christhammer666 Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 Hey guys I'm in a doom band and we tune drop c so strings are c,g,c,f We play a lot of notes up by the 10th and 12th frets. When I use a five I tune the b up to c and the rest is in standard My question is,to my ears the c sounds better on an e string tuned standard on the 8th fret rather then detuned to c on the 12th. It's the same over the neck really Is this because the notes sound better with strings that have more tension ie more clarity Thoughts ? Sorry to ramble Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CamdenRob Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 (edited) You have a several choices as to where to play the same note It's a great feature of our instrument... I use different fretboard positions depending on what tone I'm going for. For example I might play an open A in riffy bass intro to a rock tune and I might play the A as the 10th fret of the B string in a soft blues tune. It's good to have the choice of timbre, use what you think sounds good Also when I used to play metal with guitars tuned to drop C i'd play a five string tuned C,F,A#,D#,G#.. never found the need to drop tune on bass really, it threw all my scale patterns out... Edited April 1, 2015 by CamdenRob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassBus Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 When you play C at 8th you have a longer string than you have playing at 12th. That gives you a greater length for the string to vibrate which equals a different tone. This is why I use a high C string on fivers. A G played at 7th on C string to my ear sounds clearer than that same note played on G string at 12th. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EliasMooseblaster Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 Correct me if I'm wrong - not owning a 5-string and all - but weren't the 35" (and longer) scale lengths introduced as a way of putting extra tension into the B-string to make it vibrate properly? If so, you might be thinking along the right lines! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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