What songs do you feel NEED a 5 string bass?

[two fingers]

If you’ve ever played Gospel music thru a big PA in a huge acoustically treated auditorium, then you wouldn’t be asking this question.

One of my favourite musical memories was hitting Low C on the final note of the night in an 8,000 seat Entertainment Centre.

And that, to me, is where the low B string is more useful than anything. Music is meant to take both players and audiences on a journey. Want to end that journey (be it a song or the whole show) on an emotional high? Expand to the end. What I mean is this. You ever notice that the singer's "big note" usually comes near the end of a song? How many songs have you heard that involved screaming guitar solos while the singer is vamping at the end? (Answer: Lots of them....especially smash hits.)

What they are doing is sonically expanding to the climax. Why only expand upward? If you are able to go lower while they go higher the song just gets BIGGER. Lots of hits were RECORDED with a 4 banger. And that's great. But when I get to the bar, or the church, and we're trying to whip up a crowd, I will hit the bass version of "the big note" near the end.

Gunpowder and Lead. Last chorus I'm playing the 4 (C) down low while our female singer goes off and our lead guitar player is setting the place on fire.

Last chorus of a Journey song while I'm hanging on for dear life vocally on the Steve Perry big note? I'm going as low as my bass will go and my guitar player is blazing a Neal Schon screaming lead trail right through our audience's brains.

It just gets BIGGER at the end. Forget what "can" be done on a 4. I'm not anti 4 string. But you can take a song, and a show, to a "whole nuther level" by sonically expanding to the end of a song several times a night.... especially at the very end.

Sure you can get away without it. I can get through a Friday night without cheating on my diet with beer and wings too. But why would I WANT to?

 

[musicman556]

View attachment 3579463

Exactly the problem I had. I looked forever(5 years... felt like forever). Trying to find a fiver with a tight plunky B string. Even Sadowsky’s were terrible. Imagine my surprise it was a Fender all along.

Crazy! I went Lakland SPECIFICALLY for the 35" scale to get a better B. It IS better than the TBird, but I just recently got a Sterling (import line) Stingray 5. It's a standard 34" scale, and the low B is MORE defined/allround pleasing than even the Skyline 55-02!

I am hopefully less than a week away from picking up my very first custom bass from Brian at The Low End. He even has 33" basses with crazy great low Bs! This will be a 34" scale and I'm HOPING it will be great... you never know until you play it, though. If it IS, then I'll probably sell the Lakland.

Glad you found your Killer B! (even if it's not a Tobias!)

 

[John Metta]

Are there songs that you feel would suffer if the bassist used a 4 string instead of a 5?

Just curious what the community thinks.

Farewell to Stromness

 

[Pings Bass]

any song I've learned in a recorded key that the singer wants to transpose on the fly

 

[overit]

I think of it in genres not really songs. When I played in 90s rock cover/tribute I played both in the beginning but eventually just did the Drop D 4-string as it served the music better and that's what was mostly on the original songs. When I played with the funk/r&b/gospel band I needed that 5-string Eb > low B, again looking towards alot of the player's on the original tracks, they used the 5. If I really wanted to be picky, I'd have a P-Bass on the gig too for those Motown tunes, a Jazz for the disco tunes, and a Stingray for those Louis Johnson slap riffs. Lol.

 

[John Metta]

any song I've learned in a recorded key that the singer wants to transpose on the fly

That's really where I am. While I like creating classical arrangements for bass to songs I love like Farewell to Stromness, the reality is that *any* song I play with my wife is likely to get transposed. On a four string base, I'm pushed down to second position, which is workable, but often the song suffers. Exs and Ohs was the worst offender, causing me to use an octave pedal to keep the bottom end.

 

[lat]

Just curious what the community thinks.

Stop fixating on the number of strings. Any song can be played on any bass.

Talkbass. Where Curiosity becomes Fixation.

 

[micguy]

I play in churches, where the key... is whatever fits the singer. I was keeping a bass tuned in D standard for those times where I needed a note below E, but the mental gymnastics of that were difficult. My pitch perception is close enough to perfect pitch that it's very tough for me to hear "C" and then play it somewhere besides where it normally is on the fretboard.

So, I built a 5'er - because, for me, although there was a learning curve (why do I have a middle string?), it ultimately was easier to play a 5'er some weekends than to do the mental transposition.

 

[Eilif]

I don't have specific songs in mind, but I keep running into gospel songs at church that REALLY need the low Eb or D. I pop up an octave and it works ok, but that frequently sounds forced to me and interferes with the line or doesn't have the same boom that the song requires.

 

[Bigbri]

OH. MAN.

Yea. Nothing more satisfying than a big finale where you nail that last note and shake the place up with a low B, C, D flat or D!

I had an Epi T Bird Pro V with the saddest of all B strings. Just floppy, gutless, no definition. No matter the gauge, setup, attack, point of attack (near bridge, near neck, etc) it just came out as an undefined gloopy mudrush of air. I NEVER used it properly. It was simply a string I used for gliss/slides, etc. I was essentially playing an overweight 4 string.

It wasn't until I got the Skyline 55-02 in my avatar that I finally understood the joy of belting out beefy sub-E notes. Yea, I maybe got a little TOO excited the first few times playing out... like a kid with a new toy, I was spending a little TOO much time with my new precciouuussssssss! lol I've calmed down now, but it's added so much... especially on the gospel/praise & worship stuff with a nice slow build in the intro... a nice, fat, plucked-near-the-neck low B or C is just deLICIOUS!

I have a string P at home, 'cuz Jamerson, but I hardly EVERY play it. My main 3 are all 5ers. I'm not good with chords, etc... I feel like I would be lost with a 6. Now that I finally have a nice B string, I would be lost without that, too! =D

It's got to ring like a piano string. I'm needing a 34 inch spector ns5.
Back in the 90's i used my ns2 in BEAD. Dont consider yourself any single type of player. Use everything at your disposal. That's how you get inspired.

 

[Charlzm]

Are there songs that you feel would suffer if the bassist used a 4 string instead of a 5?

Just curious what the community thinks.

Any song I wrote on a five string would suffer on a four.

 

[coyote1]

I’ve found I can successfully tune a typical 4 string’s ‘E’ string down to C# without knocking the rest of out of tune. So you can cover songs like Rock On, or virtually anything in the Black Sabbath catalogue, without a 5.... or any song that doesn’t need lower than that.

 

[Mike Sorr]

It's pretty vital to have a 5 for most modern reggae music. I own one for that reason alone, although I much prefer playing a 4.

 

[MrLenny1]

Uptown Funk
New Country is loaded with tunes using the low B.
It's a great tool to have and when you don't it's still
a four too.

 

[Thumpin6string]

I play any song on my 6. Amount of strings makes no difference. Also, a lot of tunes sound better when played an octave lower on the low B string.

 

[jmhaslip]

Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears
Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel
Run Like Hell - Pink Floyd
to name a few...

 

[Bigbri]

It's pretty vital to have a 5 for most modern reggae music. I own one for that reason alone, although I much prefer playing a 4.

What amp do you prefer for Reggae?

 

[odarellmc]

Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears
Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel
Run Like Hell - Pink Floyd
to name a few...

here's a guy that knows how to answer a question...

 

[Doug Parent]

All songs all gigs all the time. For me it's not always about the low notes but the alternate fingering options that I find indispensable.

 

[Robroy]

Are there songs that you feel would suffer if the bassist used a 4 string instead of a 5?

Just curious what the community thinks.

The only playing I do now is at church. A fiver is fairly necessary because a lot of songs use pretty much every fret below E on the B string. Sometimes I even end a song in B on the low B.

We have really good subs, though.