What does the fifth string add - high range?
That second pic looks like the space shuttle contrail about 15-minutes after liftoff.
It is a low B. (Skilled jazz soloists have been known to use a high C, but I am neither capable of playing jazz nor skilled.)
I use it primarily to cut down on hand position movements. Speeds me up a lot without having to practice so much. I decided to have this built 30 years ago because all of the testing on low B indicated that a short scale bass could not get to a reasonable fundamental without having a string the size of a pinky finger.
As for last night's launch, I was a few blocks off the beach when I saw it happening and I called my luthier who took the picture.
I observed the main ship and the contrail and what seemed to be maybe the length of the ship maybe 1.5 times the length of the ship that appeared to be visible, there were little things blowing up in the contrail. It was interesting to watch. For a while I thought it might have a tether behind it that was attracting static electricity, but these little explosions left their own contrails.
OK, stepping away from writing this post to check Google... Soon after 31:45, they will start explain the little bursts that I witnessed. That took me maybe 20 seconds to find that section of video. Technology is great, but big brother is using it too.
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