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Old 06-24-2007, 10:28 PM
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David Powell David Powell is offline
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Not to get off topic but one of your Black Tiger 5-ers had one of the best set-ups I have ever played. Amazing frets. I don't think Bach had a choice of one of those or certainly he would have used that instead.

Seriously, I have seen and played only three 5-string double basses. One of the biggest hurdles to playing one is finding one in the first place. In the USA, there aren't too many choices. The first one I saw, I was just too new to DB to have a clue about the bowing part of it. It was 3/4 size, same maker as my current instrument. The second one was a Christopher hybrid 7/8 size that had a very full sound and good string access. I think the string length on that one was something 42ish. If I remember, the BB was a bit sloppy or loose feeling compared to mine. It had a bit more arch in the FB than my current 5-string which sounds very similar to the Christopher, but the B is tighter, really good at stopped C and D. On the Christopher the E was easier to dig in on, so there is this trade off with the arching.

I was looking very closely at the arch of my fingerboard today and there is a slightly different radius on the bass side of the FB. It could just be a variation in the board that really was not dressed too much from the shop, or it could have been deliberate on the part of the maker. In any case, that is probably helping it out a bit in terms of string height and access.

So far I have only used the Helicore Orchs that came on mine. Experimenting with different B strings can get expensive. The current string works OK but I know something better is probably out there. I am noticing some corrosion on the B and E strings after 2 years so maybe it is time to try something new.
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