• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Double Bass Carbon Fiber Endpins

#41
Mike Crumpton said:
Oh I'd love to know what Arnold said when you asked him to fit one of those to your Martini Ken!

Great to see you around Paul - I drove through Warburton recently on the way to a gig and I thought about you which is a standard thing to do. ;-)
Click to expand...

The Martini had an Endpin unit when I bought it.. Aint broke, dont fix.. I got better things to do with my money than to buy gadgets to fix the sound from a Bass when I believe what you hear is what you get! I have several Basses here and I never look to the endpin for sound improvements. My Gilkes NEEDS a new endpin because the old one is shot and the socket is falling apart. I will put one of the ones I have from KC or one from Arnold depending on what is around at the time. No biggie..

I think if you are trying to make your Bass sound good from the endpin, maybe it's time to look for a better Bass!
 
#42
KSB - Ken Smith said:
The Martini had an Endpin unit when I bought it.. Aint broke, dont fix.. I got better things to do with my money than to buy gadgets to fix the sound from a Bass when I believe what you hear is what you get! I have several Basses here and I never look to the endpin for sound improvements. My Gilkes NEEDS a new endpin because the old one is shot and the socket is falling apart. I will put one of the ones I have from KC or one from Arnold depending on what is around at the time. No biggie..

I think if you are trying to make your Bass sound good from the endpin, maybe it's time to look for a better Bass!
Click to expand...

That's kind of striking from a guy who pioneered fancy detailing in electric basses, like multiple laminates, graphite inlays and brass nuts. I have no idea if endpins change the tone much, but I've noticed you almost always change the tuners on basses, or add flamed wood cheeks to the scroll. These things are very expensive and do nothing for the tone--why be skeptical of changing the endpin?
 
#43
PB+J said:
That's kind of striking from a guy who pioneered fancy detailing in electric basses, like multiple laminates, graphite inlays and brass nuts. I have no idea if endpins change the tone much, but I've noticed you almost always change the tuners on basses, or add flamed wood cheeks to the scroll. These things are very expensive and do nothing for the tone--why be skeptical of changing the endpin?
Click to expand...

Did you see or try the Tuners on the Basses I changed them on? You don't see me changing tuners on the Dodd! Did you see how many holes I plugged on the Basses I made cheeks for and how liitle original wood %-wise was left there on the cheeks b4 the wood plates were added? I made Maple plates for the Mystery Bass and Ebony plates for the Martini. I like to do what is needed. I will most likely change the Tuners on the Loveri as well. They do not match the Bass at all and they cover up the Purfling around the cheeks added by Scalzilli. The machines on there work fine so I will save them for a Germanic type Bass or something else they may fit.

Electric Basses had the same problems so I did what I needed to make my design a better on them. I never made tuners because I could find what I needed. I made just about everything else though because I had no choice.

Come over and swap endpins all day on my Basses. Let me know when you hear a difference that improves the Bass. I would be open to hearing it. I have had almost every type of endpin except CF and Titanuim. I never noticed a tone advandage one way or the other. I shop for good sounding Basses and rarely raise the pin at all at first. That's a height adjustment in my opinion unless your endpin is a piece of crap to begin with.
 
#44
Take the endpin out and play. Totally take the steel out, put the bass on the floor and see if you hear the difference. The endpin being connected to the tail gut - to the strings - to the shinbone all that - is a lever that applies torque to the vibrating parts (did somebody cover that above?). It doesn't make your bass anything it's not, but rather lets it be what it is...I was run through the 'endpin out test' recently and heard a significant difference, even with my marginally conscious ear. Say you're hearing the floor - but theoretically you would hear the same with the steel tip (or titanium, or CF, doesn't matter, it's still connected to the tail gut) of the endpin on the floor, and yet it's different. Louder and more resonant.

The Laborie setup, being independent of the tail gut and set in a rubber boot, does not interfere with the moving parts of the bass. Get a hold of a bass that has both, and try it out.
 
#45
Mike Crumpton said:
Great to see you around Paul - I drove through Warburton recently on the way to a gig and I thought about you which is a standard thing to do. ;-)
Click to expand...
Here I go pirating a thread...Mike, did I ever tell you how I found out that Warburton is a town not far from Manchester, England?
You know back in the old days ...'scuse me olde days, when the concert/record producers would buy a half fare ticket for the bass. They ask you to pre-board you and the bass along with babies and handi-cappers...you know the drill. Anyway after pre boarding the bass and myself, they asked the other people to board and an English fellow saw my I.D. tag on the bass case and said: Ever been there? I natually said where? He says Warburton ...it's a town near Manchester. Of coure I said 'No, but I'd love to go"
I still haven't had the pleasure.
How big of a town is Warburton?
 
#46
Paul Warburton said:
Here I go pirating a thread...Mike, did I ever tell you how I found out that Warburton is a town not far from Manchester, England?
You know back in the old days ...'scuse me olde days, when the concert/record producers would buy a half fare ticket for the bass. They ask you to pre-board you and the bass along with babies and handi-cappers...you know the drill. Anyway after pre boarding the bass and myself, they asked the other people to board and an English fellow saw my I.D. tag on the bass case and said: Ever been there? I natually said where? He says Warburton ...it's a town near Manchester. Of coure I said 'No, but I'd love to go"
I still haven't had the pleasure.
How big of a town is Warburton?
Click to expand...

Oh very small, village size, and the land is flat round there - it's by the Manchester ship canal - if you want a peek I reccomend Google maps - click 'more' on http://www.Google.co.uk then go to maps, tap in warburton (you might want to put 'near manchester' as well) and search the map - you can toggle to an ariel view - I'd post a link but it wont work on this pc (nees active X and I'm at work). The rickety toll bridge's price is fixed at something like 5p (less than 10 cents) - I remember I didn't have any change. If that doesn't work try http://www.multimap.com/ but it won't give you the aerial view. When I buy myself a digi camera for Xmas I'll send you some photos. It was night when I went through but it looks as if it was fairly nice round there - quite rural. I didn't see any carbon fibre endpins but they can be hard to fit to a tea-chest bass, it being more usual to fit di-lithium but with a kevlar pole and a single silver wound heptacore string. I wouldn't have thought these mods made much of a difference but if 9 out of 10 cats who bought them said they were happy who am I to argue? - in fact I might try them myself since I want to be happy too. :D
 
#52
With all due respect for the virtually hundreds of years of lutherie (among all the luthier naysayers here) and their nice cogent strong opinions, I as an, in the trenches jazz bassist with a fine but pedigree-less bass find a huge difference in the sound of my bass from some of these expensive gadgets.
My luthiers are always rolling their eyes at me, like I am some sort of gadget freak or something (I'm not), but they don't play my bass everyday and they don't (really) care if the E string is more open or if the resonance is affected. I know for example that the sound and openness of my bass under my fingers and next to my body and in my ears has been greatly enhanced by say the Camelopard endpin or these goofy MPM adjusters.
I just look at it as a difference in perspective. They are concerned with wood and aesthetics and history and construction and tradition (and getting me the hell outta their shop in a timely manner). I am concerned with sound, sound, sound, playability, and practical functionality (does it work every night when I remove it from it's case) and as a result my tyrolean flatback is much richer and more open and even sounding axe then when I bought it. I'm not saying that a camelopard endpin on a Kay is going to make it into a worldclass instrument, but I'm also saying that some of these new concepts thought up (for the most part by bass luthiers) can have an appreciable and positive effect on the sound and performance of (at least my) an instrument. And that it is worth it.
 
#53
Well, it's like these hi-fi nuts who swear blind that changing the direction a cable's plugged in makes a difference to the sound. Now I listen to studio quality audio all day long yet I can't hear these differences. But if they want to spend their days tinkering that's fine by me. And just occasionally some ideas prove their worth: we all used a sigle run of bell-wire for our speakers 30 years ago, for example, now we bi-wire them with enough copper to clad a roof.

So if somebody has the energy to experiment long enough with a double bass and come up with something that truly makes a difference, we should encourage that, as flatback says.
 
#54
I was able to measure a consistent 2 dB increase in SPL
after changing from a home made wooden end pin to
a home made carbon fiber endpin. I may go back and
stick in a steel just to add more data to this thread.
It was a news to me that it worked out that well. As
for cutting holes in the bottom, no thanks, I found a better
way that leaves the bass unscathed.
 
#55
Now you're talking!

Please test it with the steel pin as well and post the result, along with some pix of your mounting system.

I am completely convinced that less mass equals more sound and have proven it over and over to the delight of myself and my clients.

Are you aware of Brent Norton's lightweight tuners?

Jake
 
#56
flatback said:
With all due respect for the virtually hundreds of years of lutherie (among all the luthier naysayers here) and their nice cogent strong opinions, I as an, in the trenches jazz bassist with a fine but pedigree-less bass find a huge difference in the sound of my bass from some of these expensive gadgets.
My luthiers are always rolling their eyes at me, like I am some sort of gadget freak or something (I'm not), but they don't play my bass everyday and they don't (really) care if the E string is more open or if the resonance is affected. I know for example that the sound and openness of my bass under my fingers and next to my body and in my ears has been greatly enhanced by say the Camelopard endpin or these goofy MPM adjusters.
I just look at it as a difference in perspective. They are concerned with wood and aesthetics and history and construction and tradition (and getting me the hell outta their shop in a timely manner). I am concerned with sound, sound, sound, playability, and practical functionality (does it work every night when I remove it from it's case) and as a result my tyrolean flatback is much richer and more open and even sounding axe then when I bought it. I'm not saying that a camelopard endpin on a Kay is going to make it into a worldclass instrument, but I'm also saying that some of these new concepts thought up (for the most part by bass luthiers) can have an appreciable and positive effect on the sound and performance of (at least my) an instrument. And that it is worth it.
Click to expand...

Amen, when you play the bass day in and day out can hear/feel things that others can't.
 
#58
I don't want to hijack the thread, but after I get my
carbon end-pin reliable, I would like to lighten the
tuner pegs. The machines are already light, but those
cylindrical chunks of brass must go. I may need to retune
the neck afterwards as I expect a mode change, if it goes
the wrong way, I can easily reverse it. Light is good. Light
with matched modes is fabulous. I am a believer, as my
SPL meter rarely lies to me, and always agrees with my ears.

I need to pony up some cash to post pictures, and then I
will upload them.
 
#59
Send me pix p-mail!

Brent Norton makes tuners with aluminium shafts, or you can do as I do and gun-drill the existing plate tuners. I bore them out 3/16" shy of the string hole, then fill the cavity with sitka or yellow cedar to transmit vibrations.

I was hoping to get a set of Brent's AND drill them out for maximum lightness.

Seeya, Jake
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back