dclaassen Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 I was watching an interview with Lee Sklar. He was talking about his Dingwall 5, and was showing off the B string machine head which has a drop function which, I guess, let's you go to a A or, at least, Bb. I checked on line and these things for my bass would be about 100 pounds....for one. My question...does anybody that is not a metal player use one of these and, if so, under what conditions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 OK, I'll bite (and prepare myself to be schooled). I thought the whole point of a 5 string was to avoid having to use bodges like a detuner/bass xtender. I thought the whole point of being a famous player was to be in a position to own multiples of the same bass tuned to different tunings and a roadie/tech on hand to swap them for you. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartelby Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 34 minutes ago, neepheid said: I thought the whole point of being a famous player was to be in a position to own multiples of the same bass tuned to different tunings and a roadie/tech on hand to swap them for you. What if you're required to drop mid song? IIRC, Billy Sheehan used that as one reason he had D-Tuner fitted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 2 minutes ago, bartelby said: What if you're required to drop mid song? IIRC, Billy Sheehan used that as one reason he had D-Tuner fitted. Tune to the lowest tuning you need for that song and just learn it in that tuning? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dclaassen Posted January 21, 2022 Author Share Posted January 21, 2022 I'll go on the record to say that I doubt I would ever use this feature, but somebody must....kind of like a Scruggs tuner for banjo...:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delberthot Posted January 23, 2022 Share Posted January 23, 2022 I play in a wedding band and there are songs that I either need to drop to the D for the whole song or drop momentarily and then back up again. If you play in a wedding band then there isn't time to tune and retune between songs. Plus for about 90% of what I do I don't need a 5 string bass. I used to use a Hipshot double stop lever which meant that I could flip it to the first point of resistance for D then all the way down for B. I used the low B for Uptown Funk and Get Lucky. It's just another tool for me to use. Personally I have no need for anything with more than 4 strings, something that emulates an upright, fanned frets and so on but if it helps others to achieve what they want then that's fine by me 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prowla Posted January 23, 2022 Share Posted January 23, 2022 Here y'go (on 4-strings)... They're handy if you need 2 more frets down. The way they work is that they slightly rotate the tuner to go down a tone; the little thumbwheel fine tunes the lowered note. I've bought several from BTN Music (https://www.btnmusic.co.uk/), though they are small and their stock is dictated by Hipshot's random production runs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted January 23, 2022 Share Posted January 23, 2022 I think people are getting confused here. The point of the thread is to ask for opinions about having the Xtender on the B string of a 5 string bass. You don't need to justify it being on the E string of a 4 string, I get it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodinblack Posted January 23, 2022 Share Posted January 23, 2022 Well, logically by your post, Lee Sklar does, and he is not a metal player. Maybe he covers it on one of his videos. is a detuner for a b different from one for an e as they are a lot cheaper than £100. I must admit I had a detuner on my last 4 string, and ultimately ended up seeing little point on them as manually retuning one string hardly takes more than a second so unless you are doing it in a song, which seems hard, I am not sure what it really solves, having on on a 5 string more so as I would think it would be hard to get it accurate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dclaassen Posted January 23, 2022 Author Share Posted January 23, 2022 Enjoying the comments. I think I will keep it as is for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prowla Posted January 23, 2022 Share Posted January 23, 2022 1 hour ago, neepheid said: I think people are getting confused here. The point of the thread is to ask for opinions about having the Xtender on the B string of a 5 string bass. You don't need to justify it being on the E string of a 4 string, I get it I wasn't confused, as I clarified I was showing 4-strings, but would you like me to remove my post? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted January 23, 2022 Share Posted January 23, 2022 44 minutes ago, prowla said: I wasn't confused, as I clarified I was showing 4-strings, but would you like me to remove my post? Not at all, I don't have any place of authority to dictate to you what you post. It's not even my thread, was just trying to steer it back on course as a couple of threads were veering towards justifying the use of them on the E string of a 4 string, something that does not require justifying and misses the point of the thread. Any comments I made were specifically about the use of an Xtender on the B string of a 5er. People can do what they like, of course but I'm of the school of thought that you either augment a 4 string with an Xtender OR (that's XOR for the geeks) get a 5 string. Also, I'm far too grippy to get any Xtenders. I don't find the tuning of one bass string to a certain note particularly time consuming. Often times we'll just play an Eb song in E. It's hardly going to sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks by going up half a step Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcnach Posted January 23, 2022 Share Posted January 23, 2022 On 20/01/2022 at 15:54, neepheid said: OK, I'll bite (and prepare myself to be schooled). I thought the whole point of a 5 string was to avoid having to use bodges like a detuner/bass xtender. I thought the whole point of being a famous player was to be in a position to own multiples of the same bass tuned to different tunings and a roadie/tech on hand to swap them for you. Having a d-tuner is useful if you're switching back and forth between drop-D and standard. Although I admit that with a little practice you can switch pretty accurately even without a tuner. I have a couple of basses with a d-tuner and if installed and maintained (lube it sometimes, that's all really) it's smooth and accurate time after time. I was playing a lot of RATM and it was nice to just flick the lever and get there spot-on every time. Now I probably wouldn't bother (and the prices have gone up a LOT!) but it has it's reason to be. In many cases you could play on a 5 string just fine, but on many occasions you want that open D ringing out and it's not the same if you're fretting it on a 5-string. You can get away with it but if it sounds better in drop-D why wouldn't you? As an aside, to me the point of a 5 string is not so much the additional lower notes, but having a full 2-octave range across the 5 strings within a 5-fret reach. For that reason I don't see anything odd about adding a drop-D or drop-A or whatever detuner, if what you play makes you switch regularly. It's not useful for everybody, but what is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcnach Posted January 23, 2022 Share Posted January 23, 2022 On 20/01/2022 at 15:31, dclaassen said: I was watching an interview with Lee Sklar. He was talking about his Dingwall 5, and was showing off the B string machine head which has a drop function which, I guess, let's you go to a A or, at least, Bb. I checked on line and these things for my bass would be about 100 pounds....for one. My question...does anybody that is not a metal player use one of these and, if so, under what conditions? I don't have experience on those units for a B string, but there was a guy on Talkbass, called himself Jauqo III-X, who used them and made a big deal of that. He had a bunch of videos too. Worth looking for his comments. I think he also used the ones with a double stop, so you can get a semitone and a tone down dialled in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prowla Posted January 23, 2022 Share Posted January 23, 2022 And then there's Michael Manring, who puts them on every string, but he doesn't seem to have the chops to use a 5-string. 🙂 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 24, 2022 Share Posted January 24, 2022 I think there's a practicality decision as much as a desirability one. Yes - I can see why you might want to drop to bottom A musically (maybe not as often as a drop D on a 4 string, but still useful in some instances). But the low B on a standard long scale 5-er already tends to flop around on, what often feels like, the very edge of buzz-free playability. And so, unless the B string was at an unusually high action height, a low E would be even more on the edge. It would certainly be a challenge to tune it... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 24, 2022 Share Posted January 24, 2022 By the way - and apols for the slight diversion... and yes, this is a drop tuner on a 4 string - but it's not often you see or hear a drop tuner used in the middle of a number rather than between numbers. There's a couple of examples in this short piece that Matt Marriott included when he demo'd @mhoss32 's preamp prototype fitted in my Camphor single cut. Feel free to skip this interruption to the main topic, but if anyone's interested: https://youtu.be/CJBOxnRMdFo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen Posted January 24, 2022 Share Posted January 24, 2022 Bottom B is good. Bottom A is better. I have a D tuner on all my 5 strings. I even had one on the 6 string tuned to bottom F#. So I could reach super bottom E. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 24, 2022 Share Posted January 24, 2022 1 hour ago, Owen said: Bottom B is good. Bottom A is better. I have a D tuner on all my 5 strings. I even had one on the 6 string tuned to bottom F#. So I could reach super bottom E. That's good info, @Owen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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