I made my piccolo out of a 1970's Fender Musicmaster Bass. A new nut was all it needed, although I put in a fully intonable Hipshot bridge, as well as a Seymour Duncan blade-style Strat pickup. It is a fun thing.
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Piccolo Bass Club!!
- Thread starter BassClef 2010
- Start date
That's how I got started on mine -- I needed to write original songs, and the regular bass was too low. I ended up fronting my band, Jazza Nova, with many of the songs. Our Keyboard player played left hand bass on an Alesis Micron with a Jaco tone when I was playing lead. I also had the piccolo and the electric bass on stands so I could switch between then. When the keyboard or sax player was soloing, I went back onto electric bass, and then switched back to piccolo when it was time to pick up the head again. In some songs, I soloed twice -- once on the electric bass and once on the piccolo. It was a lot of fun.
I got tired of all the haulage though, so I wrote out the lead parts for sax and flute, and am back to using it for composing only.
Well, this is embarrassing - a bass club, nine years old, and not even two whole pages. Sheesh!
My piccolo is the medium scale rig on the right. I used to have a lot of fun blowing over jazz tunes with Band in a Box. It gave me the opportunity to play heads and solo over changes with a full, supporting rhythm section. How often do bassists get that? Haven't played it in while, it's getting to the point of re-stringing and off to CL.
My piccolo is the medium scale rig on the right. I used to have a lot of fun blowing over jazz tunes with Band in a Box. It gave me the opportunity to play heads and solo over changes with a full, supporting rhythm section. How often do bassists get that? Haven't played it in while, it's getting to the point of re-stringing and off to CL.
I also had an eb-oink. I strung it up piccolo. It had piano like tones when I plucked chords. I miss it but I do have this currently strung up piccolo.View attachment 1516757
I've owned this EBO since the early 70's. The first time I ever got a useful sound out of it was when I switched it over to piccolo!
The pictures shown have regular bass strings though.
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I have four of my basses set up as permanent piccolo basses in different tunings. I use them for melody, chords, doubling bass parts and driving synth pedals. I also have a Gibson EB14 5 string with a Hi C for baritone parts.
Carvin LB50 Tweety EADG
Carvin LB50koa Tygr ADGC
Harmony H22b EADG
BMP Acoustic DGCF
Carvin LB50 Tweety EADG
Carvin LB50koa Tygr ADGC
Harmony H22b EADG
BMP Acoustic DGCF
i would love to know more about piccolo bass, please tell me
is it the same construction as the normal bass but with thinner strings?
i love it's sound!
Yup, you can put piccolo strings on any bass and usually won't even need to change the nut. just might have to adjust the action
Don't usually need to change the nut. I have mine strung with the original nut and have never had a problem. Not that having a custom cut nut for a piccolo bass would be a bad thing but it's not strictly necessary
I have not done anything about the nuts on any of my basses and never had any tone, sustain or intonation issues.
For the sake of discussion : Who are your piccolo bass inspirations?
Stanley Clarke, Brian Bromberg, Bunny Brunei, Ron Carter, Percy Heath
Fun fact many jazz greats started on cello but out grew it and were moved to string bass, but always loved the cello. Percy Heath had Kay do a limited run of Piccolo Basses that a select few jazz and classical bassists used in the Sixties and Seventies to varying results.
For the sake of discussion : Who are your piccolo bass inspirations?
Stanley Clarke, Brian Bromberg, Bunny Brunei, Ron Carter, Percy Heath
Fun fact many jazz greats started on cello but out grew it and were moved to string bass, but always loved the cello. Percy Heath had Kay do a limited run of Piccolo Basses that a select few jazz and classical bassists used in the Sixties and Seventies to varying results.
I follow Steve Whitley who's very adept on piccolo bass and he claims a specially cut nut is unnecessary.I am at the moment planning to put piccolo strings on an SG bass I built.It has those old style Gibson pups with the chrome covers.I've heard some say those are guitar pickups.If so I'd imagine they'd work well for piccolo bass.Hard to find short scale piccolo bass strings though .
If you're interested, I started a piccolo bass subreddit since there doesn't seem to be much interest in the instrument from the TB community. it's r/PiccoloBass. It also has some resources for strings pinned at the top that might help you
Haven't really heard much about piccolo basses since I saw Foley (Joseph McCreary, Jr.) play with Miles Davis back in the late '80s.
I have not replaced the nut on any of the basses I use as piccolo or other tunings and I have not had any issues with sustain or intonation. Good luck with your experiment.
Thanks, I'm waiting for my strings to arrive.I bought a set with a 62 E string which is the heaviest I found.I thought that'd be best.
My guitar strings for the piccolo bass arrived but the ball ends are too small and pull through the Gibson 3 point bridge under pressure.I guess I'll take a trip to Lowes and find some tiny nuts or washers to enlarge them.
I had to do that on the short scale acoustic bass guitar I used baritone guitar strings on, luckily I had a stash of such things handy. I'm tuning it DGCF.
