Double Bass Drone / tone generator

[dar512]

I'm fairly new to the DB, so most of my practice time is running scales. My instructor recommends a drone/tone generator to help with intonation. I've checked out the specs for a lot of metronomes and tuners that have this feature.

The Korg OT120 tuner seems to have the largest range for tone generation (down to C2), but I'm not sure that's really required. The various metronomes I've looked at only do one octave, generally in the C4 range. It seems like that'd be kind of high for reference when practicing on the DB.

Any thoughts in this area?

 

[Alain Bass]

May be you could find a freeware or a shareware on the net.
I use some free metronomes for Mac I found on the net.
It allow me to change the sound of the click,
because always having the same sound …… ÌÏÌfi®†ºîœœ¬…Ò!!!!!

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

The Korg "Dr. Beat" is kinda pricey, but is hard to...er... top. It has sine generators that work really well for this kind of practice.

 

[fdeck]

Not to contradict your instructor, but another technique is to compare your intonation to one or more open strings whenever possible. That's how I was taught when I was a kid. Otherwise, if you are close to a computer, a couple of programs have tone generators built in, including Virtual Analyzer:

www.sillanumsoft.com

 

[seamonkey]

If you want to go the software route, playing over chord changes can really help your ear. Band-in-a-box is easy and addicting. And there are student discounts.