Once considered a novelty, but now fully integrated into the bass guitar family, the six-string bass is a fact of modern bass life. Whereas the five-string is looked upon as a regular bass with an added low B, strangely most of us consider the six-string to be cast from an entirely different mould – probably down to losing all points of reference on the neck with the regular strings being in the thick of it all.
“It’s like having a car with a larger engine,” Anthony Jackson told Bass Player. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to go faster all the time, but high speeds are less of a strain. If Leo Fender could come back today I think he would approve.”
Another prominent six-string bass proponent is John Myung of Dream Theater. “It just made sense for me to venture into the world of six-string basses. The extra strings lend themselves to a more creative, chordal type of playing – the harmonics in Lifting Shadows Off a Dream were inspired by the six-string bass.
“It was strange at first, but once I got warmed up, it wasn’t so foreign anymore.”
Some might well argue that four strings is all you need, but those people clearly haven't experienced the sheer joy of being able to hit those extra notes. “I guess there’s a place for it,” said Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan. “But not in what I do. Four strings is gonna keep me busy for the rest of my life!”
One thing's for certain: those who successfully make the transition rarely revert back to the four-string security blanket.
“I feel like the six-string bass lends itself to a little more facility,” Thundercat told Bass Player. “It also brings a different character to my bass playing. Sometimes it’s about knowing how to change gears, so to speak, but it all stems from the same place.”
With all that in mind, Bass Player presents the 10 six-string bassists you need to know.
1. Anthony Jackson
Anthony Jackson is one of the most important bassists in history, with an uncompromising vision of the electric bass as a member of the guitar family with the tone of a piano’s bass strings – Jackson invented the 6-string contrabass guitar in the early ’70s, launching a wave of extended-range basses.
2. Jimmy Haslip
We’re so used to thinking of our fingers moving towards the floor when we play an ascending bass part that it comes as something of a shock to see Jimmy Haslip in action.
The former Yellowjackets bassist is a lefty who plays a left-handed six-string bass guitar with the strings reversed – his low B string is where the high C is normally located and vice-versa.
Add to this his phenomenal ability when it comes to fast soloing, and your brain soon ends up tied in knots.
3. Thundercat
Thanks to his soulful falsetto, distinctive bass sound, and stellar work with artists from Suicidal Tendences to Erykah Badu, Thundercat’s appeal has grown far beyond the circle of bass nuts who worship his dazzling chops.
He delivers his phenomenally deft bass style on his signature six-string bass, the famous hollow-bodied Ibanez TCB1006. The controls include master volume, tone, piezo volume, volume for the MIDI system, a 3-way Les Paul-style switch, and a dark/mids switch.
“At first, I didn’t know what it meant to have a hollowbody bass of this caliber,” he told BP. “I remember the custom shop saying to me, ‘What in the world are you asking?!’”
4. Felix Pastorius
Felix Pastorius was born, along with his twin brother Julius, in 1982, five years before the premature death of his father Jaco. A superb bassist himself, he has a long list of recording and performance credits behind him, including a stint in the Yellowjackets from 2012 to 2015.
“My main bass for most of my gigs over the years has been a Fodera Emperor 2 six-string – 33" scale, rosewood fingerboard, box elder burl top,” he told us. “I put in Aguilar DCB ceramic bar pickups – I love those.”
5. Oteil Burbridge
Throw any genre at Oteil Burbridge and he’ll throw back a brilliant bassline. He was with the Allman Brothers Band for 17 years and got the call in 2015 to join three members of the Grateful Dead and John Mayer in a new incarnation of the band called Dead & Company.
“It’s all about personal preference,” he says. “The four-string is the most traditional, but the six is the most fun!”
6. John Patitucci
Since emerging on the studio scene in the 1980s, John Patitucci has forged a formidable reputation as a modern master of both the electric and acoustic bass.
Aside from a blossoming career as a sideman, his time spent with Wayne Shorter, and Chick Corea’s Elektric and Akoustic bands gave him the perfect platform to launch a successful solo career, in which he swaps effortlessly between double bass and his signature Yamaha six-string.
7. John Myung
Dream Theater’s John Myung specialises in high-speed playing of terrifying complexity. This is just as well, because the rest of his band are equally adept on their instruments, resulting in a barrage of melodic, metallic harmony that has redefined heavy music since the ‘90s.
“For anyone who wants to play a six-string bass, consider the middle four strings as a four-string bass. That’s how I thought of it: it wasn’t like I didn’t have a four-string bass any more. It’s just that the extra range was there if I needed it.
“Once your imagination kicks in, then your creativity finds a way to use the extra strings. My signature six-string bass was an amazing thing to happen in my life.”
8. Henrik Linder
Henrik Linder was a student at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm when Dirty Loops began as a chops-heavy cover band, and then became an online sensation. He delivers his virtuoso slap, pluck and chordal style on a Mattisson HL-6 six-string bass.
“I'm known for all these extended-range high-end basses, but I love the sound of a Jazz Bass – when other people play them!” he told BP. “Whenever I pick one up I feel a little awkward, just because I can't play how I want to. They're awesome instruments in the right hands, just not these hands.”
9. Jared Smith
Playing bass in Canadian death metal band Archspire is no easy task, as we know because we asked their bassist Jared Smith about it. With spark-igniting technical brilliance, he’s catching the attention of modern extreme metal fans everywhere.
“Something that feels like a slower part might be crazy fast when you hear the finished mix, but we love pushing boundaries, and playing as many notes as we possibly can. We’re all in the same spot grinding it out, until the song’s done.”
Smith’s current setup is a multi-scale six-string Z3 made by Dingwall Guitars.
10. Squarepusher
Squarepusher (aka Tom Jenkinson) is an artist in a vast left-field league of his own. He regularly tops festival bills with his mesmerising one-man show, with a pair of laptops, his Music Man, and Zoot custom 6-string basses, and an array of effects racks – even controlling the digital video projections behind him.
Red Hot Chili Pepper, Flea, gave Jenkinson this glowing endorsement: “He’s the best electric bass player on the earth – he is pushing the instrument the farthest.”
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