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Double Bass Charles Mingus' Bass Setup?

Jazzkuma

Jazzkuma

Sep 12, 2008
835
494
#1
I just want to know if anyone knows what kind of set up he has. Mainly wanted to know if his bridge is setup really high or low or medium. I think his set up is high because you can hear it in his sound, couldnt find any info on this but im asking here because someone told me that he has a low action so I just wanted to make sure. I find it rare that there is no info on his bass in the internet (at least none that I found).
 
#3
osmarokuma said:
I just want to know if anyone knows what kind of set up he has. Mainly wanted to know if his bridge is setup really high or low or medium. I think his set up is high because you can hear it in his sound, couldnt find any info on this but im asking here because someone told me that he has a low action so I just wanted to make sure. I find it rare that there is no info on his bass in the internet (at least none that I found).
Click to expand...

I can't give you a one-on-one answer on this one, man. I never played any of his basses.
In those years, most of us played with what we would (Some of us. If Arnold is around, we call it tonal adjustment and/or bridge height) call "high action" now. No amps, big bridge height.
I did spend a great evening getting very drunk with one of Charles' teachers, the great Red Callender. He said It was "medium" (for those days). Translated to current terms, I would easily say pretty damn high......:eek: Guts on top and wound guts on the bottom. He switched later, I guess, to other combinations.
 
#4
Yep, as Paul says, guts all the way and high "action". I believe he played only steel (spiros?) in the seventies. That article above says Golden Spirals and it could be so, but I don't know if thats true. All the pics and videos I've seen is either with pure guts (most of the time) or steel.
 
#7
well, I just played at a friend's wedding, and I didn't use an amp. I guess it all depends. I haven't been using an amp lately. I have a Golden Trinity mic and I just send a signal to the sound guy and he deals with it. I've been enjoying that very much. It seems like the bass doesn't have to be really loud. It keeps the guys in the band listening! lol what a concept! lol
anyway, you can find some Mingus videos on youtube if you look for "Hazel Scott". He played with her, and back on those days everything was completely acoustic. It's really beautiful. and then later on, you can also see that Mingus after having health issues in the early and mid 70's had real low action, and in some videos you can see a Ampeg SVT behind him!!!
 
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#10
AndreasH said:
Yep, as Paul says, guts all the way and high "action". I believe he played only steel (spiros?) in the seventies. That article above says Golden Spirals and it could be so, but I don't know if thats true. All the pics and videos I've seen is either with pure guts (most of the time) or steel.
Click to expand...

I have a potentially dumb question but I'm curious. The Golden Spirals I know (I recently found a brand new D and G in my basement dating from my first attempt at going gut in 1999) were a Tynex wrapped gut string made by D'Addario. Wasn't there a brand of gut string called Golden Spirals, not related to the D'Addario version, sold in the 50's and 60's? I ask because in the Paul Chambers issue of Bass Player (the one with a picture of Doug Watkins on the cover-what a goof THAT was), I believe David Gage was quoted as speculating that PC used Golden Spirals which he said were a common string in those days. Or are they all the same? PC's strings are pretty clearly plain gut G and D and wrapped A and E. So were Mingus' up until the '70's when he went steel and amplified probably to compensate for his ALS. No Tynex to be seen. Anyone know?

mark
 
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#13
calivox said:
I have a potentially dumb question but I'm curious. The Golden Spirals I know (I recently found a brand new D and G in my basement dating from my first attempt at going gut in 1999) were a Tynex wrapped gut string made by D'Addario. Wasn't there a brand of gut string called Golden Spirals, not related to the D'Addario version, sold in the 50's and 60's? I ask because in the Paul Chambers issue of Bass Player (the one with a picture of Doug Watkins on the cover-what a goof THAT was), I believe David Gage was quoted as speculating that PC used Golden Spirals which he said were a common string in those days. Or are they all the same? PC's strings are pretty clearly plain gut G and D and wrapped A and E. So were Mingus' up until the '70's when he went steel and amplified probably to compensate for his ALS. No Tynex to be seen. Anyone know?

mark
Click to expand...
I have a NOS plain gut Golden Spiral D. No tynex.
The envelope says Kaplan Musical String Co.
 
#14
yeah lol, I had to play a gig once without an amp cuz I forgot that I took my pickup out lol. The sound is great, acoustic wood sound is way better than an amp of course but its just a test to your stamina when you gotta play those fast bop tunes and dig in the strings.
 
#15
ctxbass said:
I have a NOS plain gut Golden Spiral D. No tynex.
The envelope says Kaplan Musical String Co.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the strings I found in my basement were Kaplan Golden Spirals but manufacturered by D'Addario. So once upon a time, Kaplan, an independent company, made a full set of strings called Golden Spirals that were plain gut on top and wrapped gut on the bottom. Lots of guys used them. At sometime in the '70's or '80's, Kaplan was bought out by D'Addario, they stopped making the wrapped E and A and plain D and G strings and offered only the Tynex wrapped D and G. They stopped making them altogether a few years ago.

Is that close? And are the Kaplan Golden Spirals the same as Artones? (Paul?)

I'm curious about the evolution here and I couldn't find anything on-line with a cursory Google search. I figure someone here probably has first hand info.

mark
 
#16
Here's what I got.....
It's all been posted before on these pages, but I know how tedious searching can be.
I'm not as much of a "strings" whore as many are here. I, of course, AM a bass one and a player one.
In the old days, Artone were THE bass strings. Plain on top and wound on the bottom. Red O Rays came in a close second. I saw pics of Paul, Mingus, Ray, Leroy (lookit the picture on the cover of "Leroy Walks!) and of course Red Mitchell (prolly the biggest string whore in history. :eek:). Artone, straight down the line.
Then, when steels came out....A and E only for a while. Super-Sensitive.
THEN....LYCON all steell. (see the cover of The Red Mitchell/Harold Land Quintet...Hear Ye, Hear Ye! four LYCONS and a low B of whatever.) Our DRURB, here, is a LYCON whore of first order. They, IMO, were the greatest bass strings EVER.

See ya.....gotta go fer a string change.
 
#18
I know that this is a really old thread, but I saw a video today that answers many of these questions on Mingus. It's long...but in the first part (in the studio) you see many close ups of Mingus playing what would today be considered high action, and gut on top wound on bottom. The best shots are further into "Meditations On Integration" when he picks up the bow in the more rubato part. Stay with it. It's great stuff, especially on headphones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2phw7eXrmCM#t=677
 
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#19
I opened for Mingus on New Years Eve 1975 at the Village Gate in NYC. At that time his book was the songs from the Changes One and Changes Two albums. He had a set of Thomastik Rope Core solo gage strings on his bass. These were the ones with blue silk ends at the tailpiece, and yellow silk at the pegbox. He was playing the lions head bass and I think Chuck Trager was servicing his bass. I remember he brought a very low end bass combo that sounded terrible..very farty. So instead of that he had Danny Richmond plug the bass into the guitar players Fender Twin reverb! and that was his amplification that night. My band played sets 1 and 3, and Mingus played sets 2, 4 and 5.
 
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