Dom in Dorset Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 (edited) "A camel is a horse that was designed by committee" With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to design a bass guitar by committee to see what monstrosity or piece of ultra bland averageness we can come up with. I'll act as chairman and put forward design elements to be considered, once an agreement has bee reached I'll publish the spec in post 1of this thread. Items already debated can be reviewed at a later date.We will also attempt to cost this project. We'll make up any other rules as we go . Item 1 on the agenda : Number of strings. I think that it should be four. Anyone else? Edited February 26, 2013 by Dom in Somerset Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andydye Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 (edited) 5 is more versatile while maintaining a reasonable neck width, with a low b you've got all the notes you need. Edited February 26, 2013 by andydye Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xgsjx Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Someone has a good Billy Sheehan quote in their sig. Something like "You should only move to 5 strings after spending a good bit of time on 4. A minimum of 20 years". I'm still on 4 string despite having played for nearer 30 years. So on that note, I'm gonna suggest 6 strings (& maybe a drone string too). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Design by committee usually only ever makes progress on the basis of consensus. On Basschat that means you could be here for years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dom in Dorset Posted February 26, 2013 Author Share Posted February 26, 2013 [quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1361872210' post='1992072'] Design by committee usually only ever makes progress on the basis of consensus. On Basschat that means you could be here for years. [/quote] We have all the time in the world. As for the strings issue, we'll make a provisional decision based on the most popular choice by midnight (GMT) tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartelby Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 5 stings, 18mm spacing... please Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LiamPodmore Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 I'll also vote 5, just because it's a nice number of strings to have. Liam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost_Bass Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 5 strings here! Not really bothered by string spacing if it's not too narow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xilddx Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 [quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1361872124' post='1992071'] [b]Someone has a good Billy Sheehan quote in their sig. Something like "You should only move to 5 strings after spending a good bit of time on 4. A minimum of 20 years".[/b] I'm still on 4 string despite having played for nearer 30 years. So on that note, I'm gonna suggest 6 strings (& maybe a drone string too). [/quote] It's a ridiculous quote really isn't it. I feel sure he doesn't stand by it. It's complete bullshit. I vote for four strings, simply because the bass will look much nicer than a five or six. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnDeereJack Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 No need for 5+ strings so I vote for 4 as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenitram Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Three strings, as a compromise --EAD, the middle three of a five-string. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bertbass Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 4 string! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary mac Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 This could take a while post 13 and we are still on the number of strings, which, by the way must be FOUR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gary mac Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Oh god we haven't even started on flats, or rounds yet. Or make of strings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Vader Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 2. You don't need those thin ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Why not make 4/5/6 versions all in the same shape/spec and we decide after what looks best? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Also type of strings doesn't matter as they can/should be changed regularly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EliasMooseblaster Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 I'm going to vote for 4, purely for selfish reasons. Well, that and once you've established a decent four-string design, most manufacturers find it easy enough to adapt it to a 5-string model. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xilddx Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 It's going to end up looking like this isn't it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EliasMooseblaster Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 [quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1361877159' post='1992183'] It's going to end up looking like this isn't it [/quote] Haha! Just because it can, doesn't mean it should! Perhaps Dom of Somerset fame would do well to pose the next question, to run in parallel. Otherwise I can see this becoming a day's worth of people yelling "4!", "No, 5!" "Some of us manage perfectly well with 4!" "What kind of neanderthal hasn't graduated to 5?" "Well I think there should be 15 LOLZ0rs" at each other. (And god knows we get enough of that whenever some innocent soul asks whether they should buy a 5-string...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigjohn Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Nowt wrong with 4 strings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Rich Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Wasn't there a thread a while ago about signing up to a guitar builder's website, submitting designs and suggestions and building the resulting design? I'm sure some Basschatters signed up for it, did they ever get built? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 [quote name='Fat Rich' timestamp='1361880439' post='1992259'] Wasn't there a thread a while ago about signing up to a guitar builder's website, submitting designs and suggestions and building the resulting design? I'm sure some Basschatters signed up for it, did they ever get built? [/quote] I think it was Johnson, so we'll never know now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dom in Dorset Posted February 26, 2013 Author Share Posted February 26, 2013 the purpose of this exorcise isn't to establish if one type of bass is better than another , it's to see what we will come up with by the process. We'll worry about what strings to use when we have a (virtual) bass to string. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Headed for starters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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