Guitar is my main instrument but I picked up a short-scale bass recently from a friend: decided it would be better to have proper bass on my recordings, rather than pitch-shifting my guitar.
Some of the stuff I do is in lower tunings, usually drop C. Rather than tuning the bass down I was thinking about getting a five string... but then I thought 'why not just tune the short-scale like the bottom four strings of a five?'
So two questions really: has anyone got any experience of tuning a short-scale to BEAD? And if so, what string gauge would you recommend? Due to the lower string tension I'm guessing fairly heavy...
My recordings are far from hi-fi btw, so I'm not looking for full-size bass recommendations or reasons why I'm the worst kind of person
Too much gain... is just about enough \m/
I'm probably the only member of this forum mentioned by name in Whiskey in the Jar
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Maybe go a gauge up from there.
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That still leaves the business of widening the nut slots, adjusting the intonation (assuming that the bridge saddles have sufficient travel away from the nut) and hoping that the neck wood and truss rod can take the strain.
My experience of five and six string bass guitars is that even the regular 34" scale length tends to result in insufficient tension on the lowest string.
On a short scale instrument, even with huge strings, my chief concern would be the accuracy of the intonation up and down the fret positions.
I know. That is why this post ends here.
If you are recording a song demo, laying down both guitar and bass parts, it will be usually be quicker and easier to do this with a four string bass guitar in the same tuning as the guitar.
One compromise that might work for you is a four string bass, tuned DGCF and with a Hipshot D-Tuner device on the low string.