Double Bass A little surprised at this string intonation issue ..

[jandyman]

I don't know if this will help but in my experience of playing both instruments the concept of tuning temperaments enters in to this discussion. The electric bass or any fretted instrument is in equal- temperament tuning but the upright is temperament-adjustable. Even the lines on a fretless are in equal. To me this means that there is literally no one spot on the fingerboard that is in tune all the time in all circumstances. Different strings have different overtones so that placing a finger directly across two strings may not sound in tune. Tuners are in equal temperament so the overtones are not necessarily in tune. The other instruments you're playing with affect it among other things. If you were ever in the unlikely situation of playing electric bass with a string quartet you would hear this immediately. Even if you're playing with a keyboard which is in equal temperament you would have to adjust your pitch on the upright compared with playing alone. There are many more aspects to temperaments and the whole subject is fascinating, at least to me. There are some excellent books on the subject but the ears really are the thing. IMO if you let go of the one-spot idea and get used to making hearing-based adjustments you save a lot of time and grief. Playing on or with only fixed pitch instruments like keyboard of guitar gives a limited and somewhat false idea of what good intonation is.

Again, respectfully, I understand all this. My fretless basses do not have "lines". I understand equal temperaments. I do make adjustments for temperaments, most obviously to third intervals, because they are usually the most egregious situations to deal with. I do this by ear, any other way would overload my brain. If I thought about it case by case, I could do it logically, but not in a musical flow.

Having said all this, the situation I find myself in with regards to the original subject is outside the bounds of a discussion on temperament. What I'm experiencing is an observation of greater magnitude than that. And it is inconsistent from string to string. The D vs G string discrepancy is "huge", but there is an opposite D to A string discrepancy, and really no E to A string discrepancy to speak of.

It's got to be a bum string or a problem with this particular model/brand of string.

So a final comment is this. I truly appreciate the spirit of all the answers here. This is a great forum and I'm grateful for it. If I reacted strongly, it is because I felt that certain folks weren't actually paying that much attention to what I was actually asking. I guess that is understandable, and I should be more patient. No one here knows me, so it is easy to jump to conclusions about how I might be misunderstanding a situation.

 

[jandyman]

It's not personal, you asked a question and I gave you my opinion. I apologize if I've offended you in any way.

In the old dayz of TalkBass the answer to this, and all questions was "get a teacher" and/or "practice."

No offense taken! I'm sorry if I sounded that way, I was just frustrated.

 

[Jeff Kissell]

...What I'm experiencing is an observation of greater magnitude than that. And it is inconsistent from string to string. The D vs G string discrepancy is "huge", but there is an opposite D to A string discrepancy, and really no E to A string discrepancy to speak of...

Based on this specifically, I'm almost positive it's not the string. I would suggest examining the nut and bridge slots closely. It's possible that the D string slot is different than the G or A there by causing the string length to be different. Either it's too tight and the string is not seated properly or angle is wrong. Definitely check all four strings.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Agree with the comment that the player needs to get a feel for each individual instrument, and that is part of the deal. But there is a physical aspect to this outside of string land that hasn't been brought up yet.

On the DB, the heights of the strings are generally much higher off the board than on any other instrument. If the string height difference between adjacent strings is extreme, then the string with the higher height will intonate differently in the same spot than the lower height one. I'm no physicist, but it seems that this should be because the extra height would be part of the string length formula when the string is pressed down to the board, whereas harmonics should be in the same spot if the strings are true.

I've had two basses that had OBS (orchestra bridge syndrome) when I first got them - the D string was set much higher above the board than the G for the sake of bow clearance. In addition to making the pizz feel really awkward on the D string, it also displaced the intonation in the way described. I found the pizz feel aspect a lot more annoying than the intonation displacement, which was a pretty easy adjustment since I tend to play with my eyes closed. But I remember noticing the intonation thing as well. I've also noticed that E strings on a beveled board tend to often have the same issue.

 

[jandyman]

Based on this specifically, I'm almost positive it's not the string. I would suggest examining the nut and bridge slots closely. It's possible that the D string slot is different than the G or A there by causing the string length to be different. Either it's too tight and the string is not seated properly or angle is wrong. Definitely check all four strings.

That's an interesting thought, but as far as I can tell, there isn't any evidence of any issues with nut or bridge slots. Given the original inquiry, that would the first place to look.

 

[jandyman]

Agree with the comment that the player needs to get a feel for each individual instrument, and that is part of the deal. But there is a physical aspect to this outside of string land that hasn't been brought up yet.

On the DB, the heights of the strings are generally much higher off the board than on any other instrument. If the string height difference between adjacent strings is extreme, then the string with the higher height will intonate differently in the same spot than the lower height one. I'm no physicist, but it seems that this should be because the extra height would be part of the string length formula when the string is pressed down to the board, whereas harmonics should be in the same spot if the strings are true.

I've had two basses that had OBS (orchestra bridge syndrome) when I first got them - the D string was set much higher above the board than the G for the sake of bow clearance. In addition to making the pizz feel really awkward on the D string, it also displaced the intonation in the way described. I found the pizz feel aspect a lot more annoying than the intonation displacement, which was a pretty easy adjustment since I tend to play with my eyes closed. But I remember noticing the intonation thing as well. I've also noticed that E strings on a beveled board tend to often have the same issue.

This an even more interesting thought. Though, looking at the string heights, they don't look out of whack.

I'm going to order some new Spiros, now that the ones I bought at the classifieds seem to be lost in the mail forever. I've been wanting to try them anyway. If the problem goes away, then I'll know what it was.

 

[CaseyVancouver]

Spiro’s = great choice

If your E currently does not speak well or growl try a stark Spiro E with a mixed set.

 

[jandyman]

Spiro’s = great choice

If your E currently does not speak well or growl try a stark Spiro E with a mixed set.

Really interesting. I would have thought that that Stark E would have a darker sound than a lighter gauge. I'm always wanting the E to have a richer overtone series.

 

[AGCurry]

Really interesting. I would have thought that that Stark E would have a darker sound than a lighter gauge. I'm always wanting the E to have a richer overtone series.

Higher-tension strings, all other things being equal, tend to produce more overtones.

 

[jandyman]

Higher-tension strings, all other things being equal, tend to produce more overtones.

That's interesting, because of the few different strings I've had the opportunity to try, the reverse has been true. That's probably coincidental based string formulation and age

 

[DoubleMIDI]

Chris is right regarding the string height. By pressing down the string you stretch the string which means the tension gets higher on the string. The more you need to press down, the more the tension rises and the more the pitch does as well.

This is the same with BG, but DB strings have a higher action than BG strings so this is more noticeable on DB. Also the bridge curvature because of bowing angles as mentioned by Chris can influence the action height from string to string more than the almost flat bridge on a BG.

Think of an open string and a pressed down string. They form a triangle and the sum of the lengths of the pressed down string is longer than the open string. That’s how the string is stretched. And the larger the distance to the fingerboard the higher the triangle gets and therefore the longer the pressed down string.

Steel core strings which are rather hard to stretch react more by rising the tension than synthetic core strings.
Obligato and Evah Pirazzi (Weich) do stretch a lot more than typical steel core strings. You have to wind a lot more string onto the peg to get the string to pitch with these strings than steel core strings. So stretching a bit more by pressing down With synthetic core strings doesn’t raise the pitch as much as with steel core strings.

I once made some measurements how much string length moved over the bridge by rising the pitch from a minor third below destination pitch up to destination pitch.
I didn’t measured the whole set, just one string of a set, but since the core is the same for all four strings (except with gut strings), this was not needed.
I cannot remember the title but I think it began with “elongation of ...”.
Almost nobody seemed to had interest reading it yet. Maybe because they couldn’t see the consequences to the characteristics of the string (like the dynamic limitation with Evah Pirazzi Weich strings).
It was interesting that the cores of different synthetic core strings did stretch by different amounts.

 

[jandyman]

Chris is right regarding the string height. By pressing down the string you stretch the string which means the tension gets higher on the string. The more you need to press down, the more the tension rises and the more the pitch does as well.

This is the same with BG, but DB strings have a higher action than BG strings so this is more noticeable on DB. Also the bridge curvature because of bowing angles as mentioned by Chris can influence the action height from string to string more than the almost flat bridge on a BG.

Think of an open string and a pressed down string. They form a triangle and the sum of the lengths of the pressed down string is longer than the open string. That’s how the string is stretched. And the larger the distance to the fingerboard the higher the triangle gets and therefore the longer the pressed down string.

Steel core strings which are rather hard to stretch react more by rising the tension than synthetic core strings.
Obligato and Evah Pirazzi (Weich) do stretch a lot more than typical steel core strings. You have to wind a lot more string onto the peg to get the string to pitch with these strings than steel core strings. So stretching a bit more by pressing down With synthetic core strings doesn’t raise the pitch as much as with steel core strings.

I once made some measurements how much string length moved over the bridge by rising the pitch from a minor third below destination pitch up to destination pitch.
I didn’t measured the whole set, just one string of a set, but since the core is the same for all four strings (except with gut strings), this was not needed.
I cannot remember the title but I think it began with “elongation of ...”.
Almost nobody seemed to had interest reading it yet. Maybe because they couldn’t see the consequences to the characteristics of the string (like the dynamic limitation with Evah Pirazzi Weich strings).
It was interesting that the cores of different synthetic core strings did stretch by different amounts.

I totally get the principle - I'm an engineer. It just doesn't look like there is any noticeable discrepancy in string height. And would it make sense that this would only affect the relationship of the D to G strings, but not of the E to A or A to D?

EDIT:

I've been thinking about this, and something about this post and the mention of string elasticity struck a chord. One thing I've always noticed about the Corelli string set is that there is very little apparent difference between the D and G strings. I can barely tell them apart. If the G string needs to be more elastic because of the higher pitch, then maybe the stretching of the string to push it down is causing the G string to go more sharp even with the same approximate string height. The one thing about this theory that appeals to me is that the direction is correct - the G string *is* sharp at the same finger position relative to the other strings.

If there is something to this theory, then it would be a matter of string gauge, and a differently configured set might behave differently. And the strings are steel, so they are less elastic overall.

 

[jj.833]

Subbed. I'm wondering what you find out with new strings. It seems to me that in the discussion above, every technical aspect has been covered, except trying new strings. I think that if the problem remains with a new string, the reason might lie in, sorry for the term, psychical aspects.

I came to double bass after some 15 years of bass guitar fretted and fretless, and I remember that in the beginning, almost all notes higher up the board were out of their expected places (different scale taken into account). Even today, after some 10 years of honest home and stage work, I find many notes weirdly off from what logic wants to tell me. Like G on A and D on E, for example. There are many technique aspects to this, some discussed here. A good test for whether it's instrument's fault, or player's, would be a consistency of differences between strings, but you know that.

I found that to play the double bass alright, I needed to change my thinking. (Lots of double bassist think that they can automatically play bass guitar since it's easier, but they are wrong.) To make the mental transfer I undergone more or less this learning sequence:
- learned the tones on all strings 'up to the 5th fret' (Simandl1)
- learned to use all tones up to an octave on G string (Simandl1)
- got myself introduced to thumb position (Petracchi?)
- played (and still playing) tons and tons of scales on all strings in all position through whole board. Learning one way to play it, then another, and so on. (Rabbath 3, or on your own)
You can surely imagine that all this serves to map the fingerboard mentally, without being dependent on what eyes see and fingers want to feel. Along the way, everything else is also learned ;-)

 

[AGCurry]

That's interesting, because of the few different strings I've had the opportunity to try, the reverse has been true. That's probably coincidental based string formulation and age

This is more an empirical answer than a scientific one, but: Think of piano strings, and imagine how the piano would sound with less-tensioned thinner strings.

 

[jandyman]

This is more an empirical answer than a scientific one, but: Think of piano strings, and imagine how the piano would sound with less-tensioned thinner strings.

Well, if you want a scientific hypothesis, try this. A heavier string will tend to be stiffer in general, so the smaller wavelengths of the overtones are more likely to be damped than the fundamental. On electric, a heavier string tends to be darker in sound for this reason, and also more prone to inharmonicity. Lighter strings can sound "thin", the opposite where the fundamental is weak compared to the overtones. I don't think inharmonicity is a real issue on upright because of the longer scale. And of course I'm ignoring string construction. I think the reason that steel strings are wound is at least partially to increase the mass without increasing the stiffness in the same amount. That's why on electric, round core strings are more flexible than hex core strings and less prone to inharmonicity. This can really help with inharmonicity on the E string when way up the neck.

I do believe you that heavier strings on upright produce more overtones (an empirical reality based on a lot more experience than I have), especially on the E string, but I can't think of "why". Coming up with a scientific hypothesis for why this might not be the case isn't difficult.

 

[jj.833]

Sound of double bass comes from body mostly. The higher tension strings, the more the bridge moves, the more the body moves, the more overtones you hear.

 

[jandyman]

Sound of double bass comes from body mostly. The higher tension strings, the more the bridge moves, the more the body moves, the more overtones you hear.

Assuming that the body response is non-linear, that actually makes sense. By non-linear I mean that the body actually introduces a subtle "distortion" with increased movement, even though it is not heard as distortion. Distortion will create more overtones, even if the stimulus is a pure sine wave, not a complex string vibration.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

Stiffness is indeed a factor. The stiffness is mostly coming from the thickness by the windings, not the core which is equal on steel core strings. It depends on manufacturing how close the windings are wound if the string is more or less flexible. But it mainly influences higher harmonics.
Another thing with thin steel strings is if they are indeed pressed completely to the board. If not, and this can easily happen with the highest string, then the vibrating string length is longer than you might think and so the pitch gets down. You can use a toothpick crossed on top of the string to press the string down in place to get sure it is not the flesh of your finger that lets the string vibrate beyond the intended position.
But the easiest way is to ask for a replacement string or try a different set of strings to find out if it is the string or something else.

 

[Povl Carstensen]

The D vs G string discrepancy is "huge", but there is an opposite D to A string discrepancy, and really no E to A string discrepancy to speak of.

If this means A and G are alike, it suggests an issue with the D string, and that suspicion would be nice to get rid of.

 

[Flamingo21]

For decades, my main instrument was Viola. It only makes sense to assume that everything discussed in this interesting thread, happens there too but on a smaller scale. (Pun not intended.) I just was never aware of these things, and with Viola you are looking at your instrument from a disadvantageous angle. If you look at all.

So I feel like I'm learning new stuff about my old instrument here. Subscribed.