Double Bass Explain mixing rosins to me please.

[anahata]

@anahata - sorry! I just read your bio information and regret having spoken to you as if you were a Newbie. (You're not.)
I'm sure you'll figure this out.
Sorry, and Thanks.

Not at all. It is kind of the opposite. I'm pretty damn old and have been using Pops & the occasional Kolstein for so long that it all became unconscious until I decided to venture into the rabbit hole of rosin experimentation. Weidoeft is new (recent arrival in the rosin lineup) and behaves REALLY differently.

 

[Ryan in PDX]

I've seen those threads. I'm specifically wondering if anyone has tried different combos with Weidoeft. Not necessarily melted but applied separately to the bow. Also, melting does not sound technically hard but does sound very messy. Just the right combination of containers looks to be a must when doing that.

I have successfully "Kaspered" a couple of cakes of rosin. My specific method was to scrape off the outer layer, place the cake in a silicone Kolstein sleeve (with the top on - no potential for mess), and melt it on the stove in a double boiler setup (just in case there's something nasty or microwave-hostile in the rosin formula). When it's molten, I give it a good stir with a toothpick, then an overnight cool down.

As for mixing... I have used Kolstein Soft, followed by a swipe of Carlsson or Petz Medium*, to get what I consider a better sound in the upper register without losing the grip of the Kolstein on the low strings. I'm not an advanced player, but it did seem to "improve" my tone a little by adding some "crisp high end" back in. I'm very curious about the combo of Wiedoeft + cello rosin (bernardel?). Most days, I just use the kolstein soft and call it good enough.

*Let the record show that the Petz cake came with my used bass, is pushing 20 years old, and was unusable until I Kaspered it. I tried the "leave it in a sealed container with a drop of alcohol" method as well, and that turned the outer layer into a gooey mess that never dried. This has been my experience, and as they say, Your Melting May Vary.

 

[anahata]

A friend subbing in our section had some 2+-year-old Leatherwood (25, 35, & 45%). She gave them to me to try. They had crystallized. I just did the microwave thing for the first time with the 45%. Got it to a slurry smooth consistency & stirred. Pretty cool... Well, it will be by tomorrow.

 

[Wasnex]

I have successfully "Kaspered" a couple of cakes of rosin. My specific method was to scrape off the outer layer, place the cake in a silicone Kolstein sleeve (with the top on - no potential for mess), and melt it on the stove in a double boiler setup (just in case there's something nasty or microwave-hostile in the rosin formula). When it's molten, I give it a good stir with a toothpick, then an overnight cool down.

As for mixing... I have used Kolstein Soft, followed by a swipe of Carlsson or Petz Medium*, to get what I consider a better sound in the upper register without losing the grip of the Kolstein on the low strings. I'm not an advanced player, but it did seem to "improve" my tone a little by adding some "crisp high end" back in. I'm very curious about the combo of Wiedoeft + cello rosin (bernardel?). Most days, I just use the kolstein soft and call it good enough.

*Let the record show that the Petz cake came with my used bass, is pushing 20 years old, and was unusable until I Kaspered it. I tried the "leave it in a sealed container with a drop of alcohol" method as well, and that turned the outer layer into a gooey mess that never dried. This has been my experience, and as they say, Your Melting May Vary.

Back in the day, I would leave dried out Pops in the sun, or perhaps in a car with the windows up.

Towards the end of my playing career, I switched primarily to Carlsson. After being a long time Pops user, I was surprised by how much better I thought the Carlsson was. Better in almost every way. I kept my old cake of Pops (just in case) for super cold venues. Not sure if I ever used it though. I think I also used the pops to prime my bow when I had it rehaired. Still probably have the old fraction of a cake packed away in a box.

 

[Ryan in PDX]

Back in the day, I would leave dried out Pops in the sun, or perhaps in a car with the windows up.

Towards the end of my playing career, I switched primarily to Carlsson. After being a long time Pops user, I was surprised by how much better I thought the Carlsson was. Better in almost every way. I kept my old cake of Pops (just in case) for super cold venues. Not sure if I ever used it though. I think I also used the pops to prime my bow when I had it rehaired. Still probably have the old fraction of a cake packed away in a box.

A solar-powered melt would certainly be the easiest (not to mention eco friendly) way to go! The high temp here is 54°F this week, though... maybe set it on the heat vent?

I also prefer the sound and feel of Carlsson over Kolstein, but the Carlsson dries out much faster, even in a silicone sleeve. My Kolstein Soft cake is two years old and I haven't had to refresh it yet. So a lot of it is just laziness, admittedly - easier to keep using the Kolstein than to Kasper the Carlsson again. I also get a much better grip on the low notes (carbon bow, ply bass, Spiro Mittels) with Kolstein Soft. My arco is all scales, arpeggios, Simandl, and jazz heads right now. When I was working on orchestral excerpts every day, I was getting to the point that I could use Carlsson for everything, which says more about me than it does about the rosin.

I'm also curious about all the rosins I've never tried... I suppose the smart thing to do would be to realize that rosin GAS is the cheapest of all GASes, and just succumb to it.

 

[AGCurry]

I have successfully "Kaspered" a couple of cakes of rosin.

A new verb. I love it.

 

[Stev187]

Just melted and mixed some very, very, very old Carlsson with some fairly recent Pop’s. Like the result so far.

I highly recommend lining your pan with tin foil. This is sticky stuff. I also didn’t melt it in the kitchen—I have an electric burner and did it out in the workshop.

Steve

 

[BarfanyShart]

Basically if you think pops is too soft, and everything else is too hard, the idea is to mix them and get something in between. You can also melt and mix dead, dried out cakes to give them a second life. I did it once with an old dead chunk of pops and a whole cake of Nymans that I had never actually used in the years it was kicking around my bag - the result was really good for a while, but the resulting cake seemed to dry out and become unusable faster than a regular cake.

 

[Wasnex]

You can also melt and mix dead, dried out cakes to give them a second life.

FYI if you don't know: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/how-to-revive-old-rosin-using-rubbing-alcohol.1328782/

 

[Paps]

Anything I ever heated up, melted and re-set became harder and thicker, like toffee or jam.
Are we sure the rosin become harder after each treatment?

 

[Stev187]

Anything I ever heated up, melted and re-set became harder and thicker, like toffee or jam.

I'll monitor it over the next few weeks, but once this Pops+Carlsson hardened, it was much more supple than before. This isn't a great test case, as the Carlsson rosin might be 20+ years old. I watched the melting rosin very closely, and it never really boiled. I just got it to a liquid state, swirled it around until the two kinds of rosien were completely combined, then poured it into paper souffle cups and the old Carlsson wrapper, and let it harden.

With so many options for rosin, I'm not sure I'll make a practice of this. These two cakes went from useless to useful with about 20 minutes worth of science project mode. I'll tag back here in the future to say how it's going. I'm also going to give one of the cups to my teacher. I'm jokingly calling this the "PC Blend."

Steve

 

[Ryan in PDX]

I'm also going to give one of the cups to my teacher.

Maybe those of us do this, and end up with more rosin mixes than we'll ever actually use, should donate the results to struggling students or school music programs. I just realized I have four cakes sitting on a shelf that I haven't touched since I got my Wiedoeft, and two of them, I didn't really use before that...

 

[the_Ryan]

I’ve never actually melted cakes together, but I have mixed rosins directly on the hair before. In my personal experience, Pops’ really doesn’t play nice with other rosins except maybe Bernardel: I’ve tried using a Pops’/Bernardel mix for solo playing before, but right now I rosin my solo bow with Pops’ only when it’s absolutely necessary, and when I do rosin it I use a full swipe and one swipe in the lower half, both with moderate pressure on the rosin. Anecdotally I’ve heard melting Pops’ and Kolstein (“Popstein”) can work well, but in just mixing them on the hair I’ve never liked the sound or response with them combined: to me the hair would feel really gummy and the sound would be super “papery” (like if you have too much Pops’ on a very hot and humid day). I haven’t mixed Pops’ with any of the Swedish rosins though.

I used a mixture of Kolstein Soft and Nyman for a couple years and I really liked that combination because to me Kolstein has a great bite and grab to the sound but to me it’s a very rough and unrefined sound, whereas Nyman is more powdery and less grippy but it draws a much smoother and more refined tone. Basically, they complement each other very well. I think when I used the Kolstein/Nyman blend my ratios were about 2:1 favoring Kolstein for orchestral playing and 1:1 or 2:1 favoring Nyman for solo playing, but I also only had one bow at the time so often times if I was going to play solo rep I’d just throw another swipe of Nyman on (which is far less than ideal because there’s still too much rosin on the bow, but I wasn’t performing any solo music at the time).

I just use Pops’ now, but that’s mostly a function of my current climate.