Double Bass And we think a 4/4 bass is big

[GretschWretch]

Meet the 17/4 bass.

One of the stranger huge basses was built in 1924 in Ionia, New Jersey by Arthur K. Ferris on the orders, he claimed, of the archangel Gabriel. This bass stood nearly 14 feet tall (426 cm), weighed an astonishing 1298 lbs (590 kg) and strung with leather strings that ran a total of 104 feet (31.7 m)! It could not be heard as it fell below the threshold of human hearing.

Gigantic basses - Music Banter

 

[buckthorn]

I once saw Roscoe Mitchell perform with a "triple contrabass" (or something like that; it may have been named differently) that was of a similar size. The bassist stood (sat?) on a ladder of some sort.

 

[arto alho]

Octobass

 

[Papageno]

Meet the 17/4 bass.
One of the stranger huge basses was built in 1924 in Ionia, New Jersey by Arthur K. Ferris on the orders, he claimed, of the archangel Gabriel. This bass stood nearly 14 feet tall (426 cm), weighed an astonishing 1298 lbs (590 kg) and strung with leather strings that ran a total of 104 feet (31.7 m)! It could not be heard as it fell below the threshold of human hearing.

Gigantic basses - Music Banter

Those 590 kg are insane. Did the guy make his bass of cast iron? The bass is approximately 2 times higher than a normal bass, so it should weight 8 times more (2x higher, 2x wider, 2x thicker). A normal bass weights 10 - 12 kg, so this one should not weight more than 100kg. I read somewhere the guy spent some time in an institution for mentally ill people. I'm not really surprised...

BTW. When opening the picture, there is popup saying: "click to view in full size." Scary!

 

[Gsnorgathon]

Even bigger than an octobass. Does that make it a dodecabass?

 

[Papageno]

It's not a doghouse. Rather a bearhouse!

 

[Gsnorgathon]

Maybe we should ask the mods to merge this thread and the "Hank the Tank" thread?