DiabolusInMusic
Functionless Art is Merely Tolerated Vandalism
@Jared Lash I know Fender has swimming pool routes down but that has to be a hot tub route, at the least. What are you planning on putting in that canyon?
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Can't play 4-string anymore!!
- Thread starter Sixgunn
- Start date
I've actually gone the opposite way.
I started on a four (well I started on the upright in middle school) when I was 14 and the next year jumped directly to a sixer (a Carvin LB76) and playing six string basses for the better part of a decade. Then I moved primarily to fives but over the last few years have moved more and more to four string basses.
In fact, when my two new ones are finished (next week it seems) I'll probably sell off my only remaining five string and be back to playing fours exclusively.
My current five string:
And it's four string replacements in the works:
The big routes are for the preamps. The sage green one is getting a Nordstrand 3 band and the burgundy mist was originally an East P-Retro but is now a Noll. Since they'll have pickguards it meant we didn't have to rear route them (other than a battery box) which I like aesthetically.
Have been playing since '68 or so. Bought my first five and six last year. The six is just too much real estate for me, so it's mainly a curiosity at this point, but I do enjoy playing the five. After some initial spatial disorientation, I really don't have much trouble switching back and forth - not sure how anyone could confuse the sound and feel of a B with an E? Actually, I think switching is good for you, as it forces you to use your ears and touch rather than your eyes. Double stop tenths are awkward, being used to hitting the top and bottom strings, guess I need to work on that. Anyway, I like playing my old Fenders too much to ever give up on fours.
Even though I started on a fiver, I kinda see a four string as a "real" bass and a fiver as a sort of hybrid. It's why I have four string basses.
I, like a lot of us it seems, got my first 5 string in the early 90's. I played it exclusively until I recently purchased a beautiful 4 string via a trade. I just traded the 4 string at slightly lower than it's value for a couple of items I needed since nobody seems to want a 4 string anymore. I hope the new owner plays the crap out of it and really digs it. Me? I just couldn't help feeling weird playing it and as a result I seldom took it out of it's case. I can go from my 5 strings to my 6 strings without any issues at all but playing on a 4 string just isn't in the cards anymore.
I remember that after my 2 first years of plaing I got a 5 and only played it for at least a year and got confused playing a 4 again but now, 15 years later and playing a 6 for like 9 years, I don't care how many string a bass has anymore.
- Jun 6, 2012
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- I don't wait 30 minutes after eating, to go swimming.
It was just the angle of that other shotnever gotten that one before. At 6 foot 8, most comments are about my height
I've noticed that too. As you use them all you learn to adjust to whatever number of strings you have. Experience has value.
Yep and if I played like a low B, which isn't avalaible on the 4 strings, then I do something else. I may try tapping or whatever, there is a lot of option possible. I may also revert a line ... like instead of walking down G,F,E,D I may do G 3rd fret of E string, F 3rd fret of D string, E 7th fret of G string and maybe D 12th fret as an harmonic or playing D at the 17th fret or maybe there is a better road to get up there if I try it ...
EDIT : yep thinking about it, I would do G 3rd fret E string, then F 13th fret E string, E 14th fret D string and D 17th G string. Much bette that way.
And here's something else about Steve Harris. He's a really mid-rangey player. He's not even a low E rider. He goes to the 7th fret E on the A string more often than not.
Back around 2004 I was in the Howl at the Moon piano bar in Hollywood and playing the four string bass they had there with the piano players. We were playing Summer of '69. I'd played it before but only on a five string. My ONLY experience was with a five string. When the song modulated I was hopelessly lost. the string I had always used was simply not there and I didn't know where to go. I'd not learned to think in multiple octaves yet.
That's when I started - and on five. But I discovered Rondomusic a few years later and their basses were so pretty and cheap that I picked up a four just to mess around. I actually gigged exclusively on the four for a year.
Chef
In Memoriam
5 string T40? WUT?
I like to think that my 5 doesn't look out of place in a classic rock band
Chef
In Memoriam
