Different Bass Last Minute

[JTUK]

I'd absolutely hate it.

[Truckstop]

Pretty much my first ever gig in the universe I broke a string on my Squier P and did the rest of the gig on a borrowed Ibanez 5er. It was awful! I'd barely gotten used to playing bass in the first place let alone one with an extra string. I f***ed up, big time!

Truckstop

[Delberthot]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1238623' date='May 20 2011, 07:40 PM']I'm not keen on small nuts and find finger playing difficult with tight spacings at the bridge.[/quote]


Ooooooooooooooooooooh Matron



But seriously folks - I'm in the same boat as Doddy on this one. I've rarely owned a bass for more than a couple of months over the last few years so if you hand me a 4,5, 6, 8, 12ver, fretted, fretless, semi acoustic or electroacoustic I can't see it being a problem as long as I can get a decent sound out of it.

Edited May 21, 2011 by Delberthot

[4000]

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='1238523' date='May 20 2011, 06:23 PM']Following on from the thread about Victor Wooten having to borrow a bass at last minute, how would you cope if a similar situation happened to you?

What if your set mainly involved a 5-string and only a 4-string was available? Or you were used to a 4 and had to borrow a 5?[/quote]

I'd be knackered!

[Blademan_98]

[quote name='mcnach' post='1238605' date='May 20 2011, 07:29 PM']ah, you mean the spacers? yeah, they slow you down, don't they? [/quote]

Yep, and totally confuse me.

I would have to be precise (and in tune!).

The fretless means I can play any note and keep sliding it around until it resolves and sounds good

[jim_bass]

[quote name='Ed_S' post='1238613' date='May 20 2011, 07:33 PM']One of our guitarists often tells the tale of his old band whose bassist mistakenly borrowed a bass tuned to drop-D and only passed comment after playing the entire gig that he thought it sounded 'a bit odd' [/quote]

Similar thing happened to me. I borrowed a bass last minute and it was drop-D. I suck at tuning by ear and no one had a tuner. It was for one song and I remember trying desperately to figure out how to transpose the song as I went along, I'd not been playing for that long.

The song sounded crap!

Edit: Funny thing was, I met another bass player a few years later, got chatting and it turned out to be his bass I borrowed. He remembered it

Edited May 21, 2011 by jim_bass

[matski]

[quote name='Fat Rich' post='1238971' date='May 21 2011, 08:37 AM']Edit: Forgot to mention that headless basses confuse me too, I seem to play everything about 4 frets further up than usual, I think my brain thinks the first 4 frets must be headstock [/quote]

Those Status basses you have in your sig must be hard work then!

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='matski' post='1240030' date='May 22 2011, 09:36 AM']Those Status basses you have in your sig must be hard work then! [/quote]


They're all headed

Edited May 22, 2011 by Fat Rich

[jakenewmanbass]

I've had it happen many times when supplied with instruments overseas (or on the sea) eg I did a Cruise in April and had to use the ship double bass which was not great, but I did only have to use it for 1 45minute show (twice).

I find I'm able to learn the peculiarities of an instrument quite quickly, having decent technique and relying (as you should) on your fingers to create a large element of *your* sound helps enormously.

I'm serious when I say that buying an Alembic helped with this because they are instruments that reveal your technical inadequacies (they show up everything) at first that was a little disconcerting, after a few hours of playing it I realised it was an opportunity and I have learned through that to get more out the various instruments I find myself playing.

Best experience:
being supplied with a 30,000 euro DB at a gig in Hamburg (a truly lovely bass)
Worst experience:
A musicman stingray (in Berlin) that had action so low that any level of digging in produced choking (with no time before the gig to do a set up)

[essexbasscat]

Had some time to reflect on this one. The only basses that ever really throw me are the small body type such as the headless Steinburgers, Hohners of the same design and the small bodied Statii.
I've come to the conclusion that I rely on the top horn of a bass to give me some tactile feedback as to where the bass is (left to right) relative to my body. That facilitates my left hand placing going up and down the board. Without that top horn, I'm constantly landing on the wrong frets when not looking where I'm going

[Telebass]

I'd hate it, but reckon I would get by. But I always take my own basses everywhere, and always two, so, hopefully, this position should almost never have to rear its head.

*crosses all fingers and walks away praying*

[Lozz196]

Being a Precision man, and only ever having played a 5-string once, I`d probably be in trouble if I had to do a gig on a 5-string bass.

Any other 4-string, and I wouldn`t be too fussed, but the combination of both an extra string, and the reduced space between them - well I think my only way out of it would be to remove the low B, then business as usual.

[rOB]

[quote name='Telebass' post='1240428' date='May 22 2011, 03:49 PM']I'd hate it, but reckon I would get by. But I always take my own basses everywhere, and always two, so, hopefully, this position should almost never have to rear its head.

*crosses all fingers and walks away praying*[/quote]

+1 could get by (probably sounding a bit worse than usual) but probably wouldn't enjoy it much.

[MacDaddy]

Yep it's happened to me. The first thing is to make sure the strap length is comfortable.
Then you just get on with it

[Pete Academy]

[quote name='MacDaddy' post='1240469' date='May 22 2011, 04:31 PM']Yep it's happened to me. The first thing is to make sure the strap length is comfortable.
Then you just get on with it [/quote]

Yep, strap length is very important to me.

[Doddy]

[quote name='MacDaddy' post='1240469' date='May 22 2011, 04:31 PM']Yep it's happened to me. The first thing is to make sure the strap length is comfortable.
Then you just get on with it [/quote]

The strap length,for me,makes a bigger difference than playing a random bass.

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='Doddy' post='1240750' date='May 22 2011, 08:21 PM']The strap length,for me,makes a bigger difference than playing a random bass.[/quote]

I concur - I've ended up sitting because of this, I hate a really low/badly balanced bass, it just destroys my wrist on the lower notes!

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='Doddy' post='1240750' date='May 22 2011, 08:21 PM']The strap length,for me,makes a bigger difference than playing a random bass.[/quote]

I wear my bass fairly low on a strap but also practice sitting down with the bass higher so I don't think I'd have too much of a problem.

I've always recommended people set their strap so their bass is the same height sitting or standing but maybe there's a case for not doing that?

[WalMan]

Managed reasonably well when I bought Nik's SUB5 and took it straight to a gig. Biggest problem was the muscle memory for all the songs where I flicked the Hipshout down/up on the 4 I had been using for years prior

[lojo]

I'd be fine , if I had to use a 5 though I would most likely just use the B as a thumb rest and perhaps just start off by only using it for the odd lower 5th

[Tait]

Tbh I think I'd be ok provided it was no more than a 5 string. If it was a fretless I'd keep it simple, but I do occasionally play fretless so I'm not terrible at it. 5 strings I don't mind because I can just ignore the B string and I used to have an OLP 5 string that was my main bass for a while. But six strings confuse me - not because of the number of strings as such, more because the 4 standard strings are in the middle, with the extra's either side.

Horrible strings are my biggest problem. I think if anything was to put me off it'd be that. Or really low pickups, something like a Telebass, that annoys me.