Piccalo bass

[Legault]

What exactly us it, I've seen Stanley Clarke use it, us it a tuning or... ?

 

[Avezzano]

Piccolo bass: a short scale bass with the first four strings of a guitar. Or maybe fitted with a proper bass G string plus guitar EAD. Hi range dedicated bass.

 

[Legault]

Thank you

 

[Brian Bromberg]

Actually my piccolo basses are regular 34" long scale basses with the exact same string spacing as my regular tuned basses. The cool thing is that there are no rules when it comes to instruments and music. Do what you feel, play what you like, and take as many chances as you wish, it's all perfect.

I have tuned mine from an octave up to an octave and a fourth up with a high C string a half step above the open B string on a guitar.

All I can say is that playing the piccolo bass has made me a much more musical and melodic bass player, as well as a song writer.

There is no question in my mind that the piccolo bass has made me a much better all around musician and story teller.

To me so many of us have more then one bass, string one up as a piccolo and just have a blast!

 

[Stick_Player]

There are other string makers.

 

[DagoMaino]

Doin it! Converting my custom Jaguar bass over as soon as my strings get here. Any tips on neck adjustments, bridge adjustments? Anyone tried leaving regular E and A strings and using piccolo D and G.. I understand string tensions are dramatically different and don't want to risk twisting the neck.. any tips?

 

[lz4005]

Any tips on neck adjustments, bridge adjustments?

Setup is the same. Turn the truss rod until you have a neck relief that fits how you play, lower/raise the saddles until the strings are the right height for how you play, move the saddles forward and back until it's in tune all the way up.

Watch out for buzzy weirdness at the nut.

 

[hillerup]

Anyone tried leaving regular E and A strings and using piccolo D and G.. I understand string tensions are dramatically different and don't want to risk twisting the neck.. any tips?

I play in an electronic/industrial band where I do double duty as being both the bassplayer and guitarplayer - Instead of keep swapping instrument, I was thinking about tuning a 5-string one of the 3 following ways:

EAead or DAdad or EAdad

Since I play my basses in standard tuning, but guitars in Drop-D tuning, I guess the latter would be an obvious compromise...

Now what string sizes would be the best for this?:

.030(d) - .040(a) - .050(e/d) - .070(A) - .090(E)

.035(d) - .045(a) - .055(e/d) - .075(A) - .095(E)

They should all be roundwound, of course...