Recently picked up a used Ibanez MiKro fiver from Reverb. I was interested in using a short scale bass or a baritone guitar for a cello pitch fifths tuning. The listing on Reverb was a fair bargain so I snatched it up ASAP.
It's currently tuned C2-G2-D3-A3-E4 with Stringjoy guitar strings, gauges here for anyone interested. I was really anxious about tuning up to E4, but so far the 0.009 has held up quite well. I threaded the guitar strings through reused bass ball ends since the guitar string ball ends were too small. There's still some pesky fret buzz and all sorts of intonation issues past the 12th fret, but at least I haven't had any of the plains snap on me... yet.
At this pitch and with these strings it's functionally and tone-wise a guitar, with nearly as much range a 7 string! As expected, the shorter scale and lower tension makes the lovely spread triads a treat to play.
Here it is with my Yamaha TRBX305, also strung in fifths but an octave lower (C1-E3). I find the range spread over these 2 a more reasonable approach rather than having it all on one instrument like when I strung my sixer in fifths (C1-B3).
It's currently tuned C2-G2-D3-A3-E4 with Stringjoy guitar strings, gauges here for anyone interested. I was really anxious about tuning up to E4, but so far the 0.009 has held up quite well. I threaded the guitar strings through reused bass ball ends since the guitar string ball ends were too small. There's still some pesky fret buzz and all sorts of intonation issues past the 12th fret, but at least I haven't had any of the plains snap on me... yet.
At this pitch and with these strings it's functionally and tone-wise a guitar, with nearly as much range a 7 string! As expected, the shorter scale and lower tension makes the lovely spread triads a treat to play.
Here it is with my Yamaha TRBX305, also strung in fifths but an octave lower (C1-E3). I find the range spread over these 2 a more reasonable approach rather than having it all on one instrument like when I strung my sixer in fifths (C1-B3).
