Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners A Question of Crossovers

Hi,

I didn't know 5-string electric basses existed; interesting. All the ones I've seen have four strings. Kind of similar to the Bosendorfer Imperial Grand piano, which adds extra keys in the lower bass (all black, to differentiate them), the lowest of which has a fundamental around 16 Hz.

The bottom key on a conventional grand piano is at 28 Hz.

The Bosendorfer Imperial is seldom used in concert or on recordings and the extra bass keys are seldom played. I have only one recording on which the Bosendorfer's extra bass notes are used. They are impressive.

Regards,
Alan

For those who might be interested, the recording to which I referred is still in print. It's "Water Music of the Impressionists", played by Carol Rosenberger on the Bosendorfer Imperial Concert Grand. I first bought it on vinyl (!). The selections are all solo water-themed piano works by Ravel, Debussy and others. One track, "The Sunken Cathedral", uses the extra bass keys very effectively. Highly recommended on CD or vinyl.

http://www.amazon.com/Water-Music-Of-The...3606&sr=1-5

Alan

I love piano music. Here's a youtube video of one of the songs off of that album.

About 5 string bass. I remember those back when I was a teen in the 1960-70 era.

Here are some pics of my Dean Edge Improve 5. Quite a nice instrument that was one of Dean's earlier models that was handmade in Europe. It is long out of production & has escalated in price if you can find one. It is quite a heavy beast but it does sound good - occasionally, ha!

I wish that I could do it justice, but I started playing too late in life; however, I do use it on our old farts' garage band every week...







TAM

very nice

I've never had the chance to play a 5-string. I always assumed that the extra string was on top, not on bottom. That's really interesting. So, what's the story on a 6-string? One extra on bottom and one extra on top?

(You can tell I'm a product of the 70s, can't you? If God had meant for basses to have more than 4 strings...)

6 string I believe is what you describe.

The problem with adding more strings (I believe that there are some 8-strings around) is that the fretboard becomes so wide (fat?) that it becomes difficult to play unless you have mutant fingers.

Not only that, the instrument begins to look quite homely & ungainly beyond 5 strings IMHO...

TAM

Gene Simmons would be proud!

I think the 8 strings are like 12 string guitars--strings an octave apart, set up like a 4 string.