Outdoor gig in -16°C dergee cold

[ProgRocker]

Originally Posted by Brian K

http://www.thingx.tv/articles/effect...rchestra-1018/

New kind of humor page? Clearly such an experminet never took place since it ended with deaths and serious injury.

Sorry, what was the point of posting this link again?

[ProgRocker]

Originally Posted by Brian K

Am I crazy to play a carved bass at an outdoor gig next week in -16°C or so cold? The bass is pretty tough compared to others I've owned, is 2 years old with no cracks, and I plan to keep a wet dampit in it the whole time, and to slowly bring its temperature up and down on the gig day.

While I've never palyed bass in such temps, I've skied in -30 F. Zero degrees C is 32 degrees F, and is the temp at which water freezes. So, you won't be able to keep a "wet" dampit in your bass as it will be a "frozen" dampit in fairly short order. Slow aclamation is the only way to prevent damage, and even then it is uncertain.

Just because your bass has no cracks now, that doesn't mean it won't after this stunt (gig). Unless the gig pays enough to cover potential repairs / damage and your other expenses. I'd say pass. But, you're not me, and I'm not paying for your gear. So, best of luck if you choose to do this.

[Treyzer]

Originally Posted by Don Higdon

I stand corrected. Obviously, you know more about the OP's New Standard bass than the guy who made it.
And your implicit advice, whatever it is, entails no risk on your part. At least I'm referring him to someone who knows more about basses than you or I will ever know. If you find that "harshly judgmental, unnecessarily mean-spirited", too bad.

Hey JeffyBoy, Don has a beautiful bass made by Arnold and has had a few New Standards. He also knows Arnold pretty well, probably could pick him out of a line-up!

I have a beautiful carved New Standard and I know Arnold. Although I won't put words in his mouth, I'm pretty sure he would not endorse the idea of playing outside in those kind of weather conditions However, it's a free country, the OP can do what he wants, he just won't get any support from this community!

BTW who are you, what have you done and why so angry/humorless?

[jeffbonny]

My apologies Don, your advise to contact Arnold was bang on and for my post to have been fair I should have said so.

"JeffyBoy"...oh please, is that the best you can do? I'm just another long time TB schmuck with apparently too much time on his hands or I wouldn't be back here. In any case I knew I wasn't shooting fish in a barrel criticizing Don. I'm sure he's more than capable of defending himself against the likes of me.

[Jason Sypher]

I guess you're not going to do the gig...heh heh. It's just unthinkable, near zero temperature with a fine piece of carved craftsmanship. I've done some crazy gigs, some crazy cold gigs, some outdoor crazy cold gigs. But I've never done anything under say 50 degrees with some wind and that felt like it was really pushing it. I never experienced any damage but I was sure the bass didn't like it too much and I felt pretty pissed that the promoter would even suggest that we do the gig under those conditions. I play for a living, so I did the gig. I think you underestimate the community here, we've all done stupid gigs. But this one is beyond reasonable, not just for a bass, but for a human being.

[MR PC]

Originally Posted by Brian K

Am I crazy to play a carved bass at an outdoor gig next week in -16°C or so cold? The bass is pretty tough compared to others I've owned, is 2 years old with no cracks, and I plan to keep a wet dampit in it the whole time, and to slowly bring its temperature up and down on the gig day.

Yes. But you already knew that.

[Ric5]

Outdoor gig in -16°C dergee cold

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is why there are DJs

Also who wants to be outside in -16 to listen to music?

[jnel]

Questions: will the audience be able to see the orchestra through all of the condensation breath? Will the conductor keep his hands in his pockets and blow smoke rings to keep the rhythm?

Will there be police present to control the crowd?

Will there be matches to set the stage on fire?

Will the music freeze before it reaches the audience?

will there be coffee? What about HOT dogs?

Will there be an intermission? I vote no!

Will handheld fireworks be permitted?

Electrical outlets for electric blankets?

Will children get in free?

If i decide to - can i just listen from my car?

Will there be a fireplace in the port-a-potty? Will the potty have anit-freeze?

Is there an alternate plan for inclement weather?

will the mayor be there to give us her blessing

will the pope be there to administer last rites?

Wll the local fire department be there to separate lips from brass?

smokem if you gottem?

[gerry grable]

Originally Posted by Treyzer

I think this gets the humorless award for the month and is in contention for years end clueless awards; Playing in those conditions is not playing, it's enduring and/or surviving at best! Although the instrument may come out unscathed, it's pretty obvious that double basses are not intended for such abuse!

Ha, ha. . .This cold-weather advice coming from someone sanctimoniously ensconced in Hawaii
jeffbonney is right on. Play the gig if you want.
Steel strings will be chilly
Remember Yo-Yo at the Omama inauguration? It was cold as hell that day. But, then again, it was fake. He air-bowed

[uOpt]

If you want to do this and you want to make sure the bass isn't damaged the key is to make it cool down to those temperatures very slowly, and bring it back up very slowly. It's not the temperature that does the damage, it's the change, the change effects different parts of the bass differently over time and that causes cracks. You need to make sure the parts that are slower to react have a chance to keep up before half the bass has sped too far ahead.

I would wrap some blanket around the bass case and leave it in the car trunk 1 or 2 nights before, then go reverse after the gig.

[morgansterne]

seriously, if nobody cared about ya we wouldn't post a thing. Your bass can be replaced. Your fingers can't.
I got a brass quartet together to do door to door christmas carols in high school once. It was about twenty degrees out or so. In ten minutes the valves in the instruments were freezing up and ya couldn't play.
If that hadn't happened, we'd probably have had a "Christmas Story" flagpole situation in twenty minutes anyway. chances are good there's someone in your group who will have an instrument that can't work in those conditions.

[longfinger]

Just because the outdoors is -16ºC, does not mean the stage will me that cold.

Check out the photo gallery here...

http://www.montrealenlumiere.com/out...e/default.aspx

There were musical bands playing outdoors for audiences of thousands in the cold, and the stages were heated.

Of course precautions must be taken, but the idea is not one that is crazy. People can engineer their way around the problems presented.

Warm-weather pansies! ;-)

[jnel]

one final question before my family decides to attend the hottest gig in town.

it comes from my daddy-"well, grandma got run over by a reindeer, so she won't attend, but grandpa will be there and when he gets cold, his teeth clatter somethin awful- we'll try to keep him in meter, okay?

Somehow "break-a-leg" just doesn't seem to say enough

uh, dig the gig
cream your seams
wear a cup
shawl your shoulder
cover your bouts
hug your neck
kiss a frog

[jnel]

and when she get there, she meets an angel named Clarence who just happens to be an angel specializing in helping people who are about to do something...

Granma--Clarence, there is someone down below who could use your help

Clarence-oh, is he sick, crazy?

Granma- no, worse-he's confused

Clarence turns and looks over since there was no up from there and asked "if i help him might i earn my wings?"

The orchestra is set- time for a concert A- the Oboist sat frozen, so the conductor who was a bass, now a tenor(forgot his cup) made the sound of a bell-like A

Granpa-way to go granma

[Brian K]

Wow, what myriad directions this thread has tumbled off into.

Just saw that the weather prediction for the city and day of the gig has improved to a high of -5°C. That's 23°F.

If only it were going -40° so we wouldn't have to worry about metric/imperial conversion, not to mention what bass to bring!

[jnel]

thanks BK for being a good sport-

we all deal with our nervousness for you in different ways.

If you do decide to go ahead with it, I hope that you will use a ply bass.

good luck-let us know what you do- should be very interesting!

[Damon Rondeau]

I'm going to pull cold weather rank here right away. Folks, unless you live in Nunavut, Siberia or the high Arctic or Antarctic, then you don't live in a colder place than I do. I live in the coldest climate city in the world. (City: urban locales with half a million or more people; cold: based on mean January daily low temperature.) I am 52 years old and have 26 years total of cold weather service. I can learn a lot at TalkBass -- and I do all the time -- but learning about cold weather and how stuff behaves in cold weather is not likely to be one of them. I keep an open mind, though.

Your bass is not likely to have any damage related to the temperature as such. There may be humidity-related issues but I don't know what your bass is used to. Very cold weather is dry weather -- the R.H. will be high but that's only because the air can't hold very much water at all in really low temps. That's a humidification question, though, not a cold weather question.

The wood is affected in almost no way at all because of the cold (again: humidity is a different -- albeit related -- question.) Your finish is not likely to be affected in any way at all. I don't have a lot of experience with double basses in the cold, but I can tell you with some authority that, in Winterpeg, we have no history of cold-weather trouble related to wood finishes on furniture. I'm a woodworker and have worked in the finishing and refinishing biz, both here and in a tropical location; I've never heard of, let alone seen, a finish affected by the cold. In theory: maybe. In practice: no.

About the only common material that musicians encounter that has cold-weather issues is plastic. Many plastics will get brittle and fail in cold weather. LCD displays also get squirrely past about -25 or so.

I've traveled to gigs with my DB all throughout the year, have done so for years. I know guys who have 5 or more decades doing the same things in these parts. There is no history of cold weather problems and basses.

In sum, the cold itself presents little hazard to your bass. There are unknowns, though. If it's a truly fine instrument and you are unsure, you may want to consider if you're up to dealing with the unknown.

As for yourself, and playing in cold weather -- unless you're actually risking frostbite then take the "never ever play in cold weather" advice from our southern friends with about 3 pounds of salt. You won't hurt yourself by getting cold! That's just crazy talk and I hope we don't hear any more of it. Playing well and playing comfortably is another story. I've done bass guitar jobs in winter weather. Always in tents or shelters of some kind -- never directly outside in the wind. I can tell you that yes, you can play the bass guitar wearing lightweight fleece gloves. That's not the time to show the world how you can cut Jaco to shreds on "Donna Lee". If you're keeping it simple it certainly can be done. Whether you want it to be done is another story entirely.

I guess that's a bit more than 2 cents worth, but this cold weather talk has to be grounded in reality. The OP has had some pretty worthless advice from some folks in this thread.

Besides, -16C is pretty much perfect winter weather as far as I'm concerned.

[drurb]

Originally Posted by Damon Rondeau

...I don't have a lot of experience with double basses in the cold, but I can tell you with some authority that, in Winterpeg, we have no history of cold-weather trouble related to wood finishes on furniture.

What happens to a relatively thin piece of wood under hundreds of pounds of pressure and affixed with hide glue when it's exposed to such temperatures and then brought back to room temperature? How does hide glue, itself, react? Even in the coldest of climates, DBs are almost always indoors. At what temperature do you keep your DB when you are travelling with it in the cold climate?

[gerry grable]

Originally Posted by Damon Rondeau

I'm going to pull cold weather rank here right away. Folks, unless you live in Nunavut, Siberia or the high Arctic or Antarctic, then you don't live in a colder place than I do. I live in the coldest climate city in the world. (City: urban locales with half a million or more people; cold: based on mean January daily low temperature.) I am 52 years old and have 26 years total of cold weather service. I can learn a lot at TalkBass -- and I do all the time -- but learning about cold weather and how stuff behaves in cold weather is not likely to be one of them. I keep an open mind, though.

Your bass is not likely to have any damage related to the temperature as such. There may be humidity-related issues but I don't know what your bass is used to. Very cold weather is dry weather -- the R.H. will be high but that's only because the air can't hold very much water at all in really low temps. That's a humidification question, though, not a cold weather question.

The wood is affected in almost no way at all because of the cold (again: humidity is a different -- albeit related -- question.) Your finish is not likely to be affected in any way at all. I don't have a lot of experience with double basses in the cold, but I can tell you with some authority that, in Winterpeg, we have no history of cold-weather trouble related to wood finishes on furniture. I'm a woodworker and have worked in the finishing and refinishing biz, both here and in a tropical location; I've never heard of, let alone seen, a finish affected by the cold. In theory: maybe. In practice: no.

About the only common material that musicians encounter that has cold-weather issues is plastic. Many plastics will get brittle and fail in cold weather. LCD displays also get squirrely past about -25 or so.

I've traveled to gigs with my DB all throughout the year, have done so for years. I know guys who have 5 or more decades doing the same things in these parts. There is no history of cold weather problems and basses.

In sum, the cold itself presents little hazard to your bass. There are unknowns, though. If it's a truly fine instrument and you are unsure, you may want to consider if you're up to dealing with the unknown.

As for yourself, and playing in cold weather -- unless you're actually risking frostbite then take the "never ever play in cold weather" advice from our southern friends with about 3 pounds of salt. You won't hurt yourself by getting cold! That's just crazy talk and I hope we don't hear any more of it. Playing well and playing comfortably is another story. I've done bass guitar jobs in winter weather. Always in tents or shelters of some kind -- never directly outside in the wind. I can tell you that yes, you can play the bass guitar wearing lightweight fleece gloves. That's not the time to show the world how you can cut Jaco to shreds on "Donna Lee". If you're keeping it simple it certainly can be done. Whether you want it to be done is another story entirely.

I guess that's a bit more than 2 cents worth, but this cold weather talk has to be grounded in reality. The OP has had some pretty worthless advice from some folks in this thread.

Besides, -16C is pretty much perfect winter weather as far as I'm concerned.

+1, Damon and I don't mean degrees C or F
We're dealing with seasoned wood here, not a freakin' souffle'

[drurb]

What we're dealing with here is speculation. Any actual evidence that a DB would do just fine at 16C (3.2F)? Wood does expand and contract. Living, working, and traveling with a DB in a very cold climate isn't relevant to the question if the DB isn't exposed to such extremes. I'd go with common sense and with the advice of luthiers.