alternative 5 strings

[jamesbass116]

right, i've been smothering this forum in my three days of being a member..
but i need some serious help on this one.

unlike my other posts.. this is something that has been bothering me for a bit and recently this has come to light.
Through word of mouth, the local high school has roped me into their musical production of hairspray, this school takes their musicals very seriously, hiring in professional parts, roping in the 'best' of the local musicians and even selling tickets on ticketmaster!
but to the point.....the bass part relies heavily on the 5th string for sections, and as i played through i realised i was struggling to play with the same fluidity i usually play with on my 4 strings and i need to obviously KEEP that when playing from a west end part haha

i'm playing a 24v and i think the problem might be the string spacing, so i was wondering if anyone had any recommendations of what to get?

i could trade my 24v but after seemingly noticing it's been discontinued i'm not that eager to trade.....for sentimental purposes, unless of course the right deal comes along!

thanks guys,

James

[OutToPlayJazz]

Hi James,

By "24v" do you mean a Fender Jazz 24 5-string? I don't know what the string spacing is like on those, but if it's anything like the standard Jazz 5 spacing, it should be amongst the widest spcing around. Most 4-stringers are 19mm and the wider spaced 5ers are usually 18mm.

Obviously, you're never going to get the same dexterity from a wider neck (I started my current pro panto run on one of my 18mm Status 5-stringers but changed over to my 4-string Status S2 instead pretty much for the same reason - That the four is so much faster to play, due to the narrower fingerboard & I have some pretty fast and involved parts to play on this particular job). So if your 5-string bass is pretty standard spacing, it's going to be a case of either coping or playing the job on a four.

Rich.

[jamesbass116]

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='697658' date='Jan 1 2010, 12:16 AM']Hi James,

By "24v" do you mean a Fender Jazz 24 5-string? I don't know what the string spacing is like on those, but if it's anything like the standard Jazz 5 spacing, it should be amongst the widest spcing around. Most 4-stringers are 19mm and the wider spaced 5ers are usually 18mm.

Obviously, you're never going to get the same dexterity from a wider neck (I started my current pro panto run on one of my 18mm Status 5-stringers but changed over to my 4-string Status S2 instead pretty much for the same reason - That the four is so much faster to play, due to the narrower fingerboard & I have some pretty fast and involved parts to play on this particular job). So if your 5-string bass is pretty standard spacing, it's going to be a case of either coping or playing the job on a four.

Rich.[/quote]

thanks for the advice rich, yeah i mean the Fender 24 5 string.
funnily enough, i can relate to you on the panto bit, i've just finished playing in the pit band for my local panto, did most of the rehearsals on the 5 but then realised that due to the string spacing issues i would've made a fair few mistakes to say the least, so i went to my 4 string.

unfortunately, the parts for the upcoming musical do use the low B, and i don't want to ruin the sound by doing the octave above so 4 string is a miss.
i'll probably have to cope with the spacing issues and get practicing so i'm used to the width!

James