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 Post subject: Using Lead Guitars as Bass Guitars:
PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2023 5:43 pm 
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I asked about guitars last year and since both the SP-555 and the SP-404MKII have proper HI-Z Guitar Input, I'm looking at those DIY guitar kits again.

I was wondering though, is it really necessary to have two guitars as in one for lead and one for bass? I was looking at the various types of bass guitar out there and since there's bass guitars with six strings and a lead guitar has six strings as well, couldn't I just put fatter strings on a lead guitar and tune it so that the strings are slacker?

To be honest I'm getting frustrated about not being able to play my own basslines and I can't help but notice that a lot of you are adding your own bass and that it always seems to improve the beat. So although I can't play the guitar, I think I could probably pull-off sounding as if I can play one by practicing short phrases and then playing them over and over until I sample something good enough to truncate into a sample, and build-up my basslines that way.

Sorry for lack of correct terminology but as you've probably guessed I'm not a guitarist. I can't really justify having two guitars when I can't even play the bloody things so I'm just trying to see what I can get away with by using a lead guitar for fat sounding bass tones.

Even guitar strings vary greatly in price and I'm wondering if some would result in a much fatter tone than others, and again, whether putting those fatter strings on a lead guitar would work if I were to tune them slacker.


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 Post subject: Re: Using Lead Guitars as Bass Guitars:
PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:41 pm 
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By the way, it's not out of the question I could buy two guitars as long as I buy the DIY kits, but in that case I have a related question regards the two guitar kits I'm interested in:

Lead Guitar Kit:
https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-B ... r-Kit/3RRX

Bass Guitar Kit:
https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-B ... t-Pro/3RRZ

Please pay specific attention to the bass guitar and that it's classed as a 'Jazz Bass', and then listen to this video so that I can point out to you what type of tone I'm after.

By far my favourite of these is the 'Sadowsky Guitars Satin Series Deluxe' that comes in at around 4:02 on the timeline. So if you have time please listen to the whole video and notice how that one sounds in comparison to the others because that's the sort of thick, soft tone I'm after.

Bass Comparison Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ7TiZMEll0

And here's the thing, it's a 'Jazz Bass' just like the kit is a Jazz Bass, but it's a five string whereas the kit is a four string. So what I need to know is, if I did go for the two guitar approach and buy those two kits, is it acceptable practice to put the strings of that five string on that four string guitar so that it gives the same sort of lows?

Is that accepted practice or is there some reason I shouldn't do that?


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 Post subject: Re: Using Lead Guitars as Bass Guitars:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 05, 2023 11:21 am 
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Well thanks for the advice homies, much appreciated :lol:

When the forums go quiet there's only one thing left for it and that is to do some serious diggin', so I have. Not sure I'm fully understanding it, but as far as I can tell it is (thankfully) perfectly acceptable to do what I'm wanting to do. It appears to be called 'Drop Tuning' in general but in the case of specifically wanting a '4-String Bass' I think what I'm wanting is called 'BEAD' which is referring to the names of four heavy-gauge strings used on a 'Drop Tuned' 4-String Bass.

I even read a few times now that learning a 4-String is better than learning a 5-String because on a 4-String you're forced to move around the fretboard more, so if you can master a 4-String then all the better. Personally though I just prefer the 4-String because the strings are better spaced and for some reason they always look better than 5-String basses to me.

So anyway, it sounds as if it's perfectly doable although you have to adjust the action accordingly in order to accept the thicker strings. But since it's a kit I'd be building anyway, I don't see a problem with that since I'm going to have to learn how to set up everything about it anyway!

Plenty of YouTube videos on every aspect of setting up and finessing a guitar so it should be a cool, fun little project that'll give me the exact type of Bass Guitar I want at the end of it.

Same with the Lead Guitar kit, should be fun!

So it seems a 'Drop-Tuned B-E-A-D Jazz-Bass' is what I need, so that is what I shall build. If I fuck it up I'll just blame you lot, and at least I won't have paid thousands of pounds for it. The kit only costs £119, the heavy gauge BEAD strings around £30, and I suppose by the time I've had some custom decals printed and coated it all in resin, I reckon it would still only cost around £200 in total by the time I've finished it.


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 Post subject: Re: Using Lead Guitars as Bass Guitars:
PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2023 6:57 am 
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Id just get a cheap bass, you can probably pick one up for £50 or less from a car boot! You couldnt use a guitar with bass strings because of the action/tension on the neck! The tuning you mention is basically standard tuning but with the B as the low note, EAD is the standard part but with G as the highest note/string! I’d just go standard tuning on a cheap ass bass! Another option is getting some kind of octave pedal on a guitar

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 Post subject: Re: Using Lead Guitars as Bass Guitars:
PostPosted: Thu Jun 22, 2023 9:36 pm 
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Cheers mate. I hear you on the neck and tension thing and I decided against having a single guitar because of that. I'm looking at getting two guitars (the two kits I linked to). I like the kits cause I like the idea of building my own and finishing them off with my own designs.

That's if I go for guitars, cause I'm trying to decide between that or just getting another OPSIX and using that. I really like the idea of using a proper guitar though, using actual physical strings.

For me, it doesn't matter that I can't play the guitar, cause all I need to do is put a beat on loop while recording (only) the guitar input to a new sample. That means I could just leave the loop running and play along with it one phrase at a time, repeating it constantly as the loop plays until I finally get it right, and then truncate it into a sample when I do.

It's definitely doable but I'm deciding whether I should go for it or not and it's a bloody hard decision because I'm not a guitarist at all.


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 Post subject: Re: Using Lead Guitars as Bass Guitars:
PostPosted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 11:07 am 
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I just tend to record short loops on the guitar out of pure laziness and the benefit of that is you only need to learn a bar at a time and loop it, depends what you want to do I guess, for lead licks its obviously better played live in one go but for chords just recording a chord at a time into each pad and playing it like you would any other sample works fine! Yeah the kit sounds cool, personally I’d just get a cheap guitar and a cheap bass!

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