I'm unclear if you truly want to go piccolo or are just trying to save a bass from uselessness. If the latter, a change of string family might do it. What string families have you tried already & what sort of sound do you want?

What has you term the bass not 'decent'?

I feel an action check should be done after every string change, even if using the same type of strings. A change in string tension NEEDS the neck relief adjusted to achieve the same neck relief. Thor Iverson has a great setup guide on his home page here, & Gary Willis' website has a decent guide as well.

To my view tuning a bass to tenor (ADGC, right?) with the same strings will INCREASE string tension a good amount. Drop tuning to BEAD will decrease string tension.

Well, i am preety much trying to save the bass from uselessness. But i am very intrested in the Piccolo sound on the bass, I have seen a few people make a hybrid between piccolo bass (the shorter scale bass) and a full scale by putting the piccolo strings on the full scale.

Its a starter bass, i picked it up online about 3 years ago and found it seemed to only sound good with root notes playing things like heavy metal. I am quite intrested in Funk etc, but i have been wanting to start doing more melodic bass pieces ( i have learnt some Stu Hamm songs and other songs).

I only thought Piccolo strings because of the beautiful melodic sound, I would normaly use Ernie ball strings of different thickness(normally i would use thinner strings for a mroe funky popping sound). I will check out the setup guide thanks.

anymore advice on other sounds i could try instead would be appreciated.

cheers - joe

I'm used to 'piccolo bass' being mostly string choice, & independant of scale length.

What's the bass like? Will it hold a set-up? P-style pickups, J-style, soapbar? What controls on the bass? I'd guess no battery, so it's a passive bass.

Joe, just read your profile & found it cool that you are from Halifax as well!! Unfortunately it's the wrong Halifax for me to be any hands-on help to you ;)

Haha.. a few thousand miles different by any chance :)

The bass that I use as a piccolo is a Kramer 'Duke' bass. It has a shaved down body as it was made during the 'Steinberger' heyday. Since the neck is aluminum and a casting, it has no truss rod to be concerned about. You may have to make adjustments with the truss rod once the bass gets used to handling the pressure of the piccolo strings on the bass. Don't forget to check the height of the saddles on the bridge as well.

Have fun......;^D.

Piccolo sets are not all that expensive so try a set and see, some times instruments that are not all that hot as basses really sing as a piccolo. I have a Harmony H-22 bass that is vibey but not really what I want in a bass but it is quite nice as a piccolo. You will need to change the set up some but all I can say is try it and see. If it really works you should change the nut but just as an experiment it is not necessary.