Is this for real?

[Tbeers]

I'd love to try one of those basses. I'm no luthier and I can't join this pissing contest, but this website is an interesting find. It doesn't show up on Google or anything, this is the first I've seen of it. I wonder how Woolsey goes about getting a full sound on all 5 strings. Different makers appear to have varying strategies for that.

[jtlownds]

After looking at Mr. Woolsey's web site, I noticed that he repeatedly refers to himself as an engineer. Does anyone know what kind of engineer he is (mechanical, electronics, aerospace, etc.) He also indirectly refers to luthiers as carpenters. He also claims to do an analysis of the wood he uses and I assume adjusts his method of building to match that analysis. He seems to have an attitude that engineers are superior to the common unwashed masses. As an engineer myself (electronics) I have known many of my associates with the same attitude. One of the posters who actually talked to him said that he kind of came across as a snake oil salesman. I don't know whether he is or not, but his pitch causes a negative reaction in me. It would certainly be interesting if one of the TBers out there could get their hands on and play one of his basses, and report on their experience.

[Ashley Long]

Remember though guys, Carleen Hutchins found a way of electronicly tuning the wooden plates of string instruments resulting in every new instrument she makes sounding like a strads, they are also acoustially matched. They sound amazing. Dominic Duval uses one of her basses and says its fantastic. She has created a new octet of string instruments and I think that a new contrabass costs $25,000, but you will get a fantastic instrument. This guy may well be a genius, even if he does try a bit too hard on the jargon front.

[Martin Sheridan]

I've seen two Busans and worked on one of them. Neither had a high arch.

[Silversorcerer]

Originally Posted by Ashley Long

Remember though guys, Carleen Hutchins found a way of electronicly tuning the wooden plates of string instruments resulting in every new instrument she makes sounding like a strads, they are also acoustially matched. They sound amazing. Dominic Duval uses one of her basses and says its fantastic. She has created a new octet of string instruments and I think that a new contrabass costs $25,000, but you will get a fantastic instrument. This guy may well be a genius, even if he does try a bit too hard on the jargon front.

Woolsey's bass is almost as large (48" vs 51") as the "Large bass" of Hutchin's New Violin Octet. It is tuned to the standard EADG. Woolsey's has the BEADG tuning. I'm wondering if he applied her principles or adapted them resulting in the very large body and what he might have done to accommodate the extra string? I'm certainly interested in finding out more about Woolsey.

[Silversorcerer]

And so I did find out more:

Originally Posted by jtlownds

After looking at Mr. Woolsey's web site, I noticed that he repeatedly refers to himself as an engineer. Does anyone know what kind of engineer he is (mechanical, electronics, aerospace, etc.)

H. E. Woolsey is most likely an architectural engineer. His name is at the top of the page in an "H" alphabetical index of California architectural firms and the address is the same as Boaz music.

Well that explains a bit.

[simandlhandle]

Originally Posted by Ashley Long

Remember though guys, Carleen Hutchins found a way of electronicly tuning the wooden plates of string instruments resulting in every new instrument she makes sounding like a strads, they are also acoustially matched. They sound amazing. Dominic Duval uses one of her basses and says its fantastic. She has created a new octet of string instruments and I think that a new contrabass costs $25,000, but you will get a fantastic instrument.

Wow! I'd never heard of Carleen Hutchins, so I put her name into a Goggle search........I think I am going to be checking out the info on those related web sites for a good few weeks.
Does anyone know who makes basses using her tech? What do other luthiers think? I hope you guys don't dis her like you have Traeger . I got his book and, as a player not luthier, found it incredibly helpful in explaining things that repairers I have been to, either assumed I knew, or didn't have the time to explain to me. Obviously everyone has their own opinions and methods, and I am not trying to disrespect the repairers and builders who post either ( reverential tug of fore'lock), but there seem to be a lot of negative posts about something I have found to be very useful and worthwhile( sudden image of being dressed in bright red in a field of male bovines).

[Martin Sheridan]

My friend and former apprentice Ted Moniak uses Carleen Hutchins methods. He told me that on his last bass he couldn't get the back to to come out within the correct parameters and Carleen told him, "you know, Ted sometimes it just doesn't work". It was still a darn good bass. I'm probably not describing what he told me completely right, but you get the idea.
My own take on it: reminds me of the Indian story of the blind men who describe an elephant. One describes the elephant as it's trunk, one it's tail and one it's foot and so on. They seem to isolate a part of the bass, examine it and then attribute adjustments to that area as the majic bullet which will guarantee a good instrument everytime. I think it is good that their are people who are attempting to do this kind of work and I wish them well, but I think there are too many variables involved, and I don't know of any really good bass maker who has tried some of these theories who hasn't eventually abandoned them as unreliable. A professional violist who has played a number of Carleen's violas told me that some of Carleen's instruments are fantastic and some are just average.
Personally I have abandoned looking for any one note or distance between top and back tap tones, but I do like to
get a good ring from the plate when I tap it. When you can
hold a node point and tap at the bridge area and get a good
long "boing" and the plate is really ringing, I think that's good.
I work more intuitively than from any scientific method and that seems to work for me.
Incidently, it has long been held that a violin top should be
tuned to a E or Eb and the back to any F. I think this goes
back to Savart who claims to have discovered that this was true with some of the old Italian violins by Stradivari and others. I think it was the well know Chicago maker Michael Darnton who said that recently a number of Stradivari and Guarneri violins were examined and none of them had tap tones remotely similar to this and there were great differences between the violins all of which were considered great instruments. Darnton has said that he knows of no
contemporary maker of high repute who has used and continues to use these methods. That's as good as I can do on one cup of coffee this morning, now I'll get under some plastic.

[hdiddy]

Guys, I just came back from NYC on Monday. My girl and I visited the 'Met there and they had this really cool Musical Instrument section which had all kinds of crazy instruments (including Benny Goodman's last clarinet). Anyways, they didn't have much in terms of DB's except for one old church bass, but they had a small section dedicated to Carleen Hutchings and the display was a presentation about plate tuning in violin instruments.

The display included several different sized instruments (like 6 or 7 of them) going from a tiny fiddle to a ~5/8 sized DB/violin. All were exactly the same body shape, so the DB sized version was rather odd since the upper bouts were really big to match the proportions of the rest of the violins/cellos/etc. It's rather interesting to see, but I wonder how they compared sonically to eachother. I guess I'll keep wondering...

[Silversorcerer]

The creation of a fine violin is the work of an artist-craftsperson with years of training and experience in the subtleties of vilolin construction such as the delicate curves of archings in relation to wood characteristics, the balancing of plate thickness and wood stiffness, and the adjustment of the bass bar, soundpost, and bridge for desired tonal characteristics in the final instrument. No amount of science can take the place of these skills, but it can document some of the vibrational modes and their complicated interrelations that experienced violin makers have spent a lifetime learning from past genterations.

- Carleen Hutchins, 1998, The Air and Wood Modes of the Violin