Is your bridge off the visually proper position in order the get the best sound?

[longfinger]

Hi all,

Last week I noticed the bridge centre on my Strunal was a 2-3 mm below the inside notches on the ff holes. Likely, I moved it when tapping the bridge straight to prevent an angle towards the fingerboard.

I wish I took clear photos of the bridge position when this bass came back from my luthier. I did not.

So I moved the bridge to where it is supposed to be, centered on the inside notches on the ff holes. (This is closer to the fingerboard than before. I lowered the bridge adjusters 1/2 turn to keep the string height approximately where it was before)

I noticed less bottom on the bass sound.
I've waited a week to hear if the sound will change as the bass adjusts. I don't think it did. It's hard to tell now.

I wonder if the bridge was intentionally put a bit lower than the visually proper place in order to get a better sound.

Do you or your luthiers do this occasionally?

What is the usually sonic effect of bringing the bridge closer to the tailpiece by 2mm or so? Will this give more bottom?

Are the bridges on your basses in exactly the visually proper place or have they been placed slightly off the visual, but right on the aural proper place?

thanks.

[Matthew Tucker]

More importantly is probably the relationship between sound post and bridge position. Moving bridge south moves it closer to soundpost. A luthier would probably move the sound post to the bridge to get the same effect.

That said, a longer string will usually sound better, though a few mm i wouldn't have thought would be discernable.

[bonaventura]

+1

If you liked the sound where the bridge was before, can you recall where the SP was located? If you could put the sound post in the same relation to the bridge foot, you might get the sound you liked back.

[Jake deVilliers]

Changing the position of the bridge has also changed the afterlengths. I would put it back to where it sounded better.

will sometimes intentionally mis-position the bridge in order to tune the afterlengths on a bass with a fixed tailpiece wire.

The sweet spot on a DB bassbar is pretty long and I've found you can horse around with the bridge quite a lot without causing any harm. Its very educational too.

[bonaventura]

Jake

how far can you go there? i've always been hesitant to move the bridge off the line between the inner ff-hole notches.

i have a fairly tight, dark-sounding bass that needs some help opening up. when i moved the SP recently, i got more sound.

one luthier told me he thought the bridge ought to be farther north, but i was hesitant. how much can one experiment in that direction without harming the bass?

Cheers

[robobass]

I think the poor guy in this picture needs some advice Jake!

[Gary Lynch]

My luthier does not line the bridge feet with the inside notch on the f-hole. He draw a lines from both inside and outside notches across to their counterparts on the other side. Then places the bridge feet centered between those lines equally. If you have questions about that, email him and ask him about it. He's very well trained.

http://www.thebassdoc.com/

[bonaventura]

Gary

that's very interesting. if that is his general method, it isn't too far off of the conventional one.

the conventional wisdom is: bridge feet centered on the line running between the inside notches -- at least that's what i've seen here on TB and read in various luthier's publications.

but obviously there are other ways to determine the best spot for the bridge on a particular bass, and even as a generally applicable method.


Cheers

Bill

[Jake deVilliers]

Originally Posted by robobass

I think the poor guy in this picture needs some advice Jake!

Well, they could ALL use a fashion consultant!

[Gary Lynch]

The bridge on that bass is way out. But what isn't with that group?

[bonaventura]

hey, watsa matta with you guys? those musicians is in the throes of making music. beautiful music. they've even got a uniform. i'll bet you don't sound -- or look -- any better.

[Jake deVilliers]

Originally Posted by bonaventura

Jake

how far can you go there? i've always been hesitant to move the bridge off the line between the inner ff-hole notches.

i have a fairly tight, dark-sounding bass that needs some help opening up. when i moved the SP recently, i got more sound.

one luthier told me he thought the bridge ought to be farther north, but i was hesitant. how much can one experiment in that direction without harming the bass?

Cheers

I think that as long as you are on the fat part of the bar you won't do any damage. Most bars have a 3 to 6 inch 'strong spot' under the foot of the bridge - stay back from the edges.

If you move the bridge up you'll need to move the sound post up to match - and it will flatten the afterlengths so be prepared to adjust those too if you want to know what happens when you move the bridge.

Otherwise you've changed the string length, the afterlengths, the sound post position, the tailpiece mode and the relative frequencies of the sectors of the top above and below the bridge.

Arnold would have a better idea - let's hope he happens by...

[Mudfuzz]

Originally Posted by longfinger

Is your bridge off the visually proper position in order the get the best sound?

Yes, yes it is, about 1cm.

[bonaventura]

Jake, thanks for your comments.

Originally Posted by Mudfuzz

Yes, yes it is, about 1cm.

Well, is it there by accident? Or by experiment and if so is it an improvement for you?

[Mudfuzz]

Originally Posted by bonaventura

Jake, thanks for your comments.



Well, is it there by accident? Or by experiment and if so is it an improvement for you?

No, I put it there. My bass had a 43" string length and I was thinking about a extended nut to bring it down to 42" and Arnold suggested I make the extended nut for half the distance I was shortening the length to and move the bridge forward for the other half, it worked great! I don't know what this actually did for the sound of my bass because I also refinished the bass, carved a new fingerboard and a new tailpiece as well, plus I had to move where the soundpost was do to the bridge being moved. The bass sounds a lot better then it did before I started but there are too many variables to say what made the biggest impact overall.

[bonaventura]

yeah, i guess there's an argument for doing one change at a time so you know what the actual effect of the change was... but if it sounds better, the bridge migration was at least part of that.

i think this move is worth experimenting for me because my bridge is currently below the halfway point of my bass top. in effect, the lower half of the top is shorter than the upper, which means the top cannot vibrate as freely as, say, on another bass where the bridge is right in or closer to the middle point.