Will the Rickenbacker 5 String Take Over?

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:47 am

Ahh, they just have an extra string that gets in the way and is not used on 99% of music except for certain heavy metal bands and some of the new pseudo-country anyway, haha!

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:55 am

actually some people adapt quickly ... for me it took work ...

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:58 am

When I had one I kept wacking the low B thinking it was the E, didn't sound very good, haha! I tune my E down to D on some stuff now and have learned how to play like that.

keb · Post by **keb** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 12:02 pm

I bought a 6-string bass (a Carvin LB76) some 11 years ago. It didn't take me long to adjust to the extra strings themselves, but the narrower spacing between strings did throw me off, I had to adjust to the feel of it.

The funny thing is, that bass was lost to an accident very recently, and I don't really miss having an extended range bass around too much. The low B string did indeed come in handy, and the high C string was useful for chording and having more notes under my fingers in one position... but absolutely necessary for my music, it's not. For my own music that I write nowadays, if I need to go below low E, I'll work in a Moog bass part (something I stole from all the old prog rockers! There's nothing quite like bass pedals opening up and shaking the room): it adds a different timbre and dimension to the music (and frees the bass guitar up to do something else.) That's just for me though; different musical situations call for different solutions, and that low B string on a 5-or-more-string bass is, in fact, a requirement for some gigs.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 12:52 pm

I like the sound of bass pedals although I don't know the brands. I bought a couple of CD's by an Argentinian by the name of Gustavo Cerati when I was in Lima and the bass pedals shake the house. I have a very good stereo system, an old Marantz with 240 WRMS each channel into double large advents with 10" woofers each side. Lots of very low notes on these albums, and they're pure notes, you need good speakers and lots of power to even reproduce them correctly.

atomic_punk · Post by **atomic_punk** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 6:54 pm

Peter, I have played almost all of Jeff's conversion basses and found them very comfortable in terms of spacing. Granted, I play with a pick and am a converted guitar player, so that might be part of it. It felt very natural to me.
I have a feeling that if Jeff goes to the Confluence, he might be making a few more of them!

heinpete · Post by **heinpete** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:08 pm

Hi Jeff,

before I decide the 4-2-5 conversion of my current 4004L I need to compare to a real 4004Cii/5 and also would like to check out some other Laredos (I prefer chrome over gold) whether the neck can be different. As I wrote in another thread, I do not believe in a constant quality or specs of the Rick company, there were just too many changes without an obvious rational. With all this variation I might hit a different neck of a 4004L or 4004Cii. The width is not the problem for me as I have big hands and fingers, but I dislike the thickness, that tires when you play through a long evening.

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 3:20 am

There were a few reasons why I started doing 4-2-5 conversions ... 1 - They discontinued the 4003s5. 2 - They were really slow introducing the 4004CII5. 3 - I like triangle inlays on a 5 string. 4 - I have small hands so I like a slim neck and tight spacing.

I did the 425 conversions mainly for me ... I have sold a few ... but I have no intentions of mass producing them ...

If you have big hands then the best bet for you is get a 4004CII5 ...

heinpete · Post by **heinpete** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 3:49 am

Your conversions are perfect from what I saw at your homepage and reading all your considerations, pro and cons. What I fear is that the 4004Cii/5 might have also such a thick neck like my new 4004L. If you look at my pic of the Squire Protone 5-string, it has a very wide neck, but it is comfortable for me as it is also very thin at the nut, about the same like my 4003. Maybe I still have to play more with the 4004L.