Stub Mandrel

Use it or lose it... goes for free speech and Bass Shows.

Unreconstructed, me 🙂

If it's favourite, not best, then Rush. It brings a bigger smile to my face than any of the 'sophisticated' albums. 🙂 If it has to be best, 2112. Every year it was a knock-down, drag-out fight between 2112, Freebird and Stairway to Heaven in the Friday Rock Show poll.

I do (almost), at fourteen I could do with a couple more.... I even have a dedicated strap for each of my mandolins.

My very pretty Chowny Elephant strap I won at the Midlands Bass Bash is very lovely and 2" wide, like all my straps. I have actually made a 4" wide 'spreader' for one of my Fender straps and I will probably make some more. My 'perfect' strap would be a 2" wide one with a padded 'spreader' about 16-18" long that fits on it. Stiffness is possibly more important than width, a wide flexible strap still digs in to your shoulder.

I'll take a photo of my full rig when it comes back from load to Disaster Area 🙂

No, they are mid-60s 🙂 Cloverleaf are right for early/late 60s 🙂

Here's a simple experiment. Unplug your bass and pluck the a-string. Not very loud is it. Now press the headstock against the bony part of your head or even a tooth and pluck the a-string. That's at least four times louder, plenty more than 20db of attenuation. Bone conduction is very inefficient - as you might expect, otherwise we wouldn't need outer and middle ears... (Also... as you can use bone conduction to pick up sound from anywhere on your head, including your jaw, I don't see how ear defenders are going to stop it - you need your entire head in a sonically isolated bubble... ear defenders work by sealing better and attenuating more than earplugs, bone conduction has little to do with it.)

Take one 2001 Squier Jazz Bass... Add proper knobs, red tortoisehell 4-ply scratchplate, bridge cover, tug bar, oil the fretboard. Interestingly a new scratchplate for my mid-70s Maya dropped straight on. The Squier one was slightly the wrong shape and I had to plug 8 out of ten screw holes to fit a 'proper' one. Still waiting for a pickup cover. Yes I've found and fitted the missing scratchplate screw! Pretty close to a '63/'64 Jazz now. I was born in '62 so tempted to add a stacked pot control plate...

A Crucianelli branded one went recently sorry it was August 2015 not 2018!, on ebay, first time no bids, second time it went for £215, https://www.ebay.ie/itm/131570629247?ViewItem=&item=131570629247 Sorry if that's not what you want to hear...

Did you get away with a plated chain?

I would definitely not modify it - if it worked when new, it will work now. Changing it will just spoil its period appeal.

The best question to ask! I've had a Hohner B2 since the late 80s and love it for its sound and playability. Last October i was very much on the cusp of deciding to really get back into playing music again. I went into Guitar Guitar in Edinburgh and they had a Jack Custom V for £130. It was an obvious buy for me just seeing it - I would then have both the top and bottom of the range versions of the Hohner headless range. Then I tried it and found it was dead easy to play and sounded great. After agreeing to buy I discovered it came with an old hard case, strap & dunlop straplocks and even a passable lead! So it was not quite an 'impulse buy' as fate... My rationale for buying it was also that it would be a new challenge to help motivate me into recapturing my skills, such as they are. In the real world, I've found it quite intimidating, it's the one bass I haven't had the courage to take to a band practice, although there are probably 3 or 4 songs where I could throw in a few low notes. I worry about 'getting lost' but also If I was playing the sort of music I would really like to play in a band, it would be sort of space rock with noodly but not particularly harmonically complex improvisation and I think this bass would be really suited to it. I really feel it's a very different instrument to a 4-string. It changes your technique and the extra notes aren't in my mental library so I can't 'think' a line using them before I play it.

I'm probably listening to the single which only has bass in about 40% of it... " The album version features bass guitar by Guy Pratt doubled by an analogue Minimoog bass synthesizer, while the 7" version has a different bass part played by Randy Jackson. "

I want to learn how people make use of the opportunities a 5-string offers. Seems they don't go much further than using a few extra low notes. My noodling turned up some possibilities in order of reducing practicality: Those low notes are great for creating a pulse or atmosphere, much as you might use an octaver for. Using the low B string for dropping down instead of going up. You can play a typical I IV V all at the same fret if it starts on the E string - problem is it doesn't generally sound as good so use with care... Two and a half octaves is a long way for riffs that use the whole of a position on the neck, hard to come up with something that sounds 'solid' but a call and response approach works. Lots more harmonics to play with - the low B gives some lovely strong ones right up to the second fret which have a sort of 'phased' character. One can (I won't put 'I can') use it as a sort of baby Chapman Stick.

I'll take your word for it - I looked at six different tabs and they were all for a 4-string.

I'll write my own five-string bassline and put it up for you folks to dissect :-)

<Sound of 5-string bass being cut into small pieces for firewood>

I am struggling a bit... We Didn't Start the Fire doesn't seem to go below E and 95% of Like prayer doesn't have bass in it (although what there is is simple and fun).

Is it really that rare to find songs that actually use five strings, rather than just contriving a four-string song to fit? It's not very motivating to just change things I already play, or drop them down a few tones, and scales get really boring really fast...

I want to improve my 5-string playing. Can anyone suggest some songs to play along to that are (1) fairly well known (2) make genuine use of a five string (not just ordinary songs with a dropped D, for example) and (3) are reasonably easy to learn. I suppose the ideal would be a nice walking line that takes you right across the fretboard and have an accurate tab available..

I may well be interested, I'll be in Dunblane several times between late September-November.

From the comments it appears to be original. I guess people were still experimenting with what was 'right' in those days. It's a perfectly sensible material to use... for many years I had this rough and ready repair (done in teh years before cheap pickguards became available on eBay!)

Anodised pick guard in 1957!