My new old DIY bass synthesizer

[bea]

Some of You might remember this instrument - the older little sister of my Sharkfin bass.




It had been tuned in 5ths from F-e, but the low register was a bit sloppy with its thin E-string (0.080" Daddario Chrome). But what should i do with a set of used Ernie Ball 2837 strings - 0.090-0.022" made for long scale baritone guitars and a tuning of E-e? Well on a normal guitar these strings should be good for at least G-g, a third higher than a bass guitar, just judging from the difference in scale length. Stormy Monday has a Gibson type scale length, btw.
In order to mount the strings i had to do the usual things: widen up the holes in the tuners of the A and E strings, widen up all the nut slots and modify the bridge.



Shorter screws, shortened springs or no springs at all ... even the lowes string can be adjusted correctly.


Nice warm tone of a deep guitar, not bass-alike as the Flatwounds on my Bass VI. But really useful, especially in combination with the low impedance main pickup (tele neck, rewound with just 500 windings).


And the best: these strings do not sound sloppy when i tune them E-e !!!

 

[bea]

With these strings, or maybe even better the low 6 strings of a certain 9-String set from Ernie Ball, many guitars can be converted to Bass VI-alike intruments with little effort. I would expect difficulties from guitars with TOM-bridges, but Fender style bridges and wraparound bridges should work (with slight adaptions to the string thickness).

 

[LiveeviL2000]

Really like the body shape on those things. Awesome. Also havent seen you post much as of late Bea.