Short scale five string Stanley on Reverb

[rv_bass]

Pretty cool!


https://reverb.com/item/35852168-1996-alembic-stanley-clarke-5-string-bass-w-original-hard-shell-case?bk=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJqdGkiOiI3YTM4MDRlZC0xNjM2LTRmOTgtYWVjNS0wYmQwYWUxMzRkMDUiLCJpYXQiOjE2MDA1NTA3MzcsInVzZXJfaWQiOiIiLCJzZXNzaW9uX2lkIjoiIiwiY29va2llX2lkIjoiNDQ2N2E5NzItZWRmNS00YmQwLTg4OWMtOWNkZWY4OTNkZmY3IiwicHJvZHVjdF9pZCI6IjM1ODUyMTY4Iiwic291cmNlIjoiTk9ORSJ9.uQrnoB92ILNZ0KUL-WTaX5zmMmSY_hytPMXYFecQmmc

[BeenDown139]

i love a small body bass.  looks like it's strung EADGC.  if it were long scale, BEADG and had LEDs, it would be much cooler.  imho, of course.

[jazzyvee]

Yeah I get you. If you have ever played one, you will be aware of the characteristic neck dive they have as a 4 string, so as a long scale with 5 strings it would be a challenge to play comfortably I expect.
For a while now Alembic have stopped making that body style as a long scale bass so a long scale 5 string would be a rare find indeed.  harry, one of our members has a 5 string signature  though not sure how it's strung but it would be interesting to know how that hangs.

[BeenDown139]

i once owned a 4-string small body long scale 4-string fretless series 1 (lost it in a divorce.  i miss that bass :-(  ).  never really noticed the neck dive.  These days i only play sitting down, so balance isn't as high on my list as it used to be.

string tension would be the bigger issue with me - the fingers on my right hand like to bounce off the strings like a trampoline.  i've played a couple of short and medium scale basses and it was very hard for me to not stretch notes with my left hand.  i kinda like a bass that fights back, it seems...

[gearhed289]

I've been into high C tuning lately. This is a cool bass, but I need wider string spacing and would prefer 32''. Looks like this one sold

[jazzyvee]

string tension would be the bigger issue with me - the fingers on my right hand like to bounce off the strings like a trampoline.  i've played a couple of short and medium scale basses and it was very hard for me to not stretch notes with my left hand.  i kinda like a bass that fights back, it seems...

I'm with you there on string tension as I like the feedback. Recently I tried some Rotosound FM66 on my Series I shorty and were really light something like 30 to 90 which I found far too floppy and not enough meat in the tone. Although I'm not a super fast player I found that when playing faster phrases my plucking fingers could not consistently work out where the string was going to be for playing the next note so my phrases became untidy, also I found them out of pitch maybe from me fretting with my normal pressure pulling it sharp or moving the string slightly with my left hand whilst playing. End result they came off in under 24 hours.  Put a set of 40 - 105 and all is well in the world. I recall Ron W telling me in  conversation I had with him at an alembic meet that if you have the string tension too high the string behaves more like a bar than a string.  I understood what he said but not practically what the effect of that is on the sound.

[BeenDown139]

This may be sacrilege, but i ultimately wind up stringing all my fretted alembics with rotosound RS665s for the tension, feel and ultimately the sound.  My new bass came with factory alembic strings on it and i just couldn't bond with them no matter how hard i tried.  off they came and on went a set of fresh rotosounds and all was well with the world.  I've been playing rotosound rounds since the mid-70's and only had a couple of basses out of dozens that they didn't work well on.

The fretless gets thomastic flats.  same gauge, but a little lighter on the tension but on that bass it's a good thing because it allows me to stretch up to a note if i'm a little flat and i get a better vibrato out of my left hand.