Another not loud G string

[MIKMAN]

Dear friends i have another bass in my hands, which features a low volume G string. The other three strings have the same volume, delivering a warm, loud pizz sound. The bass is strung with seasoned Spiros mittel, 4 months old. I tried all i could imagine: played with the soundpost, changed it with a thicker or a thinner one, changed the G with Corelli 370, EP weich, Spiro weich, LaBella supernil and Velvet Garbo, to no avail. Then i opted for a high saddle, which served me perfectly in a similar case, again to minimal results. Now i have no other weapon to my arsenal. This particular bass, a carved Chinese with good construction and excellent tonewoods, seems to surpass my limited knowledge in DB lutherie.
I have also to mention that the arco sound of the G string is much better than the pizz one, not distinguishably lower in volume than the arco sound of the other three strings
So i would be grateful if anyone of our esteemed luthiers could give me a hint or a suggestion. This bass has been recently purchased as a graduation gift for one of my top class students
by his parents and i'd like to set it up as best as i can.
Thanks in advance
Mike

[Eric Hochberg]

I had a similar problem with one of my basses. I fooled around with changing the distance between the 2 strands of TP cable where they went over the saddle. A wider width between them and centered to the top helped the G string quite a bit.

[George700DL]

Originally Posted by Eric Hochberg

I had a similar problem with one of my basses. I fooled around with changing the distance between the 2 strands of TP cable where they went over the saddle. A wider width between them and centered to the top helped the G string quite a bit.

Could this serve as a clue for the problem of a slightly quieter D string on a 3 stringer? (D being in the dead center of the bridge).

George

[Cody Sisk]

Maybe there's a wolf tone on the G?

[Matthew Tucker]

Does increased string tension help? Tune the G up to A. Better?

[Uncletoad]

Could go the other way too, decrease tension on the E string to increase G string weight. Try a Weich E string with Mittel A/D/G.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

In my experience, most bridges are cut with the arco player rather than the pizz player in mind, leaving the height of the G too low in relation to the height of the other strings to really let the G pop and sing when played pizz. These days, I always ask Nnick Lloyd, my Llovely Lluthier, to cut the bridge to balance the bass more toward the pizz G. Here's a thread about the same basic concept. Good luck!

[MIKMAN]

Dear friends thank you all for your contributions. Yesterday i tried an afterlength tuning and i readjusted the space between the tailpiece wires. Spacing it to 14 mm and tuning the afterlength to fifths i managed to improve the volume of the G string to a satisfactory level. Then i decided to try my Marvin wire tailpiece, raising the adjusters in order to have distances 6,7,8 and 10 mm in G,D,A and E respectively. The bass responded perfectly, the G regained the lost volume and the sustain of the four strings improved dramatically. I think that the secret must be in mode matching, since the wire tailpiece eliminates the laborious work needed on the fingerboard or on the tailpiece. I tend to believe that an experienced luthier in mode matching could reach the same results without the wire tailpiece. I wish i could have Jake De Villiers in a manageable distance in order to hear his opinion about all these problems, since he knows them so well.
Thank you all, since you are my excellent and unique reference point.
Mike

[bigolbassguy]

Very cool.