Double Bass Chasing a brutal body buzz - is this idea totally nuts?

[John Sprague]

The clamp you're making is already out there if you want to buy one. It's called a spool clamp.

As for finding the sound, good luck! They can be pretty elusive. There was a guy playing in the RPO here in Rochester who had a seam open that made noise on certain notes. When he played that note, he pressed the seam with his knee, and did it that way for years.

 

[SAlcott]

"There was a guy playing in the RPO here in Rochester who had a seam open that made noise on certain notes. When he played that note, he pressed the seam with his knee, and did it that way for years."

Jack S. ?

 

[John Sprague]

"There was a guy playing in the RPO here in Rochester who had a seam open that made noise on certain notes. When he played that note, he pressed the seam with his knee, and did it that way for years."

Jack S. ?

Of course!

 

[spaghettiwestern]

Here's a buzz finder I use frequently in my shop. It's not foolproof, but can help find loose cleats and potentially ply delaminations:

Get several (4+) decent-sized rare earth magnets such as these.

Apply stick-on felt, or even just several layers of masking tape to one side of a magnet to avoid scratching the varnish. Slide one magnet (or 2-3 stacked up for more pulling power) through the ff-hole while keeping the magnet (or stack of magnets) with the felt on the outside. Now you have a movable clamp/mute of sorts that you can slide all around the top/ribs/back to find buzzing things. Just be careful and double check that you're not scratching the varnish as you slide around.

Here's a video of me using this trick to sand a small spot inside of a bass to remove some old glue.

Enough stacked magnets might be enough to pull together loose internal plys. Unfortunately this won't work on loose blocks, braces, or bassbars.