Does rosin greatly effect your sound/tone?

[Tree]

hey i am just wondereing if rosin effects your tone in many way, and if so in what ways. Also I am after some good rosin but am not too sure what to get, any advise would be much apreciated.
thanks for your help
seeya Tay

[anonymous0726]

My experience is that the tone isn't greatly affected by different flavors, within reason. The difference in how much rosin you use makes a huge difference. Except Pops rosin, which is like putting rubber cement on your bow and makes the bass sound like a baritone chainsaw.

[Silversorcerer]

Heck, when I use Pops, mine sounds more like a snoring tugboat. It's good stuff, but you have to cut it with something harder, like Hidersine #2, which seems to work well for everything but my E-string on a cold day. And there you go; there's a whole bunch of variables, steel strings, gut strings, wound gut strings, weather, bow hair, boxers, briefs, etc.

It seems a bunch of people like carlsson's, which I have ordered but not gotten yet. I'm also going to try some oak rosin soon. Do a search on this forum and you'll find all the controversies.

[Chasarms]

Pops has so much bite that you can actually hear the string catching and letting go over and over. The tone is fairly abrasive compared to most rosin.

I keep a fairly fresh cake of it though as it great for really fresh hair or if you are in panic. It works well for loudness.

My normal preference is Carlsson. It has good bite but overall it is much smoother than Pops. In addition, it is easier to work with as it doesn't turn to goo in the heat.

Nyman's is about the same thing as Carlssons.

[Tree]

thanks for your help it was much appreciated, i have orderd pops and Carlsson from a local music shop, hopefully they will be here soon.
thanks once again,
seeya Tay

[Pete G]

Pops works great if you don't overapply it and you use fresh cakes.

Any rosin will make your bowing sound bad if you apply too much.

[Tree]

about how much would you use?
i am not really too sure, i just put enough on so that it looks like there is enough on there, seems to work fine, so i guess im not using too much.

[anonymous0726]

I put a swipe or two of Nymans on about once a week.

[Silversorcerer]

Temperature makes a difference and when you first start your practice session, the bow will be cold. The rosin gets sticky once the bow hair warms up, which it does after you play a little. So it's good to get in the habit of playing a little before you decide to add rosin, because with a cold bow, it always seems to need a fresh swipe. If it's grabbing after a couple of ups and downs the scale, there's enough already, if it's sliding at that point, you need another swipe. How often you add it depends on how much you play with the bow and how well the hair is broken in. New hair, you'll be putting some on for a few days and then after a week more like every other day and after a two weeks a lot less.

[tornadobass]

Pops sure seems to be great for grabbing the strings and playing loudly. I put too much on my bow this weekend and the bow would sometimes stop in the softer passages. Also, with Pops it helps to wipe off the strings to avoid a buildup that muffles the sound a bit. I'll probably keep on using it, though, just because of how it makes the bow so grippy.

[jneuman]

I tried Swedish rosin but now I have gone back to Pop's. Pour on some Pop's if you want to not worry about squeeks and like to make a loud noise. Just make sure the bow doesn't totally adheare to the string. Seriously though, I put on 2 or 3 swipes before orchestral rehearsals and concerts only. I also flick the bow hair every now and then to get rid of the excess. A friend of mine who teaches young kids put some Pop's on a student's bow and the kid exclaimed "Wow, my bass works now" - Pop's rosin changing lives.

Jon

[Silversorcerer]

I've tried some of the Carlsson's now. It's not bad. I'm going to keep trying it for a while to see if I just need to get more used to it. I like it better than the Hidersine #2, but I find I still need the Pops if I really want to get the low strings moving with certainty. I just switched basses and the new bass has helicore orchs which bow much better than the hybrids. So even the Pops sounds much smoother on these. It takes some grippy stuff to get that 43" low B moving quickly. Now it sounds like an Ocean Liner's mating call.

[anonymous0726]

I find that I have to remind myself every few days to slow down the bow on the big strings...

[Hector Wolff]

You can slow the bow, or you can slightly increase the bow pressure, which is what I was taught to do. This will definately help get the lowest strings started.

[anonymous0726]

On all of the strings the bow has to have a grip on the string before you get going. The big strings and open strings are much less forgiving on this than the closed notes on the D and G.

An exercise that I do a few times a week is some variant of playing up and down strokes and varying tempos where I don't actually play a note, but instead push the string ALMOST to the point of letting loose of the bow. I slowly lengthen the notes fom ultra-staccato to legato and back down to the original situation. I think that open strings are the most informative lesson, but doing this all up and down the strings gives your right hand a lot of insight.

[Hector Wolff]

Ray

I agree, that is exactly how I start each practice seesion. My teacher seems to put more emphasis on bow pressure rather than bow speed. I'm sure that's because I have a tendancy to not "dig in", I am very light on the strings, and that often makes for a "surfacy" kind of tone.

I do spend a great deal of time bowing open strings at various speeds and at different positions relative to the bridge.