5-string basses with tiny/vintage-height frets?

i mean if youre only dropping your low string 1/2 a step or a whole step, maybe just keep to a 4. its all personal preference i guess but ive never like 5 strings myself and i dont get when you hear people say like you need a 5 string if you need to play a low d on a song. maybe swap the e string for a 110 if you want to drop it a little more it should hold tension okish down to a c or so

i mean if youre only dropping your low string 1/2 a step or a whole step, maybe just keep to a 4. its all personal preference i guess but ive never like 5 strings myself and i dont get when you hear people say like you need a 5 string if you need to play a low d on a song. maybe swap the e string for a 110 if you want to drop it a little more it should hold tension okish down to a c or so

I've considered that. I mean, if I just got a second 4-string, I could keep the other tuned down... and that ultimately might be the path I take. Thanks for the 110 size recommendation for low E.

Maybe part of me just wants the extra challenge of grappling with an extra string, lol.

One thing that I hear over and over is "I play the 5 string live, but I only use 4 strings when I record". The extra wood and width of a 5 string rarely seems to translate into a tone that people like better than the 4 string equivalent. Maybe we're just so accustom to the acoustics/sound of a 4 string neck and body that the tonal changes a 5 string neck and body introduce just never sound "right"... or maybe it's more complicated than that... maybe it's the onboard preamp most 5-strings ship with that keep them off of recordings? IDK. I might have find out for myself. :)

i cant comment about the extra wood of a 5 effecting tone or anything, i know theres people like lee sklar who are of the opinion of "if theres one sing i need to play in the set ill do it all on a 5". with the string gauge, 110 is my preference but really its all different for how people play so definetely experiment if you go on the path of down tuning a 4 string ive ended up with 55 to 110 sets because im constanly being told things are in different tunings by guitar players and its playable both in e standard down to uhhhh you could probably just about get away with a low b but itd be pretty floppy. if you were to tune bead it would make sense to use the gauges of a 5 string set but you may find the thick string feels odd for me about a year or so i had to tune to b standard for a while and went through 65 to 130, 60 to 125 and ended up using a weird hybird of things from different sets i think i ended up with a 120 from a pyramid drop c set, 95 or 100 or somethuing then 55 and 75. with bass strings being so expensive dont count out asking on forums for peoples old strings in the uk basschat is great i dont know where youre at though.

as a final thing just remember talking about it online is no subsititute to actually trying a bass in person, definitely go and try a few 5 stringers if you can it might you might find something thats right up your alley you didnt think about!

an example of finding something you like that you didnt consider is music mans for me, i always did (and still do) think theyre ugly as can be but i tried one in andertons a while back and it felt amazing, even sounded great too i think the guy working there plugged me into some kindof gallien krueger. im still to vein (and poor) to consider getting one though...

as a final thing just remember talking about it online is no subsititute to actually trying a bass in person, definitely go and try a few 5 stringers if you can it might you might find something thats right up your alley you didnt think about!

I'm in Southern California. I will hit up a few shops and try as much as I can before pulling the trigger, always do... but if I wanted to try something like a Lakland in person, for example, I have to go to a specific out-of-the-way place that is an actual Lakland dealer -- they're not gonna have any new 5-string Laklands in stock at GC or SamAsh on Sunset... so I wanna make sure I'm not overlooking some interesting boutique brand that makes a 5 string with small frets w/o having to do a custom order.

That's a lot to unpack. What made you decide to take up the bass at this stage of your life?

That's a lot to unpack. What made you decide to take up the bass at this stage of your life?

They won't let me have a full drum kit here at the nursing home, so I had to switch to something smaller.

Your sarcastic evasion doesn't answer the question. I know why I can play the bass fluidly and it's 100% necessity. Most of the great bassists I know fell into it from keyboard or guitar. They've got no regrets but bass guitar chose them, not the other way. Taling up bass by choice seems weird to me.

Remember that episode of south park where Cartman needs a bassist for his christian rock band and Token doesn't even know he has a bass but can immediately play it?

i mean if youre only dropping your low string 1/2 a step or a whole step, maybe just keep to a 4.

Keys are relative. No one is obligated to play a song in the key in which it was written l.

Your sarcastic evasion doesn't answer the question.

We're close to the same age, you and I, but the way you phrased your original question made it sound like you were talking to your grandpa. We're not dead yet, Jim. Barely half-way there. :)

Anyway:

• I needed to borrow a bass to make a bass sample library.

• Why I needed to make my own sample set and not just use Scarbee is a long story.

• A buddy offered to loan me a good bass, but there were some logistical delays, and I decided to just acquire a bass at a price I could easily re-sell it at when I was done.

• I ended up getting way into playing bass in the process, as I had made that switch from guitar to bass sometime around college and had made at least 1 or 2 failed attempts to get more serious about bass since then.

• Something I've always struggled with, musically, is timing perception. My piano teacher was always on my case because I took liberties with note values, and my drum teacher was on me because I "played everything like it was a hip hop beat". In both cases, I couldn't perform things as straight and metrically-perfect as they wanted me to... I couldn't dial in to the difference between what I played and what they wanted. Playing bass now, as an adult with at least half his life left to go, is finally getting me dialed-in on that front.

• Every morning, before the day starts, I sit down with my bass, and I re-record 16-bars or so of some great 70s multitrack recording with an enviable bass part. And then I listen back, evaluate, and repeat until my playing has a groove and cleanliness I can live with, at least for the morning -- and through doing this, I am finally starting to hear when and where I unintentionally get a bit ahead of the beat or when I'm unintentionally letting an 8th note go too long or too short. I'm in no danger of getting hired by Donald Fagen or Quincy Jones, but it's a start.

We're close to the same age, you and I, but the way you phrased your original question made it sound like you were talking to your grandpa. We're not dead yet, Jim. Barely half-way there. :)

I got that, but yeah... if I implied you were old its because I feel old. To be clear, it's pretty admirable deciding to learn something new once you're officially 'middle aged.' I find my brain is much slower on the uptake now. I'm still fine with memorization but things like muscle memory or just understanding new concepts requires a little more effort even since my mid 30s... which has made me pretty complacent.

Anyway:

• I needed to borrow a bass to make a bass sample library.

• Why I needed to make my own sample set and not just use Scarbee is a long story.

So it doesn't matter. We've all have sample libraries we could easily have bought. At least all respectable music people have. Some people ask "why make what I could buy? Why buy samples I could pirate? Why not sound just like the last record I heard?"

• A buddy offered to loan me a good bass, but there were some logistical delays, and I decided to just acquire a bass at a price I could easily re-sell it at when I was done.

That's usually a good solution over borrowing. Almost anything you need to sample can be bought and sold on, often for a small profit. Weirder stuff you can rent if you're in California... and you are.

• I ended up getting way into playing bass in the process, as I had made that switch from guitar to bass sometime around college and had made at least 1 or 2 failed attempts to get more serious about bass since then.

So it's NOT your 1st rodeo!

• Something I've always struggled with, musically, is timing perception. My piano teacher was always on my case because I took liberties with note values, and my drum teacher was on me because I "played everything like it was a hip hop beat". In both cases, I couldn't perform things as straight and metrically-perfect as they wanted me to... I couldn't dial in to the difference between what I played and what they wanted. Playing bass now, as an adult with at least half his life left to go, is finally getting me dialed-in on that front.

No one made you sleep with a metronome under your pillow? I think my jazz band instructor was more hardcore than I knew. He acted like it wss normal for teenagers to sleep to a 120bpm click.

• Every morning, before the day starts, I sit down with my bass, and I re-record 16-bars or so of some great 70s multitrack recording with an enviable bass part. And then I listen back, evaluate, and repeat until my playing has a groove and cleanliness I can live with, at least for the morning -- and through doing this, I am finally starting to hear when and where I unintentionally get a bit ahead of the beat or when I'm unintentionally letting an 8th note go too long or too short. I'm in no danger of getting hired by Donald Fagen or Quincy Jones, but it's a start.

Dude, that's a really admirable work ethic and clever method. I wish more singers would perfect their phrasing the way you've come up with. Even when singing their own tunes, it drives me nuts when people sustain notes far past any musically relevant division. Once in awhile? That's a style thing. If you never rest or change notes on beat it really sucks the life out of the melody.

Cool idea to perfect your timing by rerecording lines you know. I should be doing what you're doing on piano. I'm a total slob anymore because no one's sitting over my shoulder groaning.

I got that, but yeah... if I implied you were old its because I feel old.

Dude, we're old. Happens to everyone, eventually. But when I'm 75, I don't want to look back on this phase of my life and feel like I threw in the towel too early. You're making changes, growing, and taking on new things, or you might as well be dead. I saw a YT vid the other day with Steve Albini, and he said that, at age 55 (time of the recording), nothing in his work excites him or brings him ecstatic joy anymore, and he more or less accepts this as a natural part of being 55. Acceptance is good, but I'm not ready to stop being excited by new things... at least not yet.

To be clear, it's pretty admirable deciding to learn something new once you're officially 'middle aged.' I find my brain is much slower on the >uptake now. I'm still fine with memorization but things like muscle memory or just understanding new concepts requires a little more effort >even since my mid 30s... which has made me pretty complacent.

Use it or lose it.

So it's NOT your 1st rodeo!

I knew absolutely nothing of music theory in the previous rodeos, and never came close to the point where I could credibly jam with others. I was abysmal. My last attempt was ordering a bass from Zzounds in like 2002, the bass arrived with a huge chunk of wood gouged out of it, and I decided to take that as a sign to just ask for a refund and stick with piano.

No one made you sleep with a metronome under your pillow? I think my jazz band instructor was more hardcore than I knew. He acted like it wss normal for teenagers to sleep to a 120bpm click.

That sounds amazing! We didn't have much of a music program at my tiny rural high school. There was only one other person in the whole school who even owned a guitar, and they were 2 or 3 grades behind me, and lived 15 country miles away. Not as big a deal today, with Youtube and the internet, but this was back when the internet was an exotic tool for "electronic mail" and checking weather forecasts that only a handful of people in the county had access to. I could have made some real progress if I had access to today's YT.

Dude, that's a really admirable work ethic and clever method. I wish more singers would perfect their phrasing the way you've come up with. Even when singing their own tunes, it drives me nuts when people sustain notes far past any musically relevant division. Once in awhile? That's a style thing. If you never rest or change notes on beat it really sucks the life out of the melody.

Cool idea to perfect your timing by rerecording lines you know. I should be doing what you're doing on piano. I'm a total slob anymore because no one's sitting over my shoulder groaning.

It has made a world of difference for me. I can understand not wanting a first-year grade-school student to be A/Bing their performance to something a professional session player banged out, but once you're able to handle that level of self-scrutiny, modern DAWs and the ubiquity of leaked multitrack masters make it so effortless. I stick to the 70s stuff for bass, mostly, because that's the era of recording a passive 4-string dry into the console or through a mic'd B15... nothing fancy to distract me. I know that what I record at home through my interface should sound like a slightly brighter, more sterilized/clinical version of exactly what's on the record. If it doesn't gel with the rest of the tracks, I can only blame my fingers, not my plugins.

I saw a YT vid the other day with Steve Albini, and he said that, at age 55 (time of the recording), nothing in his work excites him or brings him ecstatic joy anymore, and he more or less accepts this as a natural part of being 55. Acceptance is good, but I'm not ready to stop being excited by new things... at least not yet.

I saw that same video and could kinda relate. I find it harder and harder to share in other people's excitement and optimism when working on records. Even when I really l like the music. I can come off as a negative Nelly but I've done this so many times that your ultra creative idea isn't new to me and just brings up memories of wasted time 15 years ago... I totally get what Steve's on about. It doesn't stop me from enjoying music I'm working on and it definitely hasn't lessened the dopamine hit I get when I turn a knob and hear something I like, eleven if the surprise and excitement are over. That's why i jam with friends most Fridays. For excitement. It's not always good... or even music in the most traditional sense, but at least the thrill is there.

Use it or lose it.

Woof

No one made you sleep with a metronome under your pillow? I think my jazz band instructor was more hardcore than I knew. He acted like it wss normal for teenagers to sleep to a 120bpm click.

That sounds amazing! We didn't have much of a music program at my tiny rural high school. There was only one other person in the whole school who even owned a guitar, and they were 2 or 3 grades behind me, and lived 15 country miles away. Not as big a deal today, with Youtube and the internet, but this was back when the internet was an exotic tool for "electronic mail" and checking weather forecasts that only a handful of people in the county had access to. I could have made some real progress if I had access to today's YT.

Amazing... thise guys were out and out cruel to children... but we all improved a lot, so yeah it was amazing in a way. Ubiquitous musical information, its just a normal way to learn now. And to think that we remember when getting an dumbass animated gif in an email was mind blowing. Although I've noticed that with all this info out there, this generation of kids seems to be constantly pushing ahead rather than mastering a particular skill perfectly. I remember learning new tricks and just practicing them incessantly l because I either had to figure it out on my own or someone more experienced passed it on to me... and those moments of discovery were few and far between. It's way harder to jump ahead on like a Joe Pass guitar method book than it us to flip through YouTube videos.

Dude, that's a really admirable work ethic and clever method. I wish more singers would perfect their phrasing the way you've come up with. Even when singing their own tunes, it drives me nuts when people sustain notes far past any musically relevant division. Once in awhile? That's a style thing. If you never rest or change notes on beat it really sucks the life out of the melody. A YouTube video doesn't know when you're ready to move on. There's stuff I was being told as a teenager that didn't fully sink in for years. Like "oh... I'm voice leading instinctively, that's what Dan was trying to tell me to do. So that's what that term means. I get it now. Damn."

It has made a world of difference for me. I can understand not wanting a first-year grade-school student to be A/Bing their performance to something a professional session player banged out, but once you're able to handle that level of self-scrutiny, modern DAWs and the ubiquity of leaked multitrack masters make it so effortless. I stick to the 70s stuff for bass, mostly, because that's the era of recording a passive 4-string dry into the console or through a mic'd B15... nothing fancy to distract me. I know that what I record at home through my interface should sound like a slightly brighter, more sterilized/clinical version of exactly what's on the record. If it doesn't gel with the rest of the tracks, I can blame my fingers, not my plugins.

I'm stealing that approach. My keyboard chops are sorely lacking. I know I've played better.

As for 5 string basses, now I get why you're seeking one. With this method you're required to play in the key as written. If I'm practicing a song with a part I really like just for educational purposes and it requires me to retune I'll just as often transpose it, which is always a good mental exercise... it is nice to be able to return a synth with a knob or button, isn't it?

I saw that same video and could kinda relate. I find it harder and harder to share in other people's excitement and optimism when working on records. Even when I really l like the music. I can come off as a negative Nelly but I've done this so many times that your ultra creative idea isn't new to me and just brings up memories of wasted time 15 years ago... I totally get what Steve's on about. It doesn't stop me from enjoying music I'm working on and it definitely hasn't lessened the dopamine hit I get when I turn a knob and hear something I like, eleven if the surprise and excitement are over. That's why i jam with friends most Fridays. For excitement. It's not always good... or even music in the most traditional sense, but at least the thrill is there.

How much of this is fatigue from doing the same thing so many decades, and how much is perhaps a general decline in sonic innovation in music over the past 20 years?

Although I've noticed that with all this info out there, this generation of kids seems to be constantly pushing ahead rather than mastering a particular skill perfectly.

The world of the 2020s seems to reward generalists who push ahead, rather than absolutely mastery. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. People of our generation, especially dudes, seem to place a premium on mastery... and I'm no different... but how beneficial that focus is, I'm not sure anymore.

It's way harder to jump ahead on like a Joe Pass guitar method book than it us to flip through YouTube videos.

Better to jump around and keep momentum, than be stuck with a book that isn't working and plod through... Joe Pass is a master, but his methods won't resonate with absolutely everyone... but I do hear what you're saying. I don't feel like the world is hurting for young virtuoso musicians, despite all the ADHD challenges, but my perspective could be warped.

I'm stealing that approach. My keyboard chops are sorely lacking. I know I've played better.

Let me know how it goes.

At some point I have to put the bass down and get back into piano using this new approach. I know so many damn chords via the piano roll, but my fingers only really know the most basic root-position voicings.

As for 5 string basses, now I get why you're seeking one. With this method you're required to play in the key as written. If I'm practicing a song with a part I really like just for educational purposes and it requires me to retune I'll just as often transpose it, which is always a good mental exercise... it is nice to be able to return a synth with a knob or button, isn't it?

I can always pitch the whole thing up in a DAW, and I've done that... not as fun or satisfying as playing it in the original key, but it's doable. The 5 string thing is really just me looking to try something new with this requested 2nd bass, rather than just getting 2 basses that are more or less the same. I have no opinion on 5 string basses. If I give one a shot, then I'll at least know how I feel about them, good or bad.

Sticking to 70s stuff as I've been, the songs I've come across with notes below E1 are 100% the result of players tuning down a 4 string, as 5 strings barely existed then. Furthest I've come across so far is Chaka Kahn's Clouds... Anthony Jackson tuned his 4 string all the way down to C for that one.

I'm not sure which would be more challenging for me: switching back and forth between 4 and 5 string, or switching between a 4 string tuned to E-A-D-G and one tuned to C-F-Bb-Eb.

reading that last thing i wonder what itd be like for me to switch from c standard to e... i shall investigate!

i think ill need light gauge strings if i set up a bass in standard but it didnt feel like too massive a change really, but obviously results will differ for different people

So you normally tune C F Bb Eb on a 4 string with really heavy strings to prevent them flopping around? I've gotten away with drop D or D standard because I usually use pretty heavy flats.. I think I tried C# for someone's tune in E that pretty much wanted to be C#m, but it was kinda funky like when you wake up too early and accidentally try to out on your wife's slippers.

I saw that same video and could kinda relate. I find it harder and harder to share in other people's excitement and optimism when working on records...

How much of this is fatigue from doing the same thing so many decades, and how much is perhaps a general decline in sonic innovation in music over the past 20 years?

Its more like 10+years with a break for 5 or so and then the last maybe 8 part time. Maybe it's the people I wind up dealing with. Everyone says they're reinventing the wheel but attention to detail, a far more important day to day aspect of recording than creativity, is pretty much neglected since anything can be "fixed in the mix." Maybe those kinda attitudes are why there's a decline in creativity. I dunno. It's still fun to play with compressorsand EQs. Pink floyd didn't make dark side by neglecting the basics... they did the screwdriver work before busting out the tape loops.

The world of the 2020s seems to reward generalists who push ahead, rather than absolutely mastery. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. People of our generation, especially dudes, seem to place a premium on mastery... and I'm no different... but how beneficial that focus is, I'm not sure anymore.

Maybe some of it is that there was no outlet for our amateur efforts, by the time you were able to get a serious show or get your single on local radio in the 90s you had paid some dues and been forced to hone your skills through grinding repetition just to be afforded the opportunity to reach an audience wider than your highschool or college student body. Now there's youtube.

I'm stealing that approach. My keyboard chops are sorely lacking. I know I've played better.

Let me know how it goes.

At some point I have to put the bass down and get back into piano using this new approach. I know so many damn chords via the piano roll, but my fingers only really know the most basic root-position voicings.

As for 5 string basses, now I get why you're seeking one. With this method you're required to play in the key as written. If I'm practicing a song with a part I really like just for educational purposes and it requires me to retune I'll just as often transpose it, which is always a good mental exercise... it is nice to be able to return a synth with a knob or button, isn't it?

I can always pitch the whole thing up in a DAW, and I've done that... not as fun or satisfying as playing it in the original key, but it's doable.

That always sounds off, something about the harmonic content when pitch shifting. It's amazing how good they've gotten those algorithms but there are still artifacts that would set my ears off and distract me from playing.

Furthest I've come across so far is Chaka Kahn's Clouds... Anthony Jackson tuned his 4 string all the way down to C for that one.

I love Chaka... I really like those Rufus albums. I kinda backed into her first band from her solo work and got my mind blown. Musicianship used to be so high.

I'm not sure which would be more challenging for me: switching back and forth between 4 and 5 string, or switching between a 4 string tuned to E-A-D-G and one tuned to C-F-Bb-Eb.

5 string is weirder. Try one and you'll see what I mean. It's super cool, but using the 2nd string as your "right hand home" takes constant attention uf you're mainly playing 4 strings. Down tuning us way less weird, same number of strings with the same 4ths. Maybe its just me though. I have to be really mindful when I play 5 strings.

yes, but i dont use massively heavy strings i think the ones on my precision are 55 to 110? theyre pretty old but they do have a little bit of flop, ive developed a bit of a lighter touch if im on a clean sound and i pluck the string too hard it can sound a bit farty... less of an issue with distortion

i spoke to gary mader who plays bass in eyehategod and asked what gauge he used because they tune to c and it was 55 to 110 so ive just rolled with it