphone to pickup fret noise. I don't understand.

Thanks,
 

danny-79

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At a pretty good guess fret noise being heard through the amp is the same thing as finger noise, tap, hit, mute etc its the amplified sound that the string is making, unwanted effect or not.
(like you still get fret noise on an acoustic, it has nothing to do with the electronics)
 

five7

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The pickup is stromg enough to pickup finger noise.
 

mynan

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It's not the fret that's vibrating when you hear fret noise. The string hitting the fret causes the the string to vibrate and resonate the click, buzz, etc. Same thing with finger noise.
 

Boogie.Man

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Still don't understand

Don't pickup's detect vibrations in the string and the body? How then do they pickup other noise? The explanations above would make sense to me if the pickup was a microphone.
 

mynan

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You asked about fret noise. All sound is vibration. No vibration = no sound. The vibration that causes the sound you hear when a string hits a fret (fret noise) resonates through the whole string, which is why the pickups pick it up.
 

MadMatt

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Don't pickup's detect vibrations in the string and the body? How then do they pickup other noise? The explanations above would make sense to me if the pickup was a microphone.

Well the pickup IS a form of microphone. An active microphone generates signal by moving a coil though a magnetic field. The pickup generates a signal by moving the string though the magnetic field over the pickup. Due to the mass of the string it is not sensitive enough to pick up your voice but if you hold your bass in front of the speaker you can get feedback just like a microphone.
 
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