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A very very late new bass day...and first foray into fives


LukeFRC

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The four string came out of the case this morning for the first time since February when I bought the five. (I'm going up to the midlands bass bash so I thought I had better check it was still working)
Things I noted in ascending order of importance: 
The 4 is much lighter than the 5; the Rotosounds, which I didn't like when I put them on at Christmas, I now really like the sound of and  might put them on the 5 when I next change those strings;  I need to check the action on the 5, as I've been clanking the frets recently, but I didn't at all on the 4. And finally - I have no idea how to play any open strings any more, so if you want something in a key lower than G then I'm stuffed! 😄  

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  • 1 month later...

It's nice to be playing a bit more. 
Both the 4 and 5 string have been taken out. I can play either interchangeably now, which is nice. Feels like I've achieved something over the Covid period. I mean I'm equally bad on each now. 
I've kinda come to the conclusion that I'm at heart a 4 string player, the upsides and downsides are about even, but there's something fun about a 4 that I like.
It will be interesting, I have two basses at the moment and normally own 3-4. One build on order and keeping eyes open for something else too... it will be interesting to see where my 5 string will end up on the pecking order. It's a nice sounding thing despite it being a 5 string. At the moment though the Sadowsky metro gets all the playing time... as it has since I got it!

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Do you find you're using higher positions on the 5? 

 

I can do it if I think it out but still drift back to 1st position on the top 4 strings a lot.  On the other hand, found some useful 4 string fingerings I only found through playing the the 5.

 

Must say, the 5 string feels cumbersome after the 4s... but sure it will be worth having if I ever master it. 

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I’ve decided to move my 5-string Precision on, and accept once & for all that I’m a 4-string Precision player, and that that doesn’t make me inferior. The fiver is a great bass but it’s just not “me”, even though I enjoy playing it I rarely use the low B, and if I do it’s only for a D which I can get with the Hipshot Extender on my fours.

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On 04/04/2020 at 16:08, LukeFRC said:

I am beginning to think I might be similar. Three months on it’s ok but it’s not really life changing. 

I guess also almost all the music I would want to play, and every bassist I would want to play like, used 4 strings. 
 

hmm, stuff to ponder! 

A couple of songs in my bands set require a B string but they aren't impossible to play on a 4 string (I just have to play some notes an octave up).

 

The problem is that our singer tends to change the key of the song, to make it easier for her to sing.

 

My 5 string is a G&L L2500 tribute, which sounds great, but I have 10 other 4 strings and I don't  want them sitting at home gathering dust.

 

Ahhh....first world problems eh?

Edited by gjones
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12 hours ago, NickA said:

I can do it if I think it out but still drift back to 1st position on the top 4 strings a lot.  On the other hand, found some useful 4 string fingerings I only found through playing the the 5.

Other way round for me. I tend to start higher up, and sometimes find it easier to go back down for some songs after struggling to reach the right speed - Echo Beach and Back On The Chain Gang being a couple of recent examples. I don't think I would like to lose the flexibility of the five-string but sometimes the four-string fingering works better.

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1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

I’ve decided to move my 5-string Precision on, and accept once & for all that I’m a 4-string Precision player, and that that doesn’t make me inferior. The fiver is a great bass but it’s just not “me”, even though I enjoy playing it I rarely use the low B, and if I do it’s only for a D which I can get with the Hipshot Extender on my fours.

I think I'm the same... except I've got the the point where I was using the B a fair bit. 
My main bass has got a d-tuner and embaresingly I have found it easier to work out 5 string than the D-tuner that I always forget and end up playing something a tone lower than I intended too!

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I think that’s the thing with 5 string basses. We can fall back to the ‘1st’ position or we can play up the neck with roots off the B strings or further up the neck we have the fifth below etc. It’s great for the key changes where rhe band goes up and we can play lower - a thing I’ve stolen form modern country and big pop ballads. It can be very economical with a low b or it can be the thing that kinda sits there and occasionally gets a bit of action. I’m actually tempted to nab another 5er having not played one in a few years. A new 80’s project has piqued my interest although none of the songs actually need a low b! We’re a fickle bunch I suppose! 
 

Before I got the 5 string I used to play  some of our bands original material in drop D and kept getting confused as sometimes I did and other times I didn’t. The b string took care of that. A b string can be great for adding weight to parts especially like I mentioned above wher erhe band goes up the neck and the bass can go down the neck. 

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Low D! Back before it was made illegal I used to play slap in a funk band, the guitarist for some reason wrote some tunes in D requiring a D slap pedal note.  Used to down tune ( then forget to up tune ).  Slapping D on a 5 just doesn't sound the same.  Sometimes fewer strings works better.  But I'm keeping the 5.

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1 hour ago, NickA said:

Low D! Back before it was made illegal I used to play slap in a funk band, the guitarist for some reason wrote some tunes in D requiring a D slap pedal note.  Used to down tune ( then forget to up tune ).  Slapping D on a 5 just doesn't sound the same.  Sometimes fewer strings works better.  But I'm keeping the 5.


I’d totally agree that playing many of the classic grunge tunes I grew up listening to the joy of ripping through them on a 4 string in drop d always beats playing them on a 5

Edited by krispn
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