[hellyea]

right, so im one of the myriad of guitar players whos now picking up bass. More out desperation than love . Im making my own tracks and they are all lacking bass, so i thought id DIY it! Who knows, maybe i can convince a friend to use this bass live too...

I figured id go 2nd hand, seen as i dont really care what kind of state the thing is in as its primarily for recording, so it can be ugly as hell.

Thing is, and heres my main Question- I tune to drop C. so that everything a whole tone lower, then the thickest string a wholetone lower again.

Now is it worth getting a 5 string or a 4 and down tuning? i think a 5 would be awkward as alot of what i play is open string riffing. so having to fret the 1st fret of the B string constantly, while playing higher up might be ....well, youd probably have to be bill sheenan with these kind of riffs!

So, i guess what im asking (apart from your general opinions ) is what kind of gauge would i have to go down to to equal out the tension?

for instance for guitar i play 9-42 in standard (E) tuning. for drop C i would go up to 11-54. The tensions are relatively similar by that point. Could someone point me in the direction for strings for Drop C on a bass?

And if im playing rock/metal, what should i be looking out for on Ebay?? im willing to spend about £200... what will that get me?

[AcousticSmash]

You won't get much that doesn't sound muddy in the lower tuning for that price. Even in standard tuning you would probably want to drop about 500 or so and see if you can get a Spector bass or something, I have tried a few of their bass's and was impressed with the quality for the price. If it were me, I would rather just get a Warmoth body and neck and buy the parts individually, you get a better quality product in the end, however you would have to wait a bit to get it put together when you can afford parts cause the neck and body alone would cost you about 200 or so. I play a Squier Jazz bass that sounds really muddy on the low end in standard tuning, dropping it lower would sound even worse. I suppose you could put active pickups in for the clarity improvement on a cheap bass, but otherwise you are not going to get a great tone.

This post has been edited by AcousticSmash: 25 September 2008 - 08:14 PM

[junior01]

Drop C!!! Then stay away of 5 stringers. On the low end models the B string tend to be muddy on standard tuning, in drop D it sound awful, i don't even wanna think what it would sound like in drop C.

As for the gauge of he string i would reccomend the higher you could get wich is probably .110 for the E string.

But as a side note, have you considered keeping the bass in standard tuning and just play the note that way? Even if it means fretting most of them? It would probably involved a bit more work on the bass but i do believe that the end result will sound much better that way.

If you want a real deep sound there is always octave pedals...

[ravaging]

i typically play with a .105 or .110 E string, if you're going for drop C, i'd recommend something like .120 or .125, the B string on my 6 string bass is .125 and it plays quite cleanly, although i would like a .130, but it wasn't a cheap bass. and be ready to drop more money on one set of strings for a 5 string bass than you would for 3 or 4 sets of guitar strings, they're ridiculously expensive. get a 4 stringer, a 5 stringer at that price will sound like a load of poop. look at some schecter basses, they're great basses for the money and if you can find one used you'll be golden.