Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Smith
As far as Tuning Peg placement goes, the reverse placement idea came from the French, back in the 19th century. The New Standards from Arnold and Wil come with reverse gears as well and have so for as long as I have known those basses. Many early-mid 20th century German basses from both Meyer and Pollmann have reverse tuners as well as 2 on the bass side of the 5ers.
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Actually, Ken, I think the G-low placement is a holdover from converted 3 stringers. Most of them had the two upper strings on the treble side of the pegbox, and the single string on the bass side. Then, when converting to 4 strings, many luthiers just filled the peg hole on the low side and drilled two holes there. That leaves the G string peg as the lowest in the pegbox. I've seen this on several converted basses. Most makers of 4 string basses keep the E string as the lowest, and conversions done early on often used plates, which were oriented that way as well.