Any opinions on 8-string basses?

Yeh the 12 string acoustic had its moments but not that practical.

I got it for $50 new back in the 70’s via a Hohner promo through my buddy Gordon Lightfoot.
Good times. Good times. :+1: :+1: :+1:

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I have a blast with mine. Add a little distortion or chorus with it they are fun. :upside_down_face:

The only song I can think of that gained popularity was Jeremy by Pearl Jam.
I’m sure there are more out there somewhere.
I used them with a band I was in for fill in and songs we wrote.

I haven’t tried the 12 string yet. :crazy_face:

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dereksmalls-470x470

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This is what I’m thinking - I got into playing bass in the first place for the fun, and these basses are way cool. Ok they are probably going to be high maintenance and I’ll probably never play them live but they’ll be great to have in my rack.

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Lol I think that was “Big bottom”?

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The cost of an 8 string set alone makes you have a commitment to it. The 10 string set has to be made up from an 8 string set and singles for the B string. Rather costly :grimacing:.

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I didn’t realize the 12 would use 2 strings tuned the same for each “standard tuned” string. I guess that makes it sound a little more full than an 8?

Actually I’ve just checked and the price doesn’t seem significantly higher than a 4 string set; however, they are harder to find and stringing / tuning could be a pain…

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Nice. As well as Doug Pinnick, Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam uses 12- and 8-string basses quite a lot. I think the song “Jeremy” was played on a 12-string bass, or at least the bass solo intro was.

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You’re right! I was reading on mobile before so it looked like a 4 string, but I couldn’t work out why that had been posted. I should have looked at the number of tuners.

That’s how they strung lutes, but I never knew how they could be played either.

I would still advise a keyboard. Every musician should have a keyboard, even if they can’t play it.

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Yeah my wife keeps saying this too… We’re thinking of getting a keyboard for Christmas - I might take up Brendan Kavanagh’s boogie woogie course :slight_smile:

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It’s so much easier to learn and understand chords and theory on a keyboard. Like 10x or more.

The tradeoff is it’s trivial to learn scales on stringed instruments but on a keyboard you need to memorize them all :slight_smile:

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Do you mean a midi keyboard that can emulate just about any instrument or one dedicated to piano, organ ie. an electric piano?

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It’s not just for learning theory as Howard mentions, but keyboards are great for ear training when practicing intervals, banging out random melodies for the fun of it, and for practicing chords. They really are a great complement to the bass, especially!

If you get advice on piano- or keyboard-centric forums they’ll usually advise an 88 keyboard, and only an 88 key keyboard. And it must have fully weighted keys.
Ignore them!

A 61 key keyboard with semi weighted, or even non-weighted, is plenty good enough for anything you will ever want to do(unless you want to become a world class concert pianist). There is really very little application for a full 88 key keyboard, not least because it’s only about 100 years old and almost all piano music only uses 5 octaves or less. Or the fact that they’re a monster compared to a 61 key one, and won’t even fit on the back seat of a car.

The one that I bought was a 61 key for about £150.

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I actually prefer 61 key and dislike piano-weighted keys (I’m an old school synth player - bass is actually a recent addition for me, in our band I was the keyboards player). So I agree completely :slight_smile:

And yes, keyboards are just better composing instruments as well, as you mention. For me anyway.

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Ive got to admit I’m a massive Kraftwerk fan but I think I’ll have to go for a simple piano style keyboard - it’ll really be for learning the basics of melody and maybe playing some simple pieces…

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That sounds like what I need :+1:. I can pick up the basics, learn some simple pieces…

All you need to get is a simple midi keyboard controller. 49 or 61 key will be fine. I would not go less than 49 though.

You can then play any number of synths or other virtual instruments with it. Some great free synths out there. Most keyboard controllers will come bundled with some instruments as well.

I’m a big fan of Arturia but they are not the cheapest. Some really good less expensive choices from Alesis, M-Audio, and others.

But since you’re a Kraftwerk fan, if you do go with Arturia, their controllers come with this:

It’s all the presets (6500 of them) from V Collection, their collection of vintage analog synth emulations. It’s fantastic.

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@Ed, here’s another 8 string option.

I think these look really good but I’ve never seen one to try it.

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Oo that’s nice… 34 " scale neck though …

$949.00

Hmm bit rich for my blood at the moment but that is one sweet looking bass :ok_hand:.

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