The Dingwall Combustions, and ABZs are actually too light and have bad balance. They tip over at the head/neck side. However, not while standing up. The strap knobs are placed at crucial points. I happen to be one that not favors too light basses, especially not 5 ers. Due to that necks are by default more material than any 4 (corresponding 4) but usually has a body that is designed almost the same as the 4rs. They may only have put on a wider bridge, and wider pickups, but om most bread and butter basses, it's the same body. Warwick is the most terrible ones on weight and balance.
However, I do think that a longer scale - or multiscale - are needed when going to 5 strings. As many has said already, a low F note sounds better, and are more comfy to play on the low 5 strings 6th fret than on the first fret of the e-string. On any fanned fret bass too. I would say that playing up the neck on a fanned fret 5er sounds better than on any other bass too. But that's just my I M H O personal view.
Also, most existing music - STILL - has been written and recorded with a regular 4 string (of course, standard tuning). It was first at the end of the 70's and 80's that 5ers starting to pop up. I do agree with those people having played 5ers a while but then goes back. I am not at that point yet. I think the comparison should be made with that IMPERIAL BÖSENDORFER Grand Piano, that there only exist a dozen of in the whole world. It has 3-4 extra keys at the low end, and there's only 2-3 written pieces of it in the whole world that makes use of thoes low notes/keys. Granted, you can't play those notes "anywhere else on the keyboard" as you could do on a 5 string bass. Remember though, that bass is a note range, not an instrument. Say, synths has gone that low since the start, and no one is complaining. It's so much easier there. No "flubby low b" due to that oscillators or the instrument are of poor quality. The low end on synths are only as important as the PA or keyboard amp they're put through. On bass guitars, there's other factors creeping in.
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One caveat I've heard from some 5 string players, and why they went back, but to BEAD tuning on a four string, is the difference in gauges across the 5 string that you just have to put up with. Regardless of radius of the neck, the height difference at the first few frets, as well as back at the bridge, is causing them trouble. Not me, I am just adapting to that and hone my fingers to it. I e there's a ramp up of height, from thinnes g-string to lowest B, because the top of the string are moving up. The distance to the fret must me basically the same at the first few frets, and then the neck relief kicks in gradually as you move up the neck. This may be nit picking and hairsplitting to you, but I think it's that we are discussing here anyway in the first place. Say that you're one of those bass players who plays a chord up the 5er - or 6er - neck with a BARRE finger on it, it's too hard to press the low B just down as much as the thinnest g-string. Some of the strings will not be fretted accurately enough giving it a slight buzz. Of course this is dependent on which kind of frets are or the fretboard, but normally basses, doesn't have high fat frets. Dingwalls uses thin banjo frets with low profile. Few people I know of have that kind of long index or barré finger to reach across the fretboard of a 5 or 6 string. COMPLETELY.
I do think that going back to a 4 string with altered tuning, or BEAD will relieve SOME of the 5er griefs, but I still think you need longer scale on the low B than a 34". But not on the g-string.
Don't forget that an open G-string on a bass, is the same note as the G-note on the third fret on an low E-string of any regular tuned guitar. Having all these EXTENDED RANGE basses (why should they be called basses anyway then?) with high C notes and even more up, will only give you an extended range, however, the notes fundamental and tone quality will suffer big time. You just can't have great high notes on a bass scale (say 32" or 35" scale) instrument. The notes will just turn out a percussive "thump" at a certain range. Same if you go down low too much. They just will turn out flubby. Otherwise you could just put on a super thick mega heavy gauge string on any mandolin, ukulele, and - say - regular guitar, and think that you'd get a good sounding low b.
I just think that it is all this, and much more that has already been covered in this thread, that MAY be the thing that people are SLOWLY giving up their 5 string reliance after a couple of years. Too many small things, petty things, and parameters that comes into play. Speaker and amp choices too. 4 strings seems to turn out a bit easier, and "no-nonsense" thing to them. Fair enough.
Things are slowly DAWNING on them as they go along. I agree, playing in D or Eb or C sharp is a tad "non bass" on any regular tuned 4 string. But as the great Tony Levin once said when he had a 3 string bass built for him by MM. "WHY FOUR STRINGS WHEN THREE'S ENOUGH?" As a bass player, you don't need to, or have to be the one that cover all bases (ha! pun intended) in your band. That's for the keyboard players left hand (sorry, couldn't help myself).
I still play my 5 string, and 4 string interchangeably. I have no problem to state here, if I have resorted to 4 string again. I will probably do so, or not, in a couple of years. If I go back to 4 I'd probably change tuning to BEAD, (still using fanned fret necks) or something like a drop d- tuner. Anyone has their different reasons for going back, and may very well state their opinions around here. That's what the thread was about. Not about the ones who's still playing 5ers and only plays their 5ers. The one thing to remind readers of this thread of, if
a) do you HAVE to play a 5 er? (read: does it gets you more gigs, earn more money, than with a 4?)
b) do you WANT to play a 5 er? (read: to own, just a brag trophy).
c) do you reallly NEED to play a 5 er?
All have their different reasons. I like to think that its' the c) that causes most people to revert back to just 4 strings again. When they discovered that a) and b) didn't matter anymore.
