Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronallen  Hi,
I've been checking out Chuck Traeger's book on bass setup and repair and, among many other things, he strongly suggests getting a wood endpin and doing "mode matching." This supposedly increases volume and evenness.
If you have done either of these modifications on your bass, how did it effect the sound? I sort of doubt that it would be as dramatic a change as Mr. Traeger claims but I would really like to hear from someone who has actually done this to their bass. I tried using a graphite endpin once but I couldn't really tell a difference.
Thanks,
Aaron |
I like Traeger's book a lot. IME some of the suggestions provide very noticeable improvements, while others didn't.
Many people claim that wood endpins provides a lot of benefits over steel. I can't say whether or not it did for me. I switched from a common steel endpin to a Carbon Fiber Laborie. The very noticeable improvement could have been from the new setup instead of the switching of materials. I didn't find much benefit from switching from a carbon fiber endpin to a tone wood. Your bass may vary.
I think that I can hear a difference with the mode matching, but since it's so subtle I can't say it is worth the effort. The benefits were so subtle that it could have been a placebo for me. I would say that his suggested recommendations on how much after-length did make a big difference for my bass. One of my basses came with a tailpiece that was long. When I replaced the tailpiece with a shorter one that allowed the after-length to be long enough, it opened up the E a lot.
Just recently I switched from a ebony tailpiece to a maple tailpiece to greatly reduce the weight. With the lighter tailpiece, the overtones were more pronounced giving the sound more richness, which could be perceived as brightness.
