Would you rather have a 4, 5, or 6 string bass, and why?

[TonyP-]

I play 5 exclusively live...I use the extended range all the time even higher up the neck.

I will record with some of my 4 string Jazz basses that I love.

 

[somegeezer]

5 fits perfectly in my hand. I'd probably be fine with a 6, and I have a 4 that doesn't get a whole lot of love. But definitely I've been taken by the 5s. Also a big fan of the low B, whilst still having all the other "regular" strings. It comes in very handy. I'd probably make less use of a high C.

 

[pcake]

4.

except for the very first time i played bass, i started off playing an extra long scale, extra wide neck 5 string. it was fine, but the first time i played a 4 string, it just felt right.

 

[Medicine Man]

Darkwing duck only needed 4 strings.

 

[cnltb]

I like the feel of a 4 string but do need a 5 once in a while.
I have never missed a high C string and don't think I'd need a 6.

 

[bearfoot]

I have several 4's, and one 6.

If I had to choose, I'd take my 4-string.

Yes, I use all 6-strings on the 6'er. It is a very cool instrument. But for all my main playing, the 4-string is "home". Also, because I use a pedalboard on occasion, octave up/down fixes most concerns about the limited range.

Only problem with the 4-string is, it uses the 20-fret design, and while octave FX are useful, I would prefer just a few more frets at the top.

 

[J-Mags]

I've played guitar for 37 years. As soon as I started playing bass in earnest last year, I loved the paucity of strings. I love whacking on the E string while I sing, and picking out countermelodies on the 4 strings. Do I sometimes wish I could more easily go a little lower? Yup. But I ain't adding strings. The limitations are part of the pleasure. Plus I can still play guitar if I want to play a lot of strings.

 

[micguy]

In 30 years of playing, noone ever told me there was anything wrong with my playing on a 4. When I want to play lower, I have a 4 that I tune lower - usually D standard. 4

 

[stingray78]

I love the 4-String, but almost exclusively play 5-String basses these days. I play a lot of R&B, and approximately 25% of the tunes I play require a low B string. Most of the bands I am in don't give me enough time to switch basses on stage and certainly won't rearrange the set list to minimize instrument changes. As a result, a 5-String is all I bring anymore.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

Most of the time, I’d be happy with a four string and an octave pedal. If I have fewer string to mute, I feel more connected to the music. I play perfectly fine with a five string and it’s not like the end result is better or worse on a four than a five, but my enjoyment is higher on a four. It’s probably because I learned on a four and played for ten or twelve years before getting a five. So my brain is wired in four string land and has learned to be fluent as a fiver, but as a second language.

 

[jamro217]

Four, 'cause I'm a cheap Scotsman who can't justify paying for extra strings!

 

[twinjet]

I was just pondering this question, I know the reason most people choose one or the other, but why specifically do you choose one over the other?
What drew you to one? or what made you switch to another?
Me personally I have one 4 string and one 5 string, so I can have the best of both worlds.
I liked the 6 string, but it was not comfortable at all for me.
I like the idea of having 7, or 12 strings, but nothing I would use as my main performer.

I've owned four, five and six-string basses across my 12.5 years of playing and decided to come back to four for the classic aesthetic, ease of playing and focus on the "basics". The "less is more" concept has really shined through since coming back and it's all I've played these past three years.

 

[ThinCrappyTone]

if i could only have one, it would be a five, so all the basses (badump-pisht!) were covered

 

[Stevorebob]

Really, a "how many strings" poll without a "lets kick this dead horse a few more times" option?
Shameful.

Well, OP just joined Friday, so he gets a pass this time.

 

[akrachanko]

"I love 4 strings! It's the way a bass was meant to be!"
[Band plays Superstition in Eb]
"I love my 5 string! Thanks Stevie!"

 

[whero]

I learned bass on a 4 string as, when I learned, that's all there was (queue Grandpa Simpson-like ramble) and I then played 4s exclusively for almost 20 years.

In the mid 1990s, I was in a position to buy a new bass and thought I'd get a 5er, as a lot of music I was listening to at the time used that low B string. I sold my last 4 and bought a 5 and played nothing but 5s since.

Until just this year, when I was lured by the physical beauty of a Fender Aerodyne Jazz bass, and had a bit of spare cash, so bought one. After playing a 4 again for a few weeks I realised, with some embarrasment, that I was never as good technically (or "techniquely"?) on a 5 as I am on a 4.

There could be many reasons for this. Perhaps it's an inadequacy in my playing style. Perhaps the neck profile or width of the 5s I bought didn't really suit me. Perhaps there's some extra technique or trick to playing a 5 that I don't know, so never did. All I know for sure is that my playing is better (faster, more accurate) now than it has been at any time in the past 25 years.

[EDIT] Can TB admin.s update the poll feature so that you can't post one unless it has a "carrots" option?

 

[Flitske71]

I started playing bass on a 4 string, but when I tried a 5 string for the first time ( I bought a cheap Harley Benton fretless just to see how hard it could be to play fretless bass, so I decided to go for a 5 string so I had also an idea what it would be to play a 5 string) I liked the 5 string so much that since then I mainly exlusively play 5 string. I like the 5 string because I don’t need to go up and down the neck as much as with a 4 string. The low B gives a lot more flexibility for playing.

 

[Biggbass]

4
because that's all it takes

 

[FugaziBomb]

I learned on a 4, Played 5 & 6...
I have 7 Basses. 6 are 4's one is a 5

Is this a riddle?

 

[Misfit Wookiee]

Like most, I started out on the 4 and that was all there was for a good long time. Ended up taking quite a musical hiatus after my last band imploded (from '95 to '12 or so) and joined up with a couple guys to make a power trio. Guitarist/vocalist played a baritone Les Paul, so I tuned B-E-A-D. Ended up playing his P instead of my Epi because the Epi just didn't cut it, looked into getting a new bass with tax refund. Decided to try a 5, thinking that I could play in Ed's key when I played in the trio but I could play along with my favorite CDs and write in standard tuning if I had a 5. My wife and I went over to our closest big-box music store (and she reminded me the whole time that we were only looking, we weren't buying) and I set to testing whether my hands could handle five strings. Turns out they could, and they especially enjoyed the feel of the Yamaha TRBX-505. When the return returned, I got a 305 (I wanted a red bass and the 305 had the red finish I wanted along with built-in thumbrests on hotter pickups) and haven't really felt like there was a huge adjustment period in transitioning from 4 to 5.

That being said, I have a project P-clone 4 that I'm looking forward to slinging with flats and installing the Steve Harris SPB-4 and rocking out to Piece Of Mind...