A very very late new bass day...and first foray into fives

[Al Krow]

48 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

I am beginning to think I might be similar. Three months on it’s ok but it’s not really life changing. 

I guess also almost all the music I would want to play, and every bassist I would want to play like, used 4 strings. 
 

hmm, stuff to ponder! 

Precious little is going to be life changing when it comes to bass gear. There will be incremental little jumps along the way that bring a smile to your face and, collectively, can make a decent difference.

I've been playing 5ers pretty much exclusively for about 18 months now and as far as I can tell there are really no real downsides to 5 strings and a couple of nice benefits, like being able to play certain songs a whole octave down compared to a 4 string and being able to get so much more scale range while not having to dance up and down the fretboard with my left hand, the corollary being easier / quicker reach. It feels a bit like having 6 valves rather than 4 under the bonnet - you don't always need it but it's great when you do.

And, besides, it's nice to have that unnecessary extra thumb rest...😉

[4000]

On 06/02/2020 at 12:44, LukeFRC said:

I couldn’t understand why no one else went for it. It was pretty battered and needed some TLC but still

I love the fact that it’s it’s had a bit of a life. Looks way better to me. 
 

I like Laklands. Really nice basses. Not keen on the DJ, but otherwise, great.

[chris_b]

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

I am beginning to think I might be similar. Three months on it’s ok but it’s not really life changing. 

I guess also almost all the music I would want to play, and every bassist I would want to play like, used 4 strings.

I play lots of songs that were originally recorded on double bass and 80% of the rest were recorded on a 4 string bass. I have never once thought, "I shouldn't be using a 5 string electric bass on this!"

IMO it doesn't matter what instrument the original song was recorded on. You're the one playing the song/tune, so play it how you want.

As Al says, there are very few "life changing" moments in bass playing, so little steps is the way of things.

My move to 5's just meant I could play everything on the same bass. I played in an originals band and all the bass lines were written for 5 string. All the covers worked on a 5 string, where quite a few wouldn't have worked on a 4 string. For me moving to  a 5 sting bass was the most positive thing I've done in 25 years.

You've got to play what feels comfortable but please don't do the "Jaco only needed 4" thing!!!

Just my 2p

[funkle]

Jaco only needed 4

😄

Kidding!!!

[Al Krow]

24 minutes ago, chris_b said:

For me moving to a 5 sting bass was the most positive thing I've done in 25 years.

Must admit when someone of Chris' experience makes a 'pearl' of a statement like that, it makes me sit up and take note!

 

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, chris_b said:

My move to 5's just meant I could play everything on the same bass. I played in an originals band and all the bass lines were written for 5 string. All the covers worked on a 5 string, where quite a few wouldn't have worked on a 4 string. For me moving to  a 5 sting bass was the most positive thing I've done in 25 years.

You've got to play what feels comfortable but please don't do the "Jaco only needed 4" thing!!!

No fear- I think if Jaco were alive today he would be out playing Thundercat on a six string bass! The whole way folk on Internet forums self justify their preferences by demening others choices is lame.  

There are some circumstances where 5's are the instrument of choice isn't there? I imagine if I were doing covers, or theatre gigs, or some whole genre I think 5 string would be the first option wouldn't it? ( Is the plural of genre, genre or genres? ) I'm super lucky to have such a great 5 string to learn on, and part of my "er is this for me" is probably feeling guilty at having a few pretty awesome basses that far surpass my skill level. I guess if I say - 'this is for me' then this 5 should be the first bass I reach for and the first bass to get played out.... but I'm still working out if it is.

 

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, 4000 said:

I love the fact that it’s it’s had a bit of a life. Looks way better to me. 
 

I like Laklands. Really nice basses. Not keen on the DJ, but otherwise, great.

It's Lakland's Classic relic series... just with a 20 year waiting list! 

[funkle]

It really makes no odds what anyone picks. 5 is as good as 4 if you like it.

I did find a downside with a 5. I never really found the B to mesh well sonically with the other 4 strings, in spite of trying many high end basses and different strings. Yes, Dingwalls as well.

The neck is definitely wider on a 5 than a 4 in virtually all cases and requires good clean technique to keep the B from ringing out sympathetic harmonics, or rumbling. I got used to this but never felt quite at home on a 5 as I did a 4, even after years of playing. 
 

Hey ho, you pay your money and takes your choices. I don’t really mind what anyone does as long as they’re happy. 

[mcnach]

2 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

I am beginning to think I might be similar. Three months on it’s ok but it’s not really life changing. 

I guess also almost all the music I would want to play, and every bassist I would want to play like, used 4 strings. 
 

hmm, stuff to ponder! 

 

Same here.

I found some 5 string basses that were really nice, especially that Lakland 55-02, I really liked that one. The thing is I never found a situation where I absolutely needed a 5 string. Yeah, occasionally I wanted the additional lower note, but it was never a deal breaker that I couldn't do without. Yeah, some songs were a lot easier to play being able to move across strings... but not impossible to play otherwise. Then I find myself not using specific basses just because they are 4-string, despite the fact that they sounded better, to me. So no... eventually I went back to 4-strings, several times.

Maybe one day I'll find a 5-string bass that I like better than anything else and that will be it, but until then I don't feel like choosing an instrument based on the number of strings.

[LukeFRC]

1 minute ago, mcnach said:

Then I find myself not using specific basses just because they are 4-string, despite the fact that they sounded better, to me.

that's probably where I'm kinda at... The Lakland 55-94 is lovely, but a slightly different type of lovely than my other basses. Though the time before last I played it live it fitted in the mix lovellllyy. It's a bit more vintage sounding than my Sadowsky, even with new strings and Sadowsky's strings being years old and pretty dead. 

[Al Krow]

22 hours ago, funkle said:

I did find a downside with a 5. I never really found the B to mesh well sonically with the other 4 strings, in spite of trying many high end basses and different strings. Yes, Dingwalls as well.

The neck is definitely wider on a 5 than a 4 in virtually all cases and requires good clean technique to keep the B from ringing out sympathetic harmonics, or rumbling. I got used to this but never felt quite at home on a 5 as I did a 4, even after years of playing. 

A couple of valid points, to which it would be fair to add that the heavier neck on a 5 is likely to lead to a slightly greater weight overall and a greater tendency to neck dive. Some manufacturers have dealt with the issue by having a flatter radius on the 5 than on their 4s (e.g. Yamaha 600mm on 1025 vs 250mm on the 1024) and a decent strap is obviously helpful on both these counts.

Be interested to understand a bit more about your "sonic mesh" issue -  was it just that the really low notes didn't feel as tight as the other 4 strings? To me e.g. a F# played on the 7th fret of the low B is pretty hard to distinguish from a F# played on the 2nd fret of the E string on my 5 string basses.

22 hours ago, mcnach said:

Maybe one day I'll find a 5-string bass that I like better than anything else and that will be it, but until then I don't feel like choosing an instrument based on the number of strings.

Fair enough. I've landed in exactly the opposite place - I won't consider buying 4 string basses these days: for me it's a case of why settle for 4 when a 5 can do more as I mentioned earlier - in terms of being able to play certain songs a whole octave down compared to a 4 string and being able to get so much more scale range while not having to dance up and down the fretboard with my left hand, the corollary being easier / quicker reach.

However, one final practical point comes to mind. I have reasonable finger span. I'm guessing that if your hands are on the smaller than average size a 4 string will be less of a stretch and simply more comfortable to play, in which case a 4 string is much more of a no brainer.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Al Krow
F# not B!

[chris_b]

IMO a small finger span doesn't cause problems, but a bad technique does.

If you look at videos of players, the good ones will always be moving their hands so as to place their fingers over the note they want to play. None of the "good" players anchor their thumb or stretch to reach notes.

[peteb]

On 03/02/2020 at 22:04, LukeFRC said:

Thought I would share my latest new bass day, it’s a bit late as I actually picked this up in late November ... but it’s taken me a while to get used to it... my first ever five string a Lakland 55-94 classic from 1999 I think in candy apple red 

you know when Facebook shows you adverts for basses and you see one that’s at a great price which get snapped up straight away... 

well then imagine it’s still there three weeks later, and in the next village from where you work... so you explain you probably aren’t interested but can you try it please... and it’s pretty well played and beat up, but it’s  as light as a four string, and the neck is just a natural feel and effortless, even with that extra string ...

... and later that week the fella comes over and money is exchanged ... new strings and knobs come from Lakland in the US (hence newer style knobs) and I practice with it and gig it once so far. Mentally harder to play 5 compared to 4 ... but fun

oh it can kinda sound like a jazz, or it can kinda sound like a musicman, or it’s own sound with both. The preamp is very very coloured, I need to test out the different mid options and the whole thing is kinda on the darker end of the spectrum... 

sounds a bit rubbish actually, till you hear it in the mix and it just *fits* perfectly 

so learning curvd having a fiver, but lots of fun! 

Just seen this. I’m guessing that you got this from my mate Jamie? He offered it to me, but unfortunately, I had just bought not one but two five strings and was already trying to sell one of them. If he had decided to move it on six weeks earlier, I would definitely have taken the Lakland instead of the one I bought, decide that it wasn’t for me and then its replacement. It’s a shame really, as I always liked that bass but glad that it’s worked out for you.

I believe that the original idea of the Lakland was to cover both the Jazz and Musicman sounds. Rather like Roger Sadowsky started building basses for his New York customers who wanted a 'Fender jazz on steroids', a lot of guys from Chicago were taking both Stingrays and Jazz basses to gigs and wanted one that could do both.   

[Lozz196]

37 minutes ago, chris_b said:

IMO a small finger span doesn't cause problems, but a bad technique does.

If you look at videos of players, the good ones will always be moving their hands so as to place their fingers over the note they want to play. None of the "good" players anchor their thumb or stretch to reach notes.

That’s a good point, Chris. I remember reading an interview with Bruce Foxton - he who plays a 57 style Precision, the ones with the wide necks - and he said he had small hands. Given the rather quick up & down riffing that The Jams work entails that would support the theory of technique being most important rather well.

[funkle]

@Al Krow

The ‘sonic mesh’ issue was the lowest notes on the B string. Can sound like sonic bombs if not played gently.
 

Fretted notes moving up the B string sounded ok to me. Apart from the normal increasing inharmonicity that affects notes on the B and E strings the higher up you go on them. 

Anyway, it’s my feelings about the lowest notes on B is not really an issue that seems to bother a lot of players. If you enjoy the 5, play the 5. Who cares what some guy on the internet says?

[LukeFRC]

1 hour ago, peteb said:

Just seen this. I’m guessing that you got this from my mate Jamie? He offered it to me, but unfortunately, I had just bought not one but two five strings and was already trying to sell one of them. If he had decided to move it on six weeks earlier, I would definitely have taken the Lakland instead of the one I bought, decide that it wasn’t for me and then its replacement. It’s a shame really, as I always liked that bass but glad that it’s worked out for you.

I believe that the original idea of the Lakland was to cover both the Jazz and Musicman sounds. Rather like Roger Sadowsky started building basses for his New York customers who wanted a 'Fender jazz on steroids', a lot of guys from Chicago were taking both Stingrays and Jazz basses to gigs and wanted one that could do both.   

Yeah, it's Jamies old one. Goodness knows it's been well played, and shame he had to sell it. 
What did you end up getting in the end?

I'm still getting my head around 5 strings, but the nice thing is that even if I end up not getting on with them I can't ever blame the bass or have that whole "well if I had just had XXX or YYY"  I made sound clips of me aiming for a Jazz, a P bass and a stingray sound from it in this thread. It can do a lot!

 

[mcnach]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 I'm guessing that if your hands are on the smaller than average size a 4 string will be less of a stretch and simply more comfortable to play, in which case a 4 string is much more of a no brainer.

 

I'm not sure that hand size is much of an issue for this. I don't have big hands, but I prefer wide fingerboards. When I started on bass, after years playing guitar, I preferred thin necks and my two favourite basses were a Jazz and an Ibanez SR300. It didn't take long to get used to it, and I started preferring chunkier necks. Especially for 5 string basses: I like to keep the inter-string spacing the same so that I can switch back and forth more easily (but I can manage on thinner necks too, I just like bigger ones more).

 

 

[mcnach]

1 hour ago, chris_b said:

IMO a small finger span doesn't cause problems, but a bad technique does.

If you look at videos of players, the good ones will always be moving their hands so as to place their fingers over the note they want to play. None of the "good" players anchor their thumb or stretch to reach notes.

 

+1

It's something I noticed very early on about guitarists that could play really fast (I grew up during the 80s guitar hero period): their fingers seemed to glide and not move that much compared to mine, who, as a beginner, was flapping my fingers all over the place.

[Al Krow]

Just now, mcnach said:

I'm not sure that hand size is much of an issue for this. I don't have big hands, but I prefer wide fingerboards. When I started on bass, after years playing guitar, I preferred thin necks and my two favourite basses were a Jazz and an Ibanez SR300. It didn't take long to get used to it, and I started preferring chunkier necks. Especially for 5 string basses: I like to keep the inter-string spacing the same so that I can switch back and forth more easily (but I can manage on thinner necks too, I just like bigger ones more).

Yeah - it does seem that hand size from what you, Chris and other folk are saying shouldn't be a limiting factor in deciding on whether to go for a 5, so it seems pretty safe to disregard that particular supposition of mine!

[peteb]

24 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

Yeah, it's Jamies old one. Goodness knows it's been well played, and shame he had to sell it. 
What did you end up getting in the end?

I'm still getting my head around 5 strings, but the nice thing is that even if I end up not getting on with them I can't ever blame the bass or have that whole "well if I had just had XXX or YYY"  I made sound clips of me aiming for a Jazz, a P bass and a stingray sound from it in this thread. It can do a lot!

 

All the gear that Jamie owns has a hard life, but will always play perfectly. I remember that he once resprayed it in a rather horrible black finish that his then missus restored back to CAR to cheer him up! That bass has done a lot of gigs, toured round Europe and met a few celebrities in its time…!

I originally got a Shuker 5 string for what I thought was a bargain, but then ended up losing quite a bit on it – note to self, handmade basses by British luthiers do not hold their value. Then I was asked to play on an album by a keys based rock band that needed a 5 string. I borrowed a SR5 for the recording (another bass that I owned for about 5 minutes and then stupidly moved on), but I was then recruited into the band and they intend to tune down a whole step live. I ended up getting a 35” scale Spector Euro that looks the part and will handle being tuned down, but the Lakland would certainly have been my first choice…! 

Like you, I'm really a four string player at heart, but some gigs just need a fiver. It's useful to have one hanging around for when you need it... 

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, funkle said:

@Al Krow

The ‘sonic mesh’ issue was the lowest notes on the B string. Can sound like sonic bombs if not played gently.

Understood, although in my experience it's been more about cutting through with these low notes and I'm finding myself increasingly using the bridge J pups on several of my basses to access the bridge harmonics and generally tighter sound for low end B string work these days. 

But I wonder, as well as choice of bass and strings, how much having a capable cab makes a difference in getting a tight and punchy low end.

[Osiris]

6 hours ago, Al Krow said:

To me e.g. a B played on the 7th fret of the low B is pretty hard to distinguish from a B played on the 2nd fret of the E string on my 5 string basses.

I think your intonation might be out. 

By a couple of meters. 

[Al Krow]

10 minutes ago, Osiris said:

I think your intonation might be out. 

Ooops, quite right, that should be F# not B - they're you go, you can't take the 4 string player out of the mindset that easily - haha! 

[LukeFRC]

5 hours ago, peteb said:

All the gear that Jamie owns has a hard life, but will always play perfectly. I remember that he once resprayed it in a rather horrible black finish that his then missus restored back to CAR to cheer him up! That bass has done a lot of gigs, toured round Europe and met a few celebrities in its time…!

Ahh good to hear so of it’s history - explains the black in some of the dings too! 
the finish is amazing it looks beautiful, it makes me want to get my jazz refinished in a colour that isn’t metallic black. 
I didn’t really intend to buy it but it had sat in Facebook unbought for about 2-3 weeks, and was in the next village to where I work (I didn’t realise Jamie wasn’t) anyway we met in a pub so I could see it... first impression... whoah that looks good, second impression picking it up and playing - woah this feels so light and natural to play... third Impression - oh a b string I had forgotten it was a 5 string!

the preamp settings are really really dependent on the sound of the whole instrument- some of them are awful

[Icunningham]

I have also played this bass many many times, I really wanted to buy this from Jamie but I live in the states and have Basses I still need to ship here. I always loved it ever since I first played it, it’s a very well played bass and Jamie is one hell of a player too!