Drop-tune machine head for low B?

[dclaassen]

I was watching an interview with Lee Sklar. He was talking about his Dingwall 5, and was showing off the B string machine head which has a drop function which, I guess, let's you go to a A or, at least, Bb.

 

I checked on line and these things for my bass would be about 100 pounds....for one. 

 

My question...does anybody that is not a metal player use one of these and, if so, under what conditions? 

 

 

[neepheid]

OK, I'll bite (and prepare myself to be schooled).

 

I thought the whole point of a 5 string was to avoid having to use bodges like a detuner/bass xtender.

 

I thought the whole point of being a famous player was to be in a position to own multiples of the same bass tuned to different tunings and a roadie/tech on hand to swap them for you.

[bartelby]

34 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

 

I thought the whole point of being a famous player was to be in a position to own multiples of the same bass tuned to different tunings and a roadie/tech on hand to swap them for you.

 

What if you're required to drop mid song?
IIRC, Billy Sheehan used that as one reason he had D-Tuner fitted.

[neepheid]

2 minutes ago, bartelby said:

 

What if you're required to drop mid song?
IIRC, Billy Sheehan used that as one reason he had D-Tuner fitted.

 

Tune to the lowest tuning you need for that song and just learn it in that tuning?

[dclaassen]

I'll go on the record to say that I doubt I would ever use this feature, but somebody must....kind of like a Scruggs tuner for banjo...:)

[Delberthot]

I play in a wedding band and there are songs that I either need to drop to the D for the whole song or drop momentarily and then back up again.

 

If you play in a wedding band then there isn't time to tune and retune between songs.

 

Plus for about 90% of what I do I don't need a 5 string bass.

 

I used to use a Hipshot double stop lever which meant that I could flip it to the first point of resistance for D then all the way down for B. I used the low B for Uptown Funk and Get Lucky.

 

It's just another tool for me to use.

 

Personally I have no need for anything with more than 4 strings, something that emulates an upright, fanned frets and so on but if it helps others to achieve what they want then that's fine by me

[prowla]

Here y'go (on 4-strings)...

 

 

 

They're handy if you need 2 more frets down.

 

The way they work is that they slightly rotate the tuner to go down a tone; the little thumbwheel fine tunes the lowered note.

 

I've bought several from BTN Music (https://www.btnmusic.co.uk/), though they are small and their stock is dictated by Hipshot's random production runs.

[neepheid]

I think people are getting confused here. The point of the thread is to ask for opinions about having the Xtender on the B string of a 5 string bass. You don't need to justify it being on the E string of a 4 string, I get it

[Woodinblack]

Well, logically by your post, Lee Sklar does, and he is not a metal player. Maybe he covers it on one of his videos.

is a detuner for a b different from one for an e as they are a lot cheaper than £100. 
 

I must admit I had a detuner on my last 4 string, and ultimately ended up seeing little point on them as manually retuning one string hardly takes more than a second so unless you are doing it in a song, which seems hard, I am not sure what it really solves, having on on a 5 string more so as I would think it would be hard to get it accurate

[dclaassen]

Enjoying the comments. I think I will keep it as is for now.

[prowla]

1 hour ago, neepheid said:

I think people are getting confused here. The point of the thread is to ask for opinions about having the Xtender on the B string of a 5 string bass. You don't need to justify it being on the E string of a 4 string, I get it

I wasn't confused, as I clarified I was showing 4-strings, but would you like me to remove my post?

[neepheid]

44 minutes ago, prowla said:

I wasn't confused, as I clarified I was showing 4-strings, but would you like me to remove my post?

 

Not at all, I don't have any place of authority to dictate to you what you post. It's not even my thread, was just trying to steer it back on course as a couple of threads were veering towards justifying the use of them on the E string of a 4 string, something that does not require justifying and misses the point of the thread. Any comments I made were specifically about the use of an Xtender on the B string of a 5er. People can do what they like, of course but I'm of the school of thought that you either augment a 4 string with an Xtender OR (that's XOR for the geeks) get a 5 string.

 

Also, I'm far too grippy to get any Xtenders. I don't find the tuning of one bass string to a certain note particularly time consuming. Often times we'll just play an Eb song in E. It's hardly going to sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks by going up half a step

 

[mcnach]

On 20/01/2022 at 15:54, neepheid said:

OK, I'll bite (and prepare myself to be schooled).

 

I thought the whole point of a 5 string was to avoid having to use bodges like a detuner/bass xtender.

 

I thought the whole point of being a famous player was to be in a position to own multiples of the same bass tuned to different tunings and a roadie/tech on hand to swap them for you.

 

Having a d-tuner is useful if you're switching back and forth between drop-D and standard. Although I admit that with a little practice you can switch pretty accurately even without a tuner. I have a couple of basses with a d-tuner and if installed and maintained (lube it sometimes, that's all really) it's smooth and accurate time after time. I was playing a lot of RATM and it was nice to just flick the lever and get there spot-on every time. Now I probably wouldn't bother (and the prices have gone up a LOT!) but it has it's reason to be.

In many cases you could play on a 5 string just fine, but on many occasions you want that open D ringing out and it's not the same if you're fretting it on a 5-string. You can get away with it but if it sounds better in drop-D why wouldn't you?

 

As an aside, to me the point of a 5 string is not so much the additional lower notes, but having a full 2-octave range across the 5 strings within a 5-fret reach. For that reason I don't see anything odd about adding a drop-D or drop-A or whatever detuner, if what you play makes you switch regularly. 

 

It's not useful for everybody, but what is?

 

[mcnach]

On 20/01/2022 at 15:31, dclaassen said:

I was watching an interview with Lee Sklar. He was talking about his Dingwall 5, and was showing off the B string machine head which has a drop function which, I guess, let's you go to a A or, at least, Bb.

 

I checked on line and these things for my bass would be about 100 pounds....for one. 

 

My question...does anybody that is not a metal player use one of these and, if so, under what conditions? 

 

 

 

I don't have experience on those units for a B string, but there was a guy on Talkbass, called himself Jauqo III-X, who used them and made a big deal of that. He had a bunch of videos too. Worth looking for his comments. I think he also used the ones with a double stop, so you can get a semitone and a tone down dialled in.

[prowla]

And then there's Michael Manring, who puts them on every string, but he doesn't seem to have the chops to use a 5-string. 🙂

[Andyjr1515]

I think there's a practicality decision as much as a desirability one.

 

Yes - I can see why you might want to drop to bottom A musically (maybe not as often as a drop D on a 4 string, but still useful in some instances). 

 

But the low B on a standard long scale 5-er already tends to flop around on, what often feels like, the very edge of buzz-free playability.  And so, unless the B string was at an unusually high action height, a low E would be even more on the edge.  It would certainly be a challenge to tune it...

[Andyjr1515]

By the way - and apols for the slight diversion... and yes, this is a drop tuner on a 4 string -  but it's not often you see or hear a drop tuner used in the middle of a number rather than between numbers. 

 

There's a couple of examples in this short piece that Matt Marriott included when he demo'd @mhoss32 's preamp prototype fitted in my Camphor single cut.  Feel free to skip this interruption to the main topic, but if anyone's interested:

https://youtu.be/CJBOxnRMdFo

 

 

 

[Owen]

Bottom B is good. Bottom A is better. I have a D tuner on all my 5 strings. I even had one on the 6 string tuned to bottom F#. So I could reach super bottom E.

[Andyjr1515]

1 hour ago, Owen said:

Bottom B is good. Bottom A is better. I have a D tuner on all my 5 strings. I even had one on the 6 string tuned to bottom F#. So I could reach super bottom E.

That's good info, @Owen