I'm not a Bass player...
Hold it! Stayed tuned! I just want to master 6 string before I try to emulate you gods...
I'm an ideas type man and am toying with a project to build a lap steel with sympathetic, ( like on a sitar, y'know?) strings.
Sympathetic vibrations are most powerful at an Octave. Octave down from a 6 string, knock out the top 2, E,A, D,G, hey, that's a Bass!
Have done lots of research on the 'Net, found out lots of things, except how much the strings will actually vibrate.
Know next to nothing about Bass string guages, but am probably looking at the thinner end. Intuition tells me that the fatter the string, the more difficult it is to get vibrating. To make things more complicated, I live in China, where availability is often limited and the RMB doesn't buy you more than 12.something cents or 6.something pence, and I earn Chinese wages, (You'd be amazed how little that is.), so importing is a nono.
Any advice/guage suggestions/ formulas from audio physicists out there?
