new slant on ERB?

[Ashley Long]

Hi silver,

Yes I do use the bow with the violone but I have a baroque bow with a large outward curve in the bow which keeps the hair very tight and allows for the power needed to start the strings. Pretty much the same as this bow:

http://www.contrabass.co.uk/2620.htm

The DD string may well work as violone is tuned to A415 so the string sounds as C# anyway. This probaby wont mind going down to B but it may be a bit flabby. Ive never had to change my strings, I use a string cleaner about once a month just to keep things fresh. Do you have any pics of your 5 string?

[Silversorcerer]

Do you have any pics of your 5 string?

I've been totally slack. Not really, I loaded the film, only to note that I have dead batteries. I'll do something about that today. Also, for some reason my FTP program is not working for my homepage server space and to deal with that I rearranged some free tripod server space to accommodate some new photos when I have them. I could always use the phone to take a quickie, but that won't show you much detail. This is a pretty instrument and deserves better efforts.

So perhaps if I went to gut, I might also want a baroque-ish bass bow? You know that makes so much sense put into the historical context. What do you think of that bow Paul Rogers uses?

[Silversorcerer]

Originally Posted by Pete G

Mario Lamarre in Montreal makes EADGC 5 strings with low C extensions. He has some photos on his website:

http://www.lamario.ca/extension.php?lang=english

As you can, one such animal also has an extension on the D string. Mario says that some guys want that to play Bach.

That man is seriously into his woodcarving...

Truly some of the most amazingly detailed carving I've seen on recently built instruments. I spent a long time looking at that site. I highly recommend checking this fellow out. Looks like he keeps to about one instrument per year or less since 1996.

[Paul Warburton]

Originally Posted by Ashley Long

Do you have any pics of your 5 string?

Wanna see my fiver?
Look under Basses forum heading then click on The Talkbasses Vol.2 Eye Candy

[Ashley Long]

I think that the baroque bow certainly would help for gut strings to get the string to start properly. They are not that expensive and Ive seen them on ebay a couple times. The bow paul uses is indeed a baroque bow. Im guessing he uses for more volume with the all basse which also has sympathetic strings for the same reason. I could always ask kieth tippett, Ill see him next week, he knows paul really well so he may know. The only down side with a baroque bow is they lack subtlety and phrasing is difficult. However, it is all a matter of practise and Dragonetti always used one with great sucess although he was criticised toward the end of his life for it. Did you have any luck with the Rogers Cds silver?

As your 5 string paul, Im way ahead of you! You said the ribs were laminate. Im not clear with what you mean here, do you meanlike the plywood laminate or carved laminate?

[Paul Warburton]

Originally Posted by Ashley Long

As your 5 string paul, Im way ahead of you! You said the ribs were laminate. Im not clear with what you mean here, do you meanlike the plywood laminate or carved laminate?

Actually, I can't tell you Ashley. The Bohmann was made in about 1888-1900. You can tell the ribs are laminated because the top layer of wood has split in a few places to reveal this.
This wasn't uncommon for a few really good makers to do this, including some fine Italian basses. I just don't know how to tell the diff between hand laminated and machine done.
Many people on TBDB seem to think, when talking about 100% carved basses, that the ribs are carved. They are not. They are sliced off of pieces of wood. On a 100% carved bass, the sliced wood is one piece. On a hybrid bass, they are more than one thinner slices, laminated together.