Which free bass system?

[Rosie C]

I am sure there are as many opinions as forum members, but having realised my Roland can do free bass, I'm thinking to try free bass.
Mostly I play folk tunes, and Stradella works great for those. But at Christmas I have a couple of carol singing gigs where free bass may be better - last year I played bass lines on the root and third bass rows as I wasn't skilled enough to do the chords.

Anyway, any suggestions as to which of these is more common, more suited to a beginner, more suited to traditional church music?

 

[Henry D]

I would think that any would work for you if you practiced them and got used to them.

Personally, the quint (fifth) arrangement is quite useable (for me) since I already had the pattern down from the Stradella. The chord rows just become repeats of the root and counterbass top two rows offering you three full octaves.

I find chords pretty straightforward with this system. It has a secondary salutary effect- your use of the normal Stradella bass/counterbass rows will probably be enhanced.

If you really intend to go for a full melody line in the bass one of the chromatic arrangements might work more fluidly with the passage of time and experience- but the quint seems to be up to the challenge of most music.

As with so many aspects of musical instrument playing, "It's what you're used to that feels best."

And one can get used to almost anything....

 

[Ventura]

another way to look at it is just to want the easiest
reachable setup that gives you more than an octave
so that when you run bass lines they can continue
logically in the up or down direction for pitch

so even typical 3 rows of bass is enough as long as the extra row
is an octave offset. the reach for solo notes seemed so
natural to me when i had that 140 bass Scandalli during my youth..
bass, counterbass, second counterbass

there was a MIDI system that watched which direction your bass
line was being played and switched octave up or down to
anticipate your next move.. Eddie Montiero had one

 

[tcabot]

"Thirds" fb (Bayan, C, B)come in 3-row and 4-row varieties. I found them quite clunky to use - you need a lot of up & down movement with your left hand that's already loaded with bellows action. 4 is definitely better than 3, but it's nothing to write home about in terms of ergonomics.
MIII is probably the least appealing system - big, bulky and needing a huge finger reach, but you avoid the costs and mechanical complexity (breakability) of a converter.

Quint - is pretty good. It's got the same layout as Stradella and lateral hand movement is not required as you move up and down across the 6 rows, not along them. The only problem with it is that it's very hard to do chromatic runs (diatonic runs are great though). I don't expect chromatic runs in church music, right?
If you play PA that's probably the only system available in a used, reasonably priced box.

8-row Moschino is by far the best and the most incredible fb, but moschino boxes are only made from unobtainium, so good luck getting one.
6-row moschino and closely related Kusserow system is still better than thirds, but noticeably worse than 8-row moschi. Also unobtainable.

Try them all, try playing scales & arpeggios, see what you like.

By the way, I've got a cheap lightweight quint converter box for sale right now

 

[Rosie C]

Thanks all for your replies. As my free time is in short supply at the moment I'll just dive in and try the "quint" option.

I'm not looking for a full melody in the L/H, rather to do a simple bass line. For last year's carols (although my Hohner failed and I only performend one!) I knew I wasn't up to playing complex bass/chord patterns, so instead I just played bass notes - e.g. rather than jumping to a B or F# chord, I just played the bass note on the counter row. It looks like quint will allow me to build on that approach.

& @tcabot you are right - no chromatic runs needed!