5th string sounds like mud

[knuckle]

Well I bought an acoustic bass to mess around with and record some bass for some of my bands tunes. Let me just say first, I know little about basses. I received this today. I've never played a 5 string bass. I had my drummers T-bucket 4 string last week and was messing around with that and had fun. This thing is cool but damn the scale length is brutal. But my main gripe is just not much out of the 5th string.

I do have some LaBella Tape Wound strings on the way per my string thread. Think that will help, or should I ditch this and get a 4 string? I bought a 5 string as a lot of our songs are in B or low tunings. But if I can't hear the string then what good is it? HONK HONK!!!!

 

[Shovel]

Sometimes that's not a bad thing.

 

[Jaco Taco]

Try using a much lighter gauge on the B string. Try a 110 on it.

 

[Moe Monsarrat]

I use Ernie Ball flats on mine which have much more tension than most strings. My B string is massive. Mine is a Micheal Kelly Dragonfly fretless 5 string.

 

[Jeff Scott]

It's an acoustic guitar body with a bass neck on it, how much bass, especially from a B string, do you think you're going to get from it? Does it sound fine plugged in? If so, you just got a nice 5 string electric bass that looks like an acoustic guitar.

 

[mmbongo]

What gauge B string? A light gauge B will be floppy and hollow sounding. Can you try something like a .130?

 

[Bocete]

What scale length are you talking about? Also which strings do you have on the bass at the moment?

 

[Frenchy-Lefty]

Acoustic basses rarely sound good with a B string, I would just consider stringing the bass with a high C instead
That would be EADGC

 

[knuckle]

Acoustic basses rarely sound good with a B string, I would just consider stringing the bass with a high C instead
That would be EADGC

Wouldn't that tuning be too much tension on the bass? Currently, I have Dadarrio acoustic bass strings on it, with La Bella tape wounds on order. The Daddario strings are 130's.

 

[knuckle]

34" scale. Even recording, the B string is useless. Ordered a 4 string Ibanez acoustic today. Lots of our songs are in b tuning, so that's why I got a 5 string. But on a 4 string, the b note on the 3rd string sounds too high.

 

[Sav'nBass]

Acoustic basses rarely sound good with a B string, I would just consider stringing the bass with a high C instead
That would be EADGC

Wouldn't that tuning be too much tension on the bass? Currently, I have Dadarrio acoustic bass strings on it, with La Bella tape wounds on order. The Daddario strings are 130's.

I don't think so.. I wound up using a set of half rounds on my Dragonfly fretless and they sounded and played OK.. I never considerd the EADGC tuning.. I wish I had before I got rid of the bass. That was one reason why I wanted to sell my MK Dragonfly.. I didn't like the sound of the B string.. It sounded just OK amped.. but acoustically it just got lost. I think for an ABG a 4 or either a ABG 5 tuned EADGC is the sweet spot.

 

[Frenchy-Lefty]

Wouldn't that tuning be too much tension on the bass? Currently, I have Dadarrio acoustic bass strings on it, with La Bella tape wounds on order. The Daddario strings are 130's.

Sorry I assumed you were familiar with the concept. You would basically use a 6 string set and not use the B string and that's what you'd have on your bass. It is like a 4 string bass to which you add a high C string. I also do not really recommend tapewound or flatwound strings on ABG's as you really lose on clarity with the piezo pickups.
One bassist coming to my mind and who uses the EADGC set up would be Matt Garrisson. It is actually nice on an acoustic as you can play some cool sounding chords.

 

[moshspeggeti]

Sometimes that's not a bad thing.

Lol I was going to post that as soon as I saw this thread...

 

[BioWeapon]

34" scale. Even recording, the B string is useless. Ordered a 4 string Ibanez acoustic today. Lots of our songs are in b tuning, so that's why I got a 5 string. But on a 4 string, the b note on the 3rd string sounds too high.

I hope you aren't playing the 9th fret on the D string to get a B.

 

[Frenchy-Lefty]

And an ABG is not meant to be played with loud distorted and detuned guitars obviously

 

[Jeff Scott]

Do you mostly plug in? IF so, and you have the $$$ get a Rick Turner RB5, they have a massive sounding B string.

 

[Vlad5]

sounds like a dead string. it happens. try a .130 or .135. DR Highbeams work great, so do DR Low Riders. DR Drop Down Tuning strings are good too, but may be too much tension.

 

[Duckwater]

I would never use a low B on an ABG, they don't project those low frequencies well at all. I primarily use mine for practicing acoustically by myself or with an acoustic guitar though, if I'm plugging in then I'd rather use my electric bass.

 

[knuckle]

I did a lot of research on this last night. It appears that getting a B string recorded is a whole can of worms by itself. Since a lot of my songs are in B tuning (Open B if you will) on baritone resonator guitars, I was under the assumption that a 5 string bass would be required. Now I'm trying 2 different things here. The root of the songs is B, so I'm trying to record this bass with the B string. Since the Baritone guitar is also low tuned, I think the low frequencies are competing. So I tried to use the 3rd string, 2nd fret (b) note and it sounds too high. I'm not using the 9th fret of the D string.

So if I understand this concept correctly, regarding EADGC tuning. I would get a 6 string bass set of strings, such as

• String Gauges: Wound .032, .045, .065, .080, .100,.130

And just not use the .130 and put the strings on and tune to EADGC, is that correct? Then I could use the B note on the A string 2nd fret which would probably be a happy medium between using an Open B string now or the 3rd string 2nd fret B note, which sounds a tad high. As I said, I'm a guitarist. I know ZERO about bass. I would probably be better suited to get an electric 5 string for the recording part. The acoustic looks cool and sets the vibe of the band, but for recording, it's probably useless, especially with a sub-par piezo UST pickup.

 

[Frenchy-Lefty]

You can also play a B on the 7th frets of the 1st string and it sounds quite fat already. I advise you to consider a Fender 4 string bass with which you can already do a lot.