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Double Bass Carbon fibre double basses

#21
jtlownds said:
Carbon Fiber

Don't be put off by some of the negative sounding replies to your thread. Most of the folks on this forum tend to be traditionalists. (There is no other material than wood). I tend to be one myself. Most of them have probably heard some of the awful aluminum and fibreglass basses, but very few have heard the carbon fibre ones (including me).
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Thanks for your consideration - but don't worry, I like my CF bass because it suits my kind of special travelling needs, and because I'm a bit lazy and careless person and don't want to worry too much about my bass' wellbeing all the time. I like to be able to treat it rough at times. AND I like the sound - lots of bottom, easy to play.

It's obvious that the sound is different from (and at some points clearly better than) a wooden bass of same price. So some people have their very good reasons not to like it. OK with me! Different needs.

I didn't open this thread to convince anybody about anything. I opened it to gain from other CF bass users' experiences and share mine - but it seems that very few have ever played this kind of instrument for a longer period of time - let alone owned one.

I hope one day to hear from users of both COSI and Quintus, and eventually Luis and Clark CF basses.

Is anybody out there.....there.....ere.....???

Must be perfect for music school basses also.

In the meantime, I encourage again you to look at this marvellous guy Invalid Link Removed.
 
#22
We've seen quite a few CF basses at our shop here in Austin and it's been hit or miss.

The Cosi that came through was less than impressive, not only in tone reproduction, but in fit and finish as well. The customer was quite pleased with it, but maybe thin and nasal is just the thing for jazz these days. Worse still was the case that came with it, which might have had a better low end :eyebrow: The Quintus cellos and bass we've seen have ranged from just OK, to really damn impressive. I'd be happy to play one if they gave me one. However, the placement of the soundpost and choice of strings had quite a lot to do with it, just as would be the case with a "real" wood bass.

Personally, I'm for it. I've spent way too much repairing my carved boxes, beat up too easily going to and from the bandstand. Some of the best sounding gig basses I've come across were made of metal and even a Roth Fiberglass. At the end of the day, its the set up and the player that make the big difference.

I'm soon to experiment with a carbon fiber bridge for my plywood bass. And even a carbon fiber sound post, which we've been using to add vollume to quite violins with great effect. Exciting times.
 
#23
I've noticed a worrying trend - so I don't know if anybody else has looked at things like Classic FM TV - where they have videos of what's in the Classical charts...:hmm:

Well why I mention it, is that they seem to be full of obviously manufactured groups of women who look like Models, but are ostensibly playing Violins,Violas, Cellos etc. Invariably they are playing carbon fibre instruments, presumably as they look "modern" and don't have associations with stuffy, real music....;)

Anybody else noticed this - can throw more light on this trend?
 
#26
MarkRubin said:
We've seen quite a few CF basses at our shop here in Austin and it's been hit or miss.

The Cosi that came through was less than impressive, not only in tone reproduction, but in fit and finish as well. The customer was quite pleased with it, but maybe thin and nasal is just the thing for jazz these days. Worse still was the case that came with it, which might have had a better low end :eyebrow: The Quintus cellos and bass we've seen have ranged from just OK, to really damn impressive. I'd be happy to play one if they gave me one. However, the placement of the soundpost and choice of strings had quite a lot to do with it, just as would be the case with a "real" wood bass.

I'm soon to experiment with a carbon fiber bridge for my plywood bass. And even a carbon fiber sound post, which we've been using to add vollume to quite violins with great effect. Exciting times.
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Thanks for the info, Mark. I saw your homepage too - very nice layout, wish I could hear you play sometime. Btw. I have a sousaphone too, that I used in one performance. Can't really say I can play it, but I try....

Yes, I have problems with my Cosi too with regards to fit and finish. Too many actually, but some have been fixed by regular violin makers. Soundpost changed and position adjusted, fingerboard straightened, saddle adjusted, tailpiece changed. And some problems have NOT been fixed, as there's a long way to France from here. Neck being too thick, tuning mechanisms not straight and not fitting the holes, air bubbles and pockets in the composite material. I have to live with it I guess, until...

At the time of delivery from France I talked my violin maker (poor guy) into buying a Cosi hardcase for it, since he needed one for a full size bass anyway for hiring out to his touring customers. Both of us expected it to be a CF case , but it turned out to be a regular fibre glass one - and poorly made too with a lot of air pockets between the layers of fibre. So it is falling apart rapidly now.

Hope to hear from you when you try out the CF bridge and soundpost on your ply.

Good luck!
 
#27
mikjans said:
Two composite basses, one French, one Aussie:

Design & Harmonie [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Epoch http://www.epochstrings.com.au/products/
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Thanks for nice pieces of info. I have now mailed both companies to hear if they (still) make basses - it somehow doesn't really look that way, judging from their sites. I'll let you know their answers when I get them.
 
#28
I've been reading this thread with interest. It would be great to hear of a very durable, playable good sounding instrument. I've played some nice CF guitars recently. I believe that a good instrument with a careful setup could be a reality.

But what I really notice is the address of the fellow who started this whole conversation. Lejre? Isn't there a living history iron age village there? I think I passed through there about 20 years ago. Fascinating place.
 
#29
carbon fibre said:
air bubbles and pockets in the composite material
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carbon fibre said:
At the time of delivery from France I talked my violin maker (poor guy) into buying a Cosi hardcase for it, since he needed one for a full size bass anyway for hiring out to his touring customers. Both of us expected it to be a CF case , but it turned out to be a regular fibre glass one - and poorly made too with a lot of air pockets between the layers of fibre. So it is falling apart rapidly now.
Click to expand...

This is just plain laziness, you can learn to do good lay-ups a rather short amount of time with a good teacher,. Air bubbles and pockets are rather easy to get out in the lay-up process if one pays attention to what they are doing. Granted I haven’t done much work with CF other than make flat panels, but I have made and repaired things [boats and things to do with them] out of glass, yes you have to work at a quick pace but not that quick where bubbles and pockets can’t be taken care of....... well in less you are mixing your resin to hot.

The sad thing is is that all sloppy workmanship on something like this [i.e. newish] is that it just turns some people off on the whole idea, which means less people will buy them and less people will be interested in building them.
 
#30
boombloom said:
But what I really notice is the address of the fellow who started this whole conversation. Lejre? Isn't there a living history iron age village there? I think I passed through there about 20 years ago. Fascinating place.
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2 miles from here. Furthermore 'Lejre' actually means 'camps', i.e. the military stronghold of the vikings - the capital city of Denmark those days (1.000 years ago). They keep finding things here in the ground - not only viking and iron age, also lots of bronze- and stone age.

Give me a call next time you're around. And then you can even try my CF bass, too. Goes for the rest of you as well.

See you!
 
#31
Hi, Christian.
I like your web site. It is refreshing to surf through pages in languages I can't read, seriously (I can tell you stay busy with interesting projects), but I must admit I have little knowledge of CF. It sort of seems to me like the whole polyester clothing fad of the late 60's and 70's. At one point you couldn't find anything but poyester clothes. Now you don't see any of them. Perhaps for CF it will be different in 20 years, if the material is still widely available and popular. There are some very adventurous and knowledgable makers who are betting much on the predictability and stability of the material. With experience I'm sure they will make competitive sounding instruments. But you remember in the end, it was the soft, wrinkly, shrinking, fading plant harvested cellulose that won the clothing market battle.

As far as durability, I have had my new carved bass out on 90 degree summer days and 45 degree autumn nights with no apparent ill effects. It also survived a fairly rough fall laterally, so the idea that all of these wooden instruments are so delicate may be a little overblown. The finish is delicate. I have had a wooden drum crack upon drying so I do know it happens. I understand you have a much harsher situation so I can totally understand your choice. Have other acoustic instrument players in your area also have chosen CF for similar reasons?

Anyway;- totally off the topic, I couldn't help noticing that in the hiking photo you have what appears to be a bass wheel like none I've ever seen. Where do you get one of those? It looks like a great one.
 
#32
Thanks Silversorcerer (David?).

Your page looks interesting too, though it certainly needs an update. Havn't had time to listen too the music yet, though...
My page will be updated (soon?). My idea is to make it a reference spot for CF basses in Scandinavia. So far I guess I'm the owner of the only CF bass in Scandinavia, but I'm going to work on it.

CF itself is probably just a stepping stone to more exotic mateials like nanotech self-repairing instruments grown in an hour in electrically charged bathtubs, filled with some organic soup. A Frankenstein bass.

Courageous handling of your own bass, I must say. Fahrenheit to Celsius is not my strong side, but 90 sunds hotter than pleasant. I tend to think that the biggest danger is when you suddenly take the wood from a humid into a dry environment - winter central heating with strong circulation of air made a serious crack in my old one in a theatre in Toronto a few years back. That's when I decided for CF. The wooden basses are surprisingly strong, I agree - but you have to know the limits, and usually you won't know the limit until sudddenly it's too late.

I got the wheel in France at Invalid Link Removed, same store that sells Cosi basses. Actually the son of the manufacturer, M. Lagarde, works in that shop. The wheel is very handy, but I want to get or make one with a locking brake on the wheel, so I can still stand the bass on end, useful for example in public busses where you stand with it for a long time.
 
#33
I mailed Design & Harmonie, France, and Epoch, Australia, the other day. I still havn't heard from D&H, but Epoch wrote this back:

Christian,
Thank you for the interest.
Our double bass has just been developed and undergoing final field testing. See attached draft brochure (specifications subject to change).


Regards

Warrick Steel
Sales and Marketing Manager
Epoch Musical Instruments
Ph: +61 7 55 328 445
Fax: +61 7 55 286 487
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And the brochure had a nice picture of a shiny snow white bass that immediately made me wish I was down under to play on it. And a lot of technical specifications followed:
DP3 Double Bass​

An acoustic/electric double bass designed with the latest ‘Epoch Technology’ to sound outstanding, acoustically or electrically, in any situation or style of music with all the added Epoch advantages: Fun and easy to play, very robust, low and easy maintenance, vivid and exciting colours, stable tuning in all conditions

The Epoch Double bass is a fully acoustic 3/4 sized instrument constructed from a combination of Carbon Fibre and wood designed for both orchestral and contemporary styles of playing.

The High strength to weight ratio of Carbon Fibre means the instrument is lighter (approx 7.5 Kg, compared to approx 10.0 Kg for a traditional Bass), louder and more responsive.

Overall length: 1800 mm
String (Scale) length: 1053 mm
Overall depth (incl bridge): 396 mm
Body depth: 203 mm
Lower bout: 618 mm
Upper bout: 463 mm

Electronics:
In addition to its acoustic qualities the on-board electronics give it the versatility of a purpose-built electric double bass without the vagaries often associated with after market systems, or the lack of character associated with solid and semi acoustic electric Double Basses. The quality of this pickup system has been particularly noted when the instrument is played "Arco" - an area where some other systems tend to fail.

This instrument has a unique embedded piezo based pickup in each soundpost (2), a purpose and hand build preamp using discrete class A circuitry featuring - Volume, blend, bass, treble, phase switch and LED power indicator. It has a 9v battery power supply with ready access, convenient control panel placement allowing easy adjustment, even while playing (to the players right of the neck), practical and conveniently located output jack (bottom of the lower bout)
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#38
Com'on Bruce! Get with it! Dig out that Saturday Night Fever suit, pick up that snowy white (pearloid?) CFDB and boogie down!

But seriously, I was totally digging those Gliga violins with the butterflies and flowers painted on them ....

And then there's Billy Bang. I think the violin I saw him playing was CF (white sparkle finish). You have to think of these as show basses for the hard road like the Road Kings and such. Built to travel anywhere with few repairs.

I agree with you on the free advertising thing, but you know it's not the first time someone might have done that here. Dare I mention the Incredibow?
 
#40
What´s wrong with putting on a show? Miles sometimes played a blue Martin trumpet, if memory serves me right. And Dizzy probably had that upward bent bell for show more than for sound. Drummers have played kits of every color known to man for years. Noone seems to have a problem with that...

Mikael
 

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