Look Ma, No Tailpiece!

[Maaaven]

I did an experiment with removing the tailpiece and replacing it
with two long loops of 3/16 7/7 braided wire rope. The ends are
looped back into a splice to anchor the strings and a bit of heat
shrink to cover the sharp wire ends.

This was all done in my carved 3/4 german bass circa 1950.
This instrument is notable for being exceptionally loud and is
very light, due to agressive regradution done a few decades
back. (ex David Young) I have a new set of Corelli 370M
strings on the bass, so it is quite bright.

What I expected was louder volume. I measured volume on
open strings before and after the change with a SPL meter
placed 18 inches from the front plate at bridge level.

The bass was _not_ measurably louder on any open string.

I built up some wolf tone eliminator type weights in
anticipation of this projects. I ended up using them on
the D and G strings, which vibrate violently during fff pizz.
In some cases string ends would clack against each other.
In no case is the vibrating afterlength associated with the
same string, they each have unique tuning (D = B, etc).

I added some damping with a rubber band near the weights
on the afterlength and this controls the motion sufficiently.

So was this experiment a bust? Hardly. I am getting a
bright ringing tone during arco playing that has always
eluded me. I intend this to be my mainly ARCO bass,
(I did put 370m string on after all).

The only downside is the hassle of stringing up all those
ends, a tailpiece makes it all neat and tidy while things are
loose, and without one it is more difficult to change out a
single string, as each wire has two attached in my design.

Perhaps I should subscribe and learn to post pics if anyone
cares to see me work.