Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Tranauskas
Ken,
I am sorry to hear that the mighty 5er is gone for good.
Did you try playing it when it was strung with a high C?
If so, did you feel the high C was any benefit to the style of music that you play?
For me the age old saying "some is good, more is better" applies with regard to string quantity. I've had a Shen Willow previously that I played side by side with the 5er and ended up going with the 5 over the 4.
Of course my skill set ( on a scale of 1-10) is in the negative numbers.
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Well Jeff, I did play it for a bit but mostly for the buyer to listen to it from various distances to judge its tone.
I personally would not play it with a high C. By the way, all the Strings put on were older used Spiro Reds and not new strings. My point on the strings was that the Bass sounded great with Spiros and more open than I had ever heard it. Also, the tension was actually loosed than it was with either 2/3 Flex/Perm, 4/1 Flex/Perm and maybe even all 5 Flatchromes. The Reds really sounded good on the Bass and the Spiro 'edge' was gone 10 feet away from the Bass, much to my surprise.
For Jazz, that Bass sounded great with the Reds. For me now that I have been shedding some rapid Extension passages I have decided to stick with a 4/ext or just 4 as needed for orchestra playing. On the other hand, I did a Jazz duo last week in Philly with a great Pianist and used my Bisiach with Ext. The Bisiach has a Thomastic Superflexible/Ropecore Ext E/C string on it and sounds huge for Pizz or bowing but doesn't Bow as well as Flexocor. It's sound makes up for the extra effort with the Bow but I still might go back to Flex on that E/C as it's all I had handy for Jeff when he finished up the Ext job.
The High 'C; to me is more of a musical thing than a string choice. If I were doing only Jazz and playing a 5er (that Bass!), I might use Reds and a low B, just like Uncle Pauly does..
