Anyone have any suggestions as to what kinds of rosin are good for solo playing? I've been using Pirastro lately, but it doesn't have really any body at all.
I used a bit of cello rosin for a while when I was working on upper-register stuff. Put on a small amount of cello rosin, then a bit of bass. It worked pretty well, but was tedious.
I've also had a lot of success with the Oak rosin from gregorian strings (I use the soft gauge though). I use it in Orchestral and chamber playing as well. Which is to say, it's the only rosin I use.
I don't think different rosin is needed for solo playing. You'll want as much grab from the hair as possible for projection reasons so go with a softer rosin like Oak (my personal favorite), Pops, or Kolstein soft.
When I ordered the Oak (medium) I was told specifically it was for orchestral play, not solo. I think the idea is you need more grab to execute the fast separate bowings a la Beethoven and Mozart. Solo playing with expressive long tones should sound better with a more transparent rosin. Besides the symphonic stuff I also like to take an occasional arco solo in jazz. I started using a base of Oak followed by a few swipes of a hard powdery rosin ( " Famous Resitone" utterly useless on it's own) after observing Lynn Chrystie use cello rosin over bass rosin. It seems to smooth out the sound while still grabbing.
