6 String 'Tic-Tac' bass on the CHEAP $ !!

[Doug 54]

Easy to change from 4 string short scale bass to 6 string 'Tic-Tac'. I did this to my Dano 63' 4 string.

Here's an Ibanez short scale 4 string with a 30.3 scale-- which to me is great, it would tighten up the low E on the Jerry Jones' D' Addario set, whereas most 6 stringers are 30" scale.
The nut is wide enuf to accomodate the 6 strings.

Throw on a cheap top-load Tele bridge which you might want to cut, two tuners, a new nut.... and just wait and see on the pups. Yea, they're for a 4 string, but it might work on the 6'er. If the string balance is goofy and just doesn't work, throw in a cheap guitar pup and change electronics.

Here it is:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/bass/...ic-bass-guitar

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[Doug 54]

Yo!!

No one interested in the UNLIMITED realm of E-E 6 stringing bass??

Especially playing Chet style!!!!!!!!!

.

[Manolete]

String spacing is going to be mega tight, unless you use lighter gage strings no? It seems like a bad idea to take a cheap bass and do a bunch of mods to it.

[rip_topaz]

Originally Posted by Manolete

It seems like a bad idea to take a cheap bass and do a bunch of mods to it.

?!?

[oramac7891]

Anyone done this?
Pics?

It's an interesting idea

[Ed Miller]

a tic-tac bass is a baritone guitar tuned b to b. I picked up my Dano Baritone for 275 bucks used back at the height of Dano Fever. I would think you could find one comparable for a similar price as the bass.

Also,the dano has 24frets. and guitar pickups.I wonder how the bass pickups would work for the guitar strings. Alo chet used to do the OctaBass stuffby putting a Bass G and D on in place of the E and A and ten tuned them as octave bass strings.

[MrTwang]

Originally Posted by Ed Miller

a tic-tac bass is a baritone guitar tuned b to b. I picked up my Dano Baritone for 275 bucks used back at the height of Dano Fever. I would think you could find one comparable for a similar price as the bass.

actually, tic-tac bass is tuned e-e an octave below a guitar on a 30" scale. Baritone is tuned b-b or sometimes a-a on a scale length somewhere around 27"

In the early days they used the tic-tac to double the acoustic bass part - hence the lower tuning.

A good few years ago I converted an old Japanese short scale bass to tic-tac and it worked pretty good. I then saw a Jerry Jones which I had to have - this was a few years before the cheap Danno reissues.

Nowadays there are a few reasonably priced tic-tacs and baritones on the market as well as used Danno reissues so doesn't seem much point modifying a 4 string bass.

[beep.click]

Would these work?

http://www.rondomusic.com/product3015.html

http://www.rondomusic.com/argustoaskbk.html

http://www.rondomusic.com/arguslpb.html

[fezz parka]

This was a short scale Longhorn bass. It's now an A-A baritone:

[MrTwang]

Originally Posted by beep.click

Would these work?

http://www.rondomusic.com/product3015.html

http://www.rondomusic.com/argustoaskbk.html

http://www.rondomusic.com/arguslpb.html

Absolutely. Never come across these before. The toaster pickups might sound cool. The Jaguar styled ones are pretty much the Fender Bass VI. I wonder why Fender have never brought out a reasonably priced reissue? The only one I ever saw was a Japanese Custom Shop model that cost as much as an original one.

[fidopunk]

Originally Posted by MrTwang

Absolutely. Never come across these before. The toaster pickups might sound cool. The Jaguar styled ones are pretty much the Fender Bass VI. I wonder why Fender have never brought out a reasonably priced reissue? The only one I ever saw was a Japanese Custom Shop model that cost as much as an original one.

For a bit more than the Rondo ones, you can have this:

http://www.samedaymusic.com/product--SCEHCATVI

[Doug 54]

-Tic-Tac, yes IS, E-E

-String spacing would be ok.

-Modding a cheap guitar:
The pleasures of playing a 6 string E-E bass are incredible!!!!!

I had a Jerry Jones 6 string bass and actually my Dano 63' conversion sounds better, richer. Go figure! I had both at the same time-- sold the JJ.


The AGILES are nice, but my intent on this thread was CHEAPER and still viable. A used Ibanez I listed above should run you $125-150.

The conversion would be cheap: Cheap T bridge and cut it off, tuners, cut a new nut and throw in a pup. You have the option to shim the neck for break angle issues.

[Doug 54]

Hers my converted Dano 63'

http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/x...g?t=1272657820

BTW: The IBANZ Bass I linked on the 1st post has a 30.3" scale which makes it kinda cool in that it will tighten up the low .84 string on a standard Jery Jones set.
The Fender Bajo Sexto is 30 1/4"


,

[Wally]

'tic tac bass'.....in my understanding this was a term applied to using an electric gutiar to reinforce the stand up bass. That is, the 'tic tac' was not a bass but simply a 6-string guitar...tuned as a 6-string guitar. The Broadcaster/nocaster/Telecaster pickups until 1967 yielded the filtered neck pickup 'bassy' tone for just this purpose. Why they continued to wire the Tele this way after the electric P-bass was built I don't know.

It seems that in modern lingo, tic tac is now applied to soemehing different....baritone guitars used to do exactly what those old Tele's were desinged to do in the day of stand-up acoustic basses. There were no baritone guitars back in the day when true 'tic tac' bass techniques were employed.

[Dave W]

@Wally: The tic tac sound was always done by a six string bass, not a guitar.

@Doug 54: the difference in string tension between 30" and 30.3" scales is under 2%. I doubt you'd notice that little.

[Uma Floresta]

I did this to an SX Jag bass:



Added Dano 30" neck, Strat pickups and a vibrato.

[Doug 54]

Dave W:

2% diff in string tension is... very little!!

But...
I know from shimming a bolt on to increase break angle or increasing the angle of a stop tail piece can make a discernable diff.

Remember: we guitarists can tell the diff between 9's, 10's and 11 gauge strings, and we're talking a diff of 1000ths

Whether called Tic-Tac (Nashville golden days) or just 6 string bass, it is tuned E-E and typically is 30" or slightly + scale.

[Wally]

Originally Posted by Dave W

@Wally: The tic tac sound was always done by a six string bass, not a guitar.

Dave, in my reading it has been claimed that the neck pickup with pre-set 'bassy' sound on the Broadcaster, Nocaster and Telecaster guitars was used to reinforced the stand up bass back in the days before ...and after when necessary.....of the introduction of the Precision Bass in 1952.
It was quite a while before someone built a 6-string 'bass'. I don't know who was first with the 30" scale range of this kind of instrument. FEnder introduced the Bass VI, which Leo Fender himself consider a 'baritone' guitar, in late '61. I owned a '63 back in the mid-90's. I also have a case for one of these...I wish I had the baritone to sit in it.....guess I'l build one, eh?
At any rate, Tele's were used as 'tic tac' reinforcement for stand up acoustic basses before there were any 30" baritone insturments.

[fezz parka]

The Dano first appeared in '58. Duane Eddy (I'm sure there are others) was the first time I heard one. Very deep coolness...

[Wally]

Fezz, I wasn't sure when the Shorthorn came out. That is the one you are talking about, right? Something told me that the Danelectro beat the Bass VI into the market. Nevertheless, the Tele was reinforcing acoustic basses long before these 30 inchers came out....and the phrase 'tic tac bass' for this reinforcement of that acoustic bass was in use long before 1958, from what I have read.