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Double Bass bridge adjusters or not?

#41
I tend to only use mine when changing to a new type/brand of strings tbh. We do have pretty wild swings in weather where I live, but I keep my basses in doors so.... I also have quite a few house plants, which seem to help keep the humidity up at home (not that we get much dry weather in NC).

I played a lot of outdoor gigs in 2020 and '21 (only outdoor gigs really), but I used a plywood bass that didn't ever mind. If I were doing that now, I would use my EUB during any questionable weather.

All that said, I still think the adjusters are worth it just for the strings. Some strings need higher or lower action than others.
 
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#42
I've almost never had a need for adjusters, but they've come on every bass I've had except for my old German bass which I use for orchestral playing. It would be nice to have one millimeter more clearance for the G string on that bass, but I deal with it by adjusting my pizz approach.
 
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#44
Don Hergert said:
Hmmm, that's a small enough change that gluing a business card under the treble side bridge foot might do the trick. :D
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I’d love to hear what the mighty luthiers would have to say here. Isn’t the preferred transmission of the vibes, bridge to top, to be as direct as possible? Paper, carton, cork, all those are much softer than wood, therefore dampening the travelling vibrations, do they not?
 
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#46
Don Hergert said:
Hmmm, that's a small enough change that gluing a business card under the treble side bridge foot might do the trick. :D
Click to expand...
Yes, I was thinking along the same lines, or some sort of a shim on the bridge under the string? Under the string at the nut?
I once played a school bass, it may have had a catgut g string, and there was a small piece of an elastic band under the string at the bridge.
Not sure if any luthier would recommend this!
 
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#47
Well, there was this thread mentioning metal ferrules https://www.talkbass.com/threads/pirastro-metal-bridge-ferules.1662274/

Which I've seen on violins/fiddles commonly enough, so it's not that unusual in the family, if less commonly seen on the bass particularly.
An elastic band seems dubious due to potential damping. But anything similar to maple or harder (perhaps "in the range between maple and steel, or maple and gut for the gut folks") should work, I'd think.
 
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#48
T_Bone_TL said:
Well, there was this thread mentioning metal ferrules https://www.talkbass.com/threads/pirastro-metal-bridge-ferules.1662274/

Which I've seen on violins/fiddles commonly enough, so it's not that unusual in the family, if less commonly seen on the bass particularly.
An elastic band seems dubious due to potential damping. But anything similar to maple or harder (perhaps "in the range between maple and steel, or maple and gut for the gut folks") should work, I'd think.
Click to expand...
I was thinking maybe the undamped string was producing strange tones which the band may have softened..
 
#49
AGCurry said:
I've almost never had a need for adjusters, but they've come on every bass I've had except for my old German bass which I use for orchestral playing. It would be nice to have one millimeter more clearance for the G string on that bass, but I deal with it by adjusting my pizz approach.
Click to expand...
The thing is, when you start trying to cock the bridge higher on one side, you're almost moving it laterally and stuff gets all fouled up quickly. For a single string to raise or lower, I think it's better to do it at the bridge notch. I'm certainly not above putting a piece of heavy card stock in a bridge groove and holding it in place with a bit of glue.
 
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#50
Just as an aside, a couple months ago I got tired of trying to make my old Realist pickup work, so I bought a Full Circle. I thought I knew the right thread size, but my bass had adjusters with a weird thread size they don't make for the Full Circle.

The story's long, and I won't go through all of it, but what I ended up with (and professional luthiers should probably cover their eyes right now) was that to install the Full Circle pickup and matching adjuster, I put steel threaded inserts into the bridge feet. NOW, at least, we have metal on metal threads, which don't give me that EWWWW feeling of a metal part threading into female threads in wood.

Tonal effect (playing acoustically, no amp)? Well of course since there was a significant time between "before" and "after" and it's not really reversible, I can't say for sure, but to my ears?

Nothing. Nada. Zip, zilch, bupkis. Sounds the same to me.
 
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#51
I was having issues w/my bridge tilting so I made these aluminum bridge shims, they take up the space effectively making a solid bridge. The shims are 1/16" and 1/8", they could be made out of brass, wood etc.
 

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#54
powerbass said:
The point is the bridge tilts because of the adjuster space, using the shim stabilizes the whole bridge
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My $0.03
A more traditional and time-tested approach is to periodically check (and correct) the angle of the flat side of the bridge vs. the top plate - it should be at 90 degrees.
This applies to all bridges - with or without adjusters.
IMFO, of course, as always.
Thx.
 
#55
Don Kasper said:
My $0.03
A more traditional and time-tested approach is to periodically check (and correct) the angle of the flat side of the bridge vs. the top plate - it should be at 90 degrees.
This applies to all bridges - with or without adjusters.
IMFO, of course, as always.
Thx.
Click to expand...
Yes, I do check the bridge angle. My intent was to make an adjustable bridge w/the characteristics of a solid bridge by making solid contact points between bridge and bridge feet v. essentially a threaded rod which is a pivot. The bridge does not need adjusting w/the shims
 

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