• 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.

Contrabass Balalaika

#25
B-Mac said:
Maybe it’s a floating bridge and can be positioned further away from the sound hole?
Click to expand...

If it's fretted and intonated where it is, moving the bridge is just going to throw off the intonation.

You've got a bassoguitar, don't you? Try this: plonk the open strings with the bridge in its standard place. Then move the bridge up as far as you can toward the soundhole. My hunch is that with all that additional afterlength, the instrument will sound "bassier."
 
#27
GretschWretch said:
If it's fretted and intonated where it is, moving the bridge is just going to throw off the intonation.

You've got a bassoguitar, don't you? Try this: plonk the open strings with the bridge in its standard place. Then move the bridge up as far as you can toward the soundhole. My hunch is that with all that additional afterlength, the instrument will sound "bassier."
Click to expand...
No , don’t. I think @mikeoso might?

I only mentioned about the floating bridge as the other basses in the vids submitted in this thread all show the bridge further away from the sound hole.
 
#28
B-Mac said:
No , don’t. I think @mikeoso might?

I only mentioned about the floating bridge as the other basses in the vids submitted in this thread all show the bridge further away from the sound hole.
Click to expand...

It looks like there's some variation in neck length between the photos though, the first joins the body at fret 13 but others look longer... the one Turid is playing looks like it joins at fret 15.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: B-Mac
#33
B-Mac said:
They might not all be the same?
Balalaika - Wikipedia
Click to expand...

Here's mine... used to be a 6-string mandolin balalaika but I decided 8 was better as then it could become a mandola. Anyone with luthiery experience would probably have asked themselves if a neck without a truss rod would take a mandola steel string set and of course it won't, so it's a weird hybrid of light gauge octave and unison pairs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kubicki Fan, Pauly 4001, Alik and 3 others
#35
StephenR said:
Jack Casady has a bass balalaika that he bought in the 60s. His is not the contrabass model but still huge. He brought it out to Jorma's Fur Peace Ranch early last year and played it during one of Jorma's Quarantine Concert Series streams. It is a gorgeous sounding instrument, rich acoustic sound. Here is a youtube link, he talks about getting the instrument and the modifications Rick made to it. Then they play "Third Week in the Chelsea", Jack played his balalaika on the studio recording.


Here is an excerpt from an interview with Jack where he talks about his balalaika.

FlyGuitars Are there basses that you have liked over the years, and hung on to?

Jack Casady I would say that my most favourite instrument to pick up and hit one open A note off is a bass balalaika that I have. Rick Turner transformed it in to a four string bass from a three string bass. There's a contrabass and a bass, I have the bass balalaika and I got it in Paulo Alto in 1967, from a gentleman named Dante Perfumo. He was an Italian musician who just collected all kinds of instruments. I went down and visited him and I remember he had almost like a chicken coup garage out the back and he had all these woodwind instruments from the 1800's that were tuned before they went standard 444.

The bass is a big triangle and at the bottom is probably 40 some inches. It looks like you're playing a giant flat iron.

FlyGuitars Did you ever use it in the studio?

Jack Casady I recorded a number of songs with it with The Jefferson Airplane. I recorded 3rd week at the Chelsea on it and I even did a whole album with Canadian guys called The Good Brothers and it just has one of the most beautiful acoustic sounds. It was EAD and then I had Rick Turner narrow the nut a little bit and add on a different metal bridge so that I could convert it. It's still gorgeous to this day. I could walk over and hit that instrument, and the neck is like a tree trunk (laughs). The thickest part of the neck I think is about two inches deep.
Click to expand...

I was just going to post that very interview from Fly Guitars :)
 
#36
mothalaika.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: seedokebass, mellowgerman, bonin in the boneyard and 3 others

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back