What about pressed-top basses?

[xwtb]

Can anyone tell me about pressed-top basses?

Checking out a used "Hamburg" bass has gotten me interested in the topic. Since it's second-hand, I'm able to side-step all the usual concerns regarding the dealer and maker-of-record (Laabs/Vienna Strings), and it being eight years old pretty well squelches another batch of issues (like whether it'll split open before you get it home.) It's been set up by a reputable shop, and it sounds great. Still, I've got questions.

I figure this bass must have a pressed top (and back) since VS says they are solid spruce and maple, respectively, and they do not appear to be laminated. The workmanship overall is very respectable, yet the retail price of this model is very low ($1300), for a non-laminated bass. To explain all this my best guess is that top and back are pressed. (Pressed-top violins have been around for 100 years, but I've learned from an earlier thread that there's at least one existing company that presses spruce tops _and_ maple backs for basses. )

So I'm wondering, have other basses had pressed tops? How good have they been? Why isn't this method more widely used? Could a top be both pressed and carved? And would a pressed bass be any more durable than an outright carved one?

Thanks for any light that can be shed on the topic.

[TenorClef]

A pressed top? How do they do that? I assume they have one piece of solid wood and its steamed to the right curvature.

[Nagrom]

http://www.tai-workshop.com/english/...%28b%29-e.html

[TenorClef]

Whow, some ways of bending wood their!

[xwtb]

Originally Posted by TenorClef

I assume they have one piece of solid wood and its steamed to the right curvature.

As I understand it, that's the basic procedure, although surely there must be a way of splicing sheets of wood together into the pre-pressed blank. (The Hamburg bass mentioned above has a bookmatched tigerstriped back.)

Here's a link to Kollitz's catalog of parts; unfortunately, no details about the process. It's interesting to see what's available from them-- and you wonder where these components re-surface after leaving the factory!
http://www.margotschumannedv.de/koll.../streich-e.pdf

[fdeck]

Given that the pressed top is gaged at a constant thickness -- according to the catalog -- I can't see how it stands much chance of sounding particularly better than a good ply top. I'd take the ply for durability.

[Eric Rene Roy]

search google for Bill Fulton and you can find plenty about bending violin plates.

[xwtb]

Originally Posted by fdeck

Given that the pressed top is gauged at a constant thickness -- according to the catalog -- I can't see how it stands much chance of sounding particularly better than a good ply top. I'd take the ply for durability.

I don't know that VS necessarily uses Kollick's pressings, which are specced a uniform 8mm thickness, but if the Hamburg gets an especially good sound there's a couple of ways this might be explained: 1 in a non-ply top all the grain runs the same way 2 it contains no adhesives or 3 (long shot, I'm sure) maybe it's both pressed _and_ carved (could happen?).

Your point about durability is well taken-- a pressed top might be providing a small improvement in sound at the expense of a major loss of toughness, as against a laminated one.

[arnoldschnitzer]

I've been operating on basses for a few decades, and I've yet to come across a bass with a pressed top. I think it may be like the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker...

[Eric Rene Roy]

Originally Posted by arnoldschnitzer

I've been operating on basses for a few decades, and I've yet to come across a bass with a pressed top. I think it may be like the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker...

back in the early 90's when I worked in Woburn, MA for a distributor while in violinmaking school, they used to bring in containers of instruments from Sri Lanka. They were all pressed plates. The violins were ok. The cellos had tons of problems with center seam openings. There were two basses brought in...both poor...but playable. I don't know where they ended up...but somewhere there are two Sri Lankan basses labled as "Horst Jung", IF they are still alive almost 18 years later!

[fdeck]

Originally Posted by xwtb

I don't know that VS necessarily uses Kollick's pressings, which are specced a uniform 8mm thickness, but if the Hamburg gets an especially good sound there's a couple of ways this might be explained: 1 in a non-ply top all the grain runs the same way 2 it contains no adhesives or 3 (long shot, I'm sure) maybe it's both pressed _and_ carved (could happen?).

Your point about durability is well taken-- a pressed top might be providing a small improvement in sound at the expense of a major loss of toughness, as against a laminated one.

Pressed and carved would seem less likely, as they would have to start with even thicker material. Also, the stress relief from carving would seem to make the project pretty unpredictable.

[xwtb]

Originally Posted by arnoldschnitzer

I've been operating on basses for a few decades, and I've yet to come across a bass with a pressed top.

Shucks, they may be a whole lot more durable than fdeck and I ever thought they would be!

It seems the plate bending concept goes back to French luthiers of the mid-19th century, at least for violins and cellos. I can't find any mention of the technique being used on basses in that day, but besides Bob Fulton bending plates for violins (thanx, eroy, for the tip) several modern manufacturers made guitars and mandolins this way, according to a thread in the google instrument makers group http://groups.google.com/group/rec.m...d744d2e7e3f95a

And here in TB three years ago there was brief mention of someone using the technique in building a bass: http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f3/fulton-violin-plate-bending-281323-post3446649/

Given that a plate might first be bent and then carved, it might impossible to determine after the fact just how it got its shape, even if you dared slice into it. My own suspicion about the Hamburg was an inference, based on the assumption that bending would be cheaper than carving, which may not be correct. (It'd be interesting to hire a PI to track Kollick's exports and see who's really getting 'em.)

[forester]

Originally Posted by eroy

back in the early 90's when I worked in Woburn, MA for a distributor while in violinmaking school, they used to bring in containers of instruments from Sri Lanka. They were all pressed plates. The violins were ok. The cellos had tons of problems with center seam openings. There were two basses brought in...both poor...but playable. I don't know where they ended up...but somewhere there are two Sri Lankan basses labled as "Horst Jung", IF they are still alive almost 18 years later!

small world..we have several of those violins/cellos from an aquistion in New England. i had to kill one of the violins last week,the others in the shop refered to it affectionately as a "Horse Dung". i will check the basses,we might have one,.. possibly both!
(is this something you would pay lots of money for.. given it's sentimental value and everything? )

[GerardSamija]

A lot of Korean basses have pressed plates. I've a 1990 Santini from Korea on consignment right now. I've twice repaired breaks in the top, both times because the owner fell... once onto it, once beside it. The belly broke differently from how a carved belly breaks. Just long cracks, rather than the run-out types of breaks one sees towards the ends of carved plates. And there's a fair bit of distortion around the cracks, leaving a wave effect where stress in the belly has released somewhat at the cracks. Makes for an ugly repair, but it's not a bad sounding bass if one likes a lot of low frequency volume. Packs a punch, very light weight making it easy to carry around, and it was cheap to begin with. I'm not really a fan of steam-formed plates, but just as beggars can't be choosers, students often have to grab what sounds decent when the price is right.

[xwtb]

Originally Posted by fdeck

Pressed and carved would seem less likely, as they would have to start with even thicker material.

Yes, and if the point of pressing tops is to save on materials and processing, you're defeating your purpose if you also carve the thing.

What I know about bass plates is limited to what my (as yet unused) American Luthiers Guild plans (GAL #29) say, and they call for 1/2" in the middle and 1/4" at the edges, prior to tweaking for uniformity of tone. Kollick's top is 8mm (about 1/3") thick "across the board"; I'm guessing that pressed tops derive strength from their continuity of grain. It's been suggested that a way of detecting carvedness is to compare edge thickness with center thickness. I wonder if being 1/3" or less in the center, regardless of edge thickness, might similarly be a prima facie indicator of pressedness.(?)

Originally Posted by fdeck

Also, the stress relief from carving would seem to make the project pretty unpredictable.

Bob Fulton is said to carve pressed top for his fiddles, with results admired by his fellow luthiers. I suppose that carving the less-radically bent areas would be relatively less risky, so e.g. maybe the edges of a Kollick top could safely be thinned down to GAL's 1/4", to good effect.

I guess regarding my original question as to how these basses sound, it's safe to summarize the answer as "fair to middlin' ".

Thanks y'all for the interesting comments and info.