C String Without B string?

Yep. Lots of people do it

 

The original Fender V from the 60s had a high C string.

 

I had a Yamaha BB-5500 with a high-c string for many years. This was great for soloing and if you are in a jazz fusion type of band or a situation where you need to play chords it is a fun setup. I have since found it to be much more useful to play a five with the low b. But hey, whatever works!

 

Yep, it is a common practice.

 

I keep recommending it for ABG 5-string, on which the low B is a joke. One of these days I'll take my own advice and get one and string it that way. So much GAS, so little $...

 

Yep. Generally referred to as a tenor bass. Kind of an oxymoron, but it's stuck.

 

Been there done that, won't do it again. It didn't sit with me as well as I thought it might. I guess that's 15 years of playing a low B for you.

 

I say just get a six string and dont worry about it

 

My Schecter is tuned EADGC

 

they even sell 5 string packs of strings now with the high C so you don't have to buy a 6 string set, or you can buy em individually. my fodera 5 string set play quite nice

 

I almost prefer it that way. I'll take a Hipshot on the E string though.

 

Sometimes you will have a problem with the nut not being the right size. What I did when I did eadgc, was to lay tissue into the nut along with the strings, just sort of as an experiment. It ended up working so well that I cut off the excess tissue, and still use it like that to this day.

 

Sorry, correct me if I'm being a bit thick, but why not tune the 5th string to a high B?

I'm a guitarist, so this would make loads of sense to me...do people tune them that way?

 

That's just the guitar player in you. Tuning to C keeps the strings in the pattern of being tuned in fourths. The B string on a guitar is the "odd duck" that steps out of the pattern of a regular interval between strings.

Obviously you can appreciate that tuning your fifth string on a guitar to a C will throw off all of your chord patterns... not so much for a bass player who is not playing the same barre chords, etc., that a guitar player does.

 

I dig both B and C tunings. Each offers unique chording and harmonics. Neither is superior, so why not use both?