Not sure "new" is right term: NGD 1987 Bass-5
- Thread starter shinksma
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shinksma
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So...amusing anecdote to re-animate this dead thread...
My wife, although quite interested in the 5-string aspect of this bass, never really got along with it - she's been working on improving her 4 string capabilities, and just found the idea of the 5th string too much to deal with. I understand - I was that way with 7 string guitars for decades. I now have several, along with an 8-stringer. I finally cracked the code in my brain.
Anyway...
Last night we (the entire band) went into the home studio added some tracks to a song we're working on - added and re-recorded some piano, fixed a vocal line, and added bass.
The song is in Dm, with the use of the expected G, C, F, and A notes for the bass. Nothing too complicated expected - the piano is busy enough.
Anyway, my wife (the bass player) plays 4 string bass, but has not ever felt comfortable with 5 strings. But there was a (non-PRS) five-string bass at our bandmates' house (location of their home studio where we were tracking) that was on loan from another friend (trying to sell it). I told my wife maybe she could try some 5 string for this song, because the D and C would be nicely low sounding. I showed her where the notes were on the B string, and she mucked about to get the feel of them.
We then worked through the song, which was "mostly" notated. The intro, first break, and outro were not notated, so we had to figure those out. And the notation was a bit wonky, I think because it was generated by an auto-transcription tool where you feed it the audio of the piano recording (or better yet, the MIDI out from the piano/keyboard) and it creates the treble/bass clef notation, but if your timing "swings" it confuses whether a chord falls on beat 1 of a bar or beat 4 of the previous bar. Not sure why the songwriter (one of our bandmates) didn't clean that up in the transcription, but I've noticed they aren't as OCD as I am about such stuff.
After struggling through a first pass, the songwriter and I both suggested to my wife she could switch to a 4 string bass if that was easier for her. She glared at us and said essentially "no, I've got the notes on the guitar figured out, it's the transcription that I'm trying to understand!"
Anyway, two takes later we had the bass recording down. And now my wife is going to seriously re-look at the PRS Bass-5 and muck about with it. (And maybe develop a better bassline for that song, if so inclined.)
That other 5-string isn't going to be procured by us - it's too heavy (must be 12 lbs!)and isn't as smooth as the PRS.
The PRS Bass-5 weighs in at 9.2 lbs, which is not heavy for a 5-string bass, and actually lighter than her (4-string) PRS Kingfisher, but it would be nice to find something in the 8 lb range, or even lighter.
Come on PRS, develop and release a 5-string semi-hollow short-scale bass!
My wife, although quite interested in the 5-string aspect of this bass, never really got along with it - she's been working on improving her 4 string capabilities, and just found the idea of the 5th string too much to deal with. I understand - I was that way with 7 string guitars for decades. I now have several, along with an 8-stringer. I finally cracked the code in my brain.
Anyway...
Last night we (the entire band) went into the home studio added some tracks to a song we're working on - added and re-recorded some piano, fixed a vocal line, and added bass.
The song is in Dm, with the use of the expected G, C, F, and A notes for the bass. Nothing too complicated expected - the piano is busy enough.
Anyway, my wife (the bass player) plays 4 string bass, but has not ever felt comfortable with 5 strings. But there was a (non-PRS) five-string bass at our bandmates' house (location of their home studio where we were tracking) that was on loan from another friend (trying to sell it). I told my wife maybe she could try some 5 string for this song, because the D and C would be nicely low sounding. I showed her where the notes were on the B string, and she mucked about to get the feel of them.
We then worked through the song, which was "mostly" notated. The intro, first break, and outro were not notated, so we had to figure those out. And the notation was a bit wonky, I think because it was generated by an auto-transcription tool where you feed it the audio of the piano recording (or better yet, the MIDI out from the piano/keyboard) and it creates the treble/bass clef notation, but if your timing "swings" it confuses whether a chord falls on beat 1 of a bar or beat 4 of the previous bar. Not sure why the songwriter (one of our bandmates) didn't clean that up in the transcription, but I've noticed they aren't as OCD as I am about such stuff.
After struggling through a first pass, the songwriter and I both suggested to my wife she could switch to a 4 string bass if that was easier for her. She glared at us and said essentially "no, I've got the notes on the guitar figured out, it's the transcription that I'm trying to understand!"
Anyway, two takes later we had the bass recording down. And now my wife is going to seriously re-look at the PRS Bass-5 and muck about with it. (And maybe develop a better bassline for that song, if so inclined.)
That other 5-string isn't going to be procured by us - it's too heavy (must be 12 lbs!)and isn't as smooth as the PRS.
The PRS Bass-5 weighs in at 9.2 lbs, which is not heavy for a 5-string bass, and actually lighter than her (4-string) PRS Kingfisher, but it would be nice to find something in the 8 lb range, or even lighter.
Come on PRS, develop and release a 5-string semi-hollow short-scale bass!
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