This one will probably be too short to get buried in the huge thread. Simple question.
The Guitar Fairy will gift you one acoustic guitar with a pickup. You have a choice, 7 or 10 strings?
Martin made a Roger McQuinn 7-string. The G string is doubled with one an octave higher. That would be the 7 stringer you’d get. The 10 stringer would have a single 1st and 2nd string, no unison pair.
So, what would you pick?
I can’t play guitar, so I would pick my nose. 
Okay, but 7 nose hairs or 10? 
There’s no law of nature that says you have to attach all the strings, of course.
Just like Keef usually leaves off the bottom string when doing his G tuning thing, I think.
Good lord. I’ve played with countless guitarists, and have encountered a grand total of ONE guy who makes good use of his 12-string. I’d suggest most folk make insufficient use out of the 6 strings they have.
My main instrument is upright bass. Some folk play a 5-er, but other than a low bottom string to play some orchestral music, I don’t see the need/point. I’ve got plenty of unused fingerboard up above the heel anyway, and haven’t exhausted the possiblities of the 5-strings I’ve got! Moreover, going up much higher gets me into where I’m competing with the guitar’s range…
Yet, on electric bsses, I see so many folk with 5-ers, 6s, 7s… I don’t see the point.
I can barely play a 6-string and I’m not much of an equipment aficionado, though I do love my 6-string Guild acoustic.
So maybe it’s just me, but I guess I don’t understand what’s the benefit to having just the G-string doubled in the case of the 7-string, or especially with the 10-string example, where only the 4 higher strings are doubled (if I understand the scenario correctly). What preference would there be to having the low E and A be single, and the rest doubled? Why not just go to a 12-string at that point?
Of those two, I’d go for the 7-string. It would be a gimmick and I’d probably take off the spare G string after messing around with it for a bit. Maybe the tone would be super amazing and I’d keep that string on.
Totally agree. If 4 strings were good enough for the bass greats that had the sound I like, then that’s good enough for me.
One thing I suspect would be cool on a 5 or 6 string bass would be having the various patterns easily repeatable in more positions. For non-bass-players, a 6-string bass is not tuned like a 6-string guitar: basses are (normally) tuned in 4ths all across the board, so this means that even with a 6 string the bottom one is “B” and the top one is “C” (B E A D G C) all of the riffs, runs, and patterns we memorize work everywhere on the fingerboard, unlike that unpleasantness that happens on guitars between the G and B strings.
On upright, it seems I’m encountering more folk tuning in 5ths - which I can’t really get my head around. Paul Kowert (one of my faves) tunes his to EBEA. W/ an extension he gets CBEA. Sure works for him. But I felt like a major dork when he offered me to try his bass, and I couldn’t even play a straightforward 1/4/5 pattern in G! (Basically my wheelhouse!). 
I have said, “When I exhaust the possibilities of the 4 strings I’ve got, I’ll consider getting a 5th string.” Suffice it to say that hasn’t happened yet! (Moreover, I just don’t like the feel of the wider neck needed to accompany the extra string on upright.)
I’ve been doing some work on electric bass with a modern country band over the last few years, and it turns out that quite a lot of songs in that style are in D and really need that bottom root D note.
I’ve been able to get round this by tuning my 4-string to drop-d, but it’s a bit awkward to have to keep retuning all the time. Been thinking of getting a 5-string bass, but there would be a lot of muscle-memory relearning involved, I suspect…?
Probably a hijack for this thread, but I find it curious that you’d really NEED that low D.
I play mostly bluegrass and oldtime, and much of the music is in D, G, and A. With the songs in G, my preference is to play UP from the low G on the E-string, but many MANY people prefer to play DOWN from the open high G. I’ve discussed it with many pros, and am unable to come up with any real clear answer as to why one would be preferred other than simple preference. So - in short - it is not entirely obvious to me why the low D root would be “really needed.”
I play a ton of music in D, and enjoy that because the 1/4/5 all lay out really easily on open strings, and I can easily play up and octave because the high D is tight at the heel.
quote=“Dinsdale, post:10, topic:1007508”]
Probably a hijack for this thread, but I find it curious that you’d really NEED that low D.
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A lot of arrangements from Nashville seem to feature that low D: presumably the session bass players all have 5-strings? Of course this is ‘modern country’, which has been described by our keyboard player as ‘rock with fiddles’…
Some examples:
Kerosene (Miranda Lambert)
Here for the Party (Gretchen Wilson)
Copperhead Road (Steve Earle)
True, you could get away without it, but it is sometimes rather characteristic of the song and it’s nice to have it there.
But you’re right, this sort of technical / style discussion is off the original topic and is probably better suited to the ongoing guitar thread…
In my humble opinion:
In summary, the proposed 7 and 10 strings would be over-priced firewood to me.
Eh, just go with 13 strings. I mean if this sorry hack can play them, surely anyone can .
Neither has much appeal - the 7 with the upper octave G gives you a nice sound on that one course, but you’re now stuck playing your melodic solos up and down the neck instead of across. You can get a better effect by playing Wes Mongomery style octaves on a six.
Whereas the 10 string does have the advantage of the octaves on the lower four courses, but the E and B string sound strangely thin in contrast to the other strings. I really want that shimmer of the two strings, with them being just slightly out with each other.
So I guess I’d take the 10, but I’d rather have a plain 6 and a plain 12.
Lemme see if the board will let me post a link to me talking about how I like to play my 12 string - Getting ready for my song debut at JS Presents episode #51 tomorrow, and I wanted to talk about 'Eggshelling', a right hand technique specific to the... | By Doug MacNaughton | Facebook
That’s why I have a Hipshot extender on all of my basses. You can even see a hint of one in my avatar. One flip and I have low D.
My wife is a pianist and I accompany her on bass. Like many pianists, she loves the key of Eb. This is mildly annoying for the same reason you mentioned D.
These days, like Dinsdale, I find myself just playing that root note an octave higher and not bothering with Drop D.
I’ve occasionally played with guitarists who use the half-step down-tune thing (as Stevie Ray did).
But in that case I just take the whole bass down a half step too. Makes it easier to read the chords off the guitarist’s fretboard too if it’s not very familiar material (since I play guitar as well)… you just sort of pretend you’re in standard E as far as the fingering is concerned.
Would probably drive someone with absolute pitch crazy…