J
Jouni
New member
someone is selling a "vintage" bass. Anyone seen or played these?
http://muusikoiden.net/dyn/tori/126480.jpg

http://muusikoiden.net/dyn/tori/126480.jpg
Joey is a friend of mine. If anyone remember "Defender" off of "Fighting the World", the whole first part of that song (before the guitar comes in) is an 8-string bass. It does have a unique sound.ScreamingHead69 said:The dude from Manowar plays the piano parts from Heart of Steal on an 8-string live. I don't know if there's anymore Manowar fans around here but trust me, it's cool!
heroics321 said:I love 8-string basses... very interesting beasts. Check out Jeremy by Peal Jam, the strange bell-sounding harmonics are from an 8-string.
Bryan R. Tyler said:Harder to play chords, harder to tap melodies if you're used to tuning in 4ths, and a lot less natural harmonics than a bass with more strings will give you (a lot of the players I know who use basses like this make great use of the exteneded amount of harmonics).
mshilarious said:C'mon a REAL bass has a 42-44" scale length. I ain't gonna hear no sissies complaining about chords on a 34"![]()
Also a six-string tuned in fifths would be CGDAEB, eight string in fourths, BEADGBEA (I presume, never played such a beast). Doesn't seem to have more variety in harmonics. Each string has the tonic, a fifth, a third, and a minor seventh. By my reckoning, that yields all twelve tones with a six string in fifths. Now if you tune the eight string in straight fourths rather than following the guitar's tuning from G-B, then you would have all the notes too, otherwise you'd be missing Bb.
Bass tapping . . . don't know what to say there, but nobody wakes up one morning "used to" tapping on an eight-string bass. Presumably they had to decide to buy the beast in the first place, and then practice . . .
Bryan R. Tyler said:As for the harmonics I mean the variety of natural harmonic octaves.
It's actually very natural to tap on an extended range bass (I've owned a couple seven-strings) when it's tuned in fourths. You'd tap it the same way you'd tap any other bass.
low F# for its lowest string, but it may be a low C#- I'll ask Yves sometime.
I had posted a web page on here last year that had about 100 different tunings for everything from 4-12 string basses. It had every configuration from 12 straight strings to doubled 6 to a 4 with 2 subs. The page recommended tuning the subs slightly flat to the main and one flat to the other to give it a true sound.Farview said:The low string is an F#. Most of them don't tune from G to B like a guitar, they go F# B E A D G C F Bb
mshilarious said:I was also referring to natural harmonics.
I would never tap on a bass, or a guitar for that matter. The '80s were a long time ago.
F# below the normal low E string is 23Hz, C# below that is 17Hz. Getting kinda silly there, it would sound poor unless the scale length was considerably longer.
Bryan R. Tyler said:This has been discussed at length before on other forums I visit. Basically, the human ear is technically not supposed to hear the fundamental at this level. Many still can though, and most can still hear the lowest harmonic content of it. There's an album out by Jauqo III-X Reality called "The Low C# Theory" where he uses the low C# string at length on his sub-contra four-string. It's a bit too low for my liking, but many people dig the sub-bass stuff. Having good speakers is a must though just to hear it. The scale length is actually purportedly fine at 34" because there is so much tension in the string (I think a low C# is generally a .195) that it counteracts a lot of the flop you'd get from tuning so low.