Lets design a bass by committee

[Dom in Dorset]

"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

[andydye]

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

[xgsjx]

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).

[Kiwi]

Design by committee usually only ever makes progress on the basis of consensus. On Basschat that means you could be here for years.

[Dom in Dorset]

[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.

[bartelby]

5 stings, 18mm spacing... please

[LiamPodmore]

I'll also vote 5, just because it's a nice number of strings to have.

Liam

[Ghost_Bass]

5 strings here! Not really bothered by string spacing if it's not too narow.

[xilddx]

[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.

[johnDeereJack]

No need for 5+ strings so I vote for 4 as well

[Zenitram]

Three strings, as a compromise --EAD, the middle three of a five-string.

[bertbass]

4 string!

[gary mac]

This could take a while post 13 and we are still on the number of strings, which, by the way must be FOUR.

[gary mac]

Oh god we haven't even started on flats, or rounds yet. Or make of strings.

[Dave Vader]

2. You don't need those thin ones.

[charic]

Why not make 4/5/6 versions all in the same shape/spec and we decide after what looks best?

[charic]

Also type of strings doesn't matter as they can/should be changed regularly

[EliasMooseblaster]

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.

[xilddx]

It's going to end up looking like this isn't it

[EliasMooseblaster]

[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...)

[bigjohn]

Nowt wrong with 4 strings.

[Fat Rich]

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?

[BigRedX]

[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...

[Dom in Dorset]

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.

[EBS_freak]

Headed for starters.