Can You Put Electric Guitar Strings on a Bass Guitar? 

A bass string on a guitar 😂

Wasn't one I did, but it came across my desk at the shop. Somebody took a Danelectro 6 string (one of the 90s with built in effects) and strung the thing so the anchors of the ball ends were on the end of the strat trem-style springs. It was so incredulous I took a photo at the time on a vintage digicam. I have no idea what inspired them to do it.

I octave dropped the low E and A on a guitar using Stringjoy strings. I used your 0.095 for E1 and 0.090 for A1. The A has low 30's lbs of tension. It feels ok and makes fairly punchy sound with an acceptable attack. I like it. The 0.095 on the low E is too floppy IMHO. Unfortunately you don't make a larger guitar string and even if you did it wouldn't fit through my bridge. So, I'm in the process of modding this thing to accept an actual bass string, hence my interest in your video.

I had a friend once who really wanted to play guitar, so I offered to teach him. I'd taught guitar basics to several people at this point, and knew how to correct the common beginner mistakes. He warned me "I can't do it." I'm a patient guy; we're going to do this. So I show him how to play a chord. Typical issues that literally every day one guitarist has: some strings were muted, some weren't being held down hard enough, etc. He tells me "my fingers are too fat." Nah, we'll figure it out, this is common. After a couple of minutes of trying to correct the issue without success, I got up to physically move his finger and hands into position. I could not believe what was happening. His fingers were literally just too fat to play the chord. We could not get the chord to play right now matter how hard we tried. I had never seen anything like that before, and haven't since, but I believe you because I've seen this with my own eyes. We didn't have a bass available at that point, which is a shame, because I'm certain he would've been able to pick it up. He's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, with a nearly photographic memory, so it wasn't that either. I play bass now; a few years ago I had a serious arm injury that ended with part of the muscles in my arm being removed and severe nerve damage. I can no longer move my wrist side to side (like a palm mute), an absolutely essential movement for playing guitar. I mostly have to play from the elbow. I don't even have enough control to strum guitar chords consistently. A friend suggested I try the bass, and lo and behold, I can play bass with a pick. The strings being farther apart make it a breeze. I've noticed a lot of players play from the elbow anyway (one of my favorites is Bruce Foxton, oh and there's Phil Lynott now that I think about it), so I don't feel ridiculous. I can't palm mute, so that kinda sucks, and I'm limited to using a pick, but I'm ok with that; almost every one of my favorite bassists play with a pick. I have no idea where the finger elitism that used to be so rampant came from (it isn't nearly as bad as it used to be). Since then I've realized I was a bass player at heart all along and didn't know it. I love groove and I love melody, and that intersection is where the bass shines.

Same. I’m a giant person. I did this, and it rules. I play a short scale 6 string bass as a baritone guitar. Turns out that string spacing was always the issue. Solving that has allowed me to actually play with some dexterity rather than cramming my fingers into tiny fretboard shapes.

​@@Metal_Horrorlay you picking hand across the strings to mute, people usually do that along with regular muting to make it sound sharp, but either/or works for me

You should look up tenor guitars. They have 4 strings... and take all kinds of alternate tunings

@@sierragold thank you

@@matthewmckenzie9093 You're welcome

@Simon Simoney You should record your experiments. I just subscribed so I can see em 😂

Bro they sell cheap ass beginner electric guitars. This past week I got a guitar for 50$ then picked up a bass for 200 from a pawn shop. I got a badass amp for 130 from the same shop because people don't know what they're selling half of the time. That amp was easily worth twice as much

Wasn't he confused when I bought a pack of guitar strings and there were too many?

You could check out Kalium. Your strings may take a couple weeks to arrive, though. Mine took 25 days.

I've tried Rotos, LaBellas, D'Addarios... my biggest issue is the unwound octave G which is just too loud and twangy compared to all the wrapped strings. Haven't been able to find a wrapped string that could handle octave G tuning at a 34" scale. I bet if we put the challenge down to Scott, he could do it. :-)

@@773Spair Even though I’m not being a fan of their strings I did give them a try, but the end bits were too fat for the thru body bridge.

@@grampska Dang. You could try garrygoodman.com/octave4plus.com.htm , but they may be expensive.

I did that with my Bass short school I put guitar strings on it cause I prefer having 4 strings and I also loved the sound

Would love to hear/see it!

@@Stringjoy Is there a way to bulk order bassbstrings from you all. My church has opened a budget for me to order strings to keep in stock. If wholesale is an option let me know where I can contact someone. Really looking forward to the talk if so.....keep up the amazing work to everyone over at Stringjoy

That would be killer ;)

The zapp bass

Yep, it's all doable, but if you wanted perfect intonation you would definitely need to do some adjustments all around

Yep! Our internal goal is to have something to show folks before the end of 2021

I would be very interesting in any flatwound options you release, especially if you end up designing flatwound bass strings in any gauges which other manufacturers don't offer!

Typically our 45-105 short scale set is our top recommendation

Definitely, and not that you say that I realize I could've done this a while ago on my 32" Ric-style (2x2) bass, I didn't even think of that!

@@Stringjoy If that bass has a tone similar to a real 4003, that could sound really good. Nice growly single coils, especially if you solo the bridge pup. I have a few Rick 4003's and on the bridge pup with the "vintage tone" engaged, even with regular bass strings it sounds killer with a little overdrive or distortion on it. A 30" 4003 could be a wicked good instrument.

True dat!

They are too wide to fit. You would have to custom build a new bridge, nut, and probably tuning posts, all just to put on strings that wouldn't get the right tension.

@@spindlyspinster9332 true. Might as well be a bass vi at that point.

The Ibanez Mikro bass is close to that... a 28" scale 4-string. It's begging to be made into a piccolo bass or a 4 string baritone guitar.

I just did that to an 8 string Harley Benton guitar to give me the standard bass E1 A1 D2 G2 on my top 4 strings. Quoted from above: I did it using Stringjoy strings, even. I used 0.095 for E1 and 0.090 for A1. The A has low 30's lbs of tension. It feels ok and makes fairly punchy sound with an acceptable attack. I like it. The 0.095 on the low E is too floppy IMHO. Unfortunately you don't make a larger guitar string and even if you did it wouldn't fit through my bridge. So, I'm in the process of modding this thing to accept an actual bass string, hence my interest in the video.

Scale length wise it is! But it's tuned an octave above a Bass VI

@@Stringjoy awe thx u , ur great I love your string

@@Stringjoy So it's in essence the high strings off a Bass VI tuned up a 3rd.

I explained in the video they reason I didn't do this before was because a guitar G string isn't long enough to make it to the tuning peg on one of my 32", 34" or 35" basses, hence why we were able to make this video once I nabbed a 30".

@@Stringjoy but, I thought you guys made strings? 🧐

@@mrgskye Literally, all of this is talked about in the video bud