4 string bass to 8 string octave-Plausable?

[Slappingpopping]

Could it be pulled off just by replacing bridge, nut and adding tuners?
or would it require things like pickup change, neck swap etc..

[claybone]

A local guitar repairman here in Manila recently converted my Yamaha BEX4 to an 8 string. He just drilled the 4 extra holes for the tuners and the extra 4 light strings, and retained the original pick up and neck. Holds up pretty good in standard tuning, and it gave the Yamaha a little more hair!

[Slappingpopping]

thanks, thats funny only 3 months ago i was on holiday with family and bought a yamaha BB614 in makati which was the bass i was wondering about converting

[rap138]

I did it with a cheap one, just four holes for the tuners and four holes on the brige for the thin strings (yep. no intonation on those) and ready, took me an hour more or less. the nut was a bit tricky becuse I used the original one, so I kept the strings as close as I could or wouldn't have space for the high E.

[anechoic]

Here's a couple of links from some people who have done conversions:

http://www.12stringbass.net/Tech.htm

They're focusing on 12 strings here, but the concept is basically the same for an 8 string.