If five was four?

[jazzyvee]

Just picking up on a comment Mica made on a thread, where she offered the suggestion of stringing a four string bass. BEAD. Now i have had pleasing results using a maple europa 5 for reggae but not so much with my elan 4 with p-style pickups as i lose the heft on the G string when i close down the filter. I think i am going to take the plunge and try restringing it this way and hear how that sounds. Anyone here doing that already and can throw in some advice?
 I plan to try first with a set of used strings which i tend to keep from my other bass string changes for reggae use as there is less brightness to eq out. 

[edwardofhuncote]

I tried it for a while on a different bass Jazzy, then I ordered a new set of brass saddles and nut from the Mothership with ideas of converting my older Distillate to B-E-A-D tuning. I still may, but that bass is just so much fun as-is that I haven't been that motivated to mess with it. (I could have simply filed the saddle and nut slots out for larger diameter strings, but I wanted to be able to easily reset for standard pitch tuning)


Hmmm. I've got a little time now.

[jazzyvee]

My elan has chrome plated hardware so i am not inclined to file out any string slots.

[edwardofhuncote]

Ooooh. Forgot about that... haven't seen that bass in a while. Purpleish, cranberry, double-P, right?

Hmmm. Yeah, I probably wouldn't either, unless I was absolutely certain that it was going to stay that way. I mean, you wouldn't see the raw brass underneath the strings anyway, but you wouldn't be able to put it back to standard.

I did my experimental conversion on a long-scale Gibson Q-80, which I later un-did/reversed, and later loaned the bass to a bandmates' son to learn on. Which reminds me... wonder how that's going.

One other thing you could try Jazzy; (and you may hate this idea even more than I did) go up one gauge on the strings, and tune down to D-G-C-F. Sonically it might get you a desired result. It was just too weird for me from a theoretical perspective. (tied my brain in a square-knot!) Nothing was where I needed for it to be. It sounded pretty awesome though.

[jazzyvee]

Yikes that sounds dangerous, maybe I should stick to what I think I know.

[jazzyvee]

Just restrung my Elan4. BEAD. As expected,  the strings are sitting higher than normal in the nut slots but not enough to make it hard to fret. I will try it out for a few days, but without adjusting the nut and bridge slots it's not going to be easy to get a great playing experience, and I don't really want to try filing away at the chrome plating. The sound is huge though.

[StephenR]

Hey Jazzy... does it sound different than if you were playing the bottom four strings of a five-string, or just sounds bigger than the tone you usually get out of that particular bass?

[mario_farufyno]

How is the "feel", Jazzy?

[jazzyvee]

That is a good question and I'm find it a challenge to accurately describe it but here goes with a caveat that this is after one evening playing it.  Things will change as I play more and grasp what is going on.
Firstly i have strung it with used but not dead strings that have come off my series bass when it was re-strung because as i mentioned above that is generally what I put on my main reggae bass so that I don't have to eq out the brightness.
Secondly the pickup height on the lower two strings has previously been lowered in standard tuning to get a better balance with the higher two strings especially with the filter closed. (I haven't adjusted this with the new tuning so that will affect things).

So both of those things have made the sound of the Elan much warmer than I expected, less punchy and less attack on the lower strings i suppose too.
I haven't tried it out alongside my maple Europa which Is my main gigging bass but on first impression it does sound like a good way to start using that bass more on reggae gigs. I hope to try it again tomorrow in the daytime and adjust the pickup heights but the action though noticeably higher is not uncomfortable and could work in my favour if I have to dig occasionally when playing.

Initially I think it sounds quite different from just playing the bottom 4 strings on a 5 string bass but that kind of does not make sense to me why it should sound much different so I presume my ears want me to hear that.

As for any permanent mods, I don't think I want to start trying to file the slots out as if I decide this setup is a keeper then I could just order a new nut and get that cut properly and leave the bridge saddles alone. I'm most likely will have to adjust my playing to compensate for the action and play lighter so that I don't end up pulling notes out of pitch.

Less weigh to carry on stage too.

[edwardofhuncote]

Jazzy, if the B-E-A-D tuning does work out for you, (and initially this sounds very positive) you could feasibly just send your nut and bridge to the Mothership, and have them make you a set, slotted for the correct size, and bridge saddles with slots spaced correctly. I suspect they could also have these 'alternate tuning' parts chrome-plated for you when they send out a batch. That way, you could still put your Elan back to stock in just a few minutes.


I should probably hush now, before Mica has Santa put a hit on me tomorrow night! 

[BeenDown139]

i'm a long-scale guy.   bending notes up to pitch on my fretless is a trick I've used for many years.

never thought about trying it on a short scale. might be less of a wrestling match.  or i could concentrate on hitting the right notenin the first place 🙄

[jazzyvee]

I have sometimes had to bend notes to pitch on occasions but my thoughts  here is that with a high action, due to the string sitting higher than it should in the nut slots, the string could have a tendency to  pull a note slightly sharp just by the action of me fretting a note especially near to the nut. It may be a small amount but something i have experienced in the past.
 

[BeenDown139]

In a solo setting, it's not that big a deal.  It's when I'm accompanying a guitar or keyboard is when it's an issue.

I've become very pitch sensitive since i took up playing fretless and what i hear is not necessarily what someone else hears.

On the other hand, ya don't have to be too far outta pitch to make the rest of the band sound bad.  The good news is that the singer usually gets blamed.  🤪

[jazzyvee]

I have a fretless guitar (not bass),it has really low action and I used it a few times when I was touring with an Indian reggae band and that was a real challenge to get the pitch bang on but Glissando was my friend and with indian melodies it worked well. Using modulating effects and a wah pedal helped disguise some things. Unfortunately since then I haven't found the time to really grasp the full benefit of fretless playing. For bass I'm making slow progress on double bass.

[mica]

I've become very pitch sensitive since i took up playing fretless and what i hear is not necessarily what someone else hears.

Well, becoming aware that the tempered scale we've all become accustomed to doesn't have the right notes in it is a sad day - at least it was when I realized it! As primarily a pianist, I learned long ago that my instrument plays poorly in every key (but seems best in C# minor!). Really good bass players will pull up to a quarter tone from pressure alone when fretting to get around even temperament, and they probably don't even think about it!

The more I listen to stringed instruments in general, it's amazing they sound as good as they do. And the better you get at listening, the more amazing it is.

Jazzy, if the B-E-A-D tuning does work out for you, (and initially this sounds very positive) you could feasibly just send your nut and bridge to the Mothership, and have them make you a set, slotted for the correct size, and bridge saddles with slots spaced correctly. I suspect they could also have these 'alternate tuning' parts chrome-plated for you when they send out a batch. That way, you could still put your Elan back to stock in just a few minutes.

I wish it were that easy, but we really can't do a good job without the whole bass in hand. In this case, the best we could do is to supply new hardware that Vince has fitted locally. Either live with the two-tone hardware, or have the parts chrome plated, either there or sent back to us to put with another batch.