3 Strings??!!??

[blaknift]

Hey Steve, Ive been a Lifelong fan of your work, And you and Jaco are the reason I started playing a fretless. I got to see you on the Death To All Tour in Cincinnati on april 20th. You had your 2 thor's, The 5 and 6 string, But on the 5 string you only had 3 strings strung up! Whats up with that, That was awesome! Thanks man, You have really helped me out as a musician and every time I listen to your work I am inspired to just practice for freakin hours.

Thanks, Shane

PS. I bought one of your shirts at the DTA Show!

 

[HippieOfDoom]

Hey thanks a lot for all the cool compliments man! I really appreciate it. Man the idea for the 3-string came a while back on a tour I was filling in for Obituary and I realized that there are a lot of death metal songs that only need the basic low notes and to play a bass with only the 3 strings is a unique thing that is also so minimalistic. I'm working on making a true 3-stringer that has the spacing and size of the 5-stringer...what do you think? Anyone willing to play this model? LowEnders must be proud to just pump out the low notes and not have all those high notes to distract!! If you don't use 'em; lose em!

 

[israel]

yeah that would be awesome! you could even put just like 5 frets on it... or maybe no frets at all?

 

[blaknift]

Thanks for the reply man! And thats awesome! It looked really easy to play, and ill keep an eye on your facebook for the 3 stringer lol. I was joking with my buddy that night after the show about ripping a few strings off my 5er.

 

[Traxan]

I saw this for the first time while watching Testament's live stream from Knotfest. Man did I do a triple take on that one. But the visual, especially on a fretless, was mind blowing.

Can you get more speed on a single string that way, Steve? I used to play a standard 4 string bass and never had an issue with strings being too close.

 

[HippieOfDoom]

No, speed doesn't come from string spacing. I mean, unless you were like a violent picker or something, where you could flail away loco with your picking arm. The spacing is just the result of modifying a 5-string into that 3-string version, and the strings are spread out to keep tension on the neck. Just the regular lower 3 strings: E A D, but for Testament it's tuned down a half step, D# G# C# on the tuner. For Death it's tuned down a whole step: D G C. Pretty simple, just going back to basics.
But you notice I always switch off with a 6-string too. So depending on what the song needs, I have the notes available between all 9! (Oh noo...a 9-string next...!!!)
I'm looking to market this model...while everyone is adding and adding strings and range, I'm digging in to fundamentals!
SDG