Dave Rogers' page

STRING SPACING

I always feel disappointed when I pick up a bass in a shop with more than 4 strings, and find such a wide neck. I have been told it's the fashion but maybe because of my early years, with 6 strings squeezed on to a 4 string neck, I can't trade ease of playing for fashion. I originally played guitar at school and moved to bass only because the school band needed one but even then, in the 60’s, I added 2 more strings to my bass, tuning it an octave down from a guitar. This was a standard 4 string bass so the strings were very close, but that was my school-boy beginnings. I moved back to a proper 4 string after leaving school and spent the next 35 years bassing in bands with 4 strings. The last 10 of those years the only bass I owned was a WAL fretless. Then looking for frets again I picked up a 5 string De-Armand, rather cheep at a local shop, and began using it at rehearsals, my first obstacle was where the notes were on the B string. I found that I was looking away and playing 5 semis down, that was the hardest thing I have ever found about moving up from 4 strings. But, before getting to use it at a gig I fell in love with a Warwick 6 string I found, which had been custom made around the mid 80’s for Mark Griffiths who was then playing with the Shadows. After fighting the 5 string, I found it almost played it's self and I had to buy it. I now know the reason it is so nice to play, for me, it has close string spacing, 16.75 mm at the bridge. I played nothing else at gigs for the next 3 years until I visited the Overwater factory! While they filled my wife with coffee, I was measured up for a 7 string! I was slightly disappointed with the string spacing when it arrived 6 months later, 18mm at the bridge, but I played nothing else at gigs for the next 2 years so it can't be that bad. I started picking up the WAL fretless but I don’t think I will ever go back, permanently to 4 strings, I call them pencil necks, so I approached Overwater for a “close string spaced” fretless 6. It arrived March 2007 and is played, along with the 7 at all gigs.