Drop B on a 4-string

[joeystrange]

Mrs. Strange has just been asked to join a new band after a few years of not playing. The new band plays in drop B.

 

Given that she only has 4-string basses, has anyone tuned B F# B E on a 4-string, and what strings would you recommend?

 

Ta

[BigRedX]

Is she going to be expected to play lots of riffs which need to follow the guitars only an octave down and incorporate lots of open string notes in order to be playable?

 

If not start by getting the 5-string version of her preferred 4-string set and ignore the G string. Tune BEAD and take it from there. IME if you don't need to follow the guitar parts exactly then use a different tuning to the guitars tends to lead to more interesting and inventive bass lines.

[fretmeister]

8 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Is she going to be expected to play lots of riffs which need to follow the guitars only an octave down and incorporate lots of open string notes in order to be playable?

 

If not start by getting the 5-string version of her preferred 4-string set and ignore the G string. Tune BEAD and take it from there. IME if you don't need to follow the guitar parts exactly then use a different tuning to the guitars tends to lead to more interesting and inventive bass lines.

This only works if all parties know what note they are playing and they don’t continue to use the note names from standard tuning.

 

The amount of times I’ve had to put up with that…. 😤

[doomed]

That was our standard tuning, I always used the Fender 5 string .130 taperwound set and left out the .110

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, fretmeister said:

This only works if all parties know what note they are playing and they don’t continue to use the note names from standard tuning.

 

The amount of times I’ve had to put up with that…. 😤

 

Why would you do that?

 

Plus if you're writing your own bass lines then surely you work them out by ear?

[joeystrange]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Is she going to be expected to play lots of riffs which need to follow the guitars only an octave down and incorporate lots of open string notes in order to be playable?

 

If not start by getting the 5-string version of her preferred 4-string set and ignore the G string. Tune BEAD and take it from there. IME if you don't need to follow the guitar parts exactly then use a different tuning to the guitars tends to lead to more interesting and inventive bass lines.

I’m actually not sure. The band already exists but as a 2-piece who want to add a bass player. So I think she’ll be able to write her own lines but will also follow the guitar in parts.

 

I’ll suggest BEAD to her but she almost always plays in drop-D so B F# B E will make more sense to her. Thanks for the suggestion though, I will definitely pass it on.