Double Bass Getting some work done

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Take a look at the wire frame animations of how the body vibrates. Look at mode 1 through 5 but all modes show the fingerboard and tailpiece moving. Keep in mind that a lot of the movement is wasted and does not translate into SOUND.

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Pluck a hard D or A and slide your left thumb up and down the neck until you can feel the modal line where the neck is vibrating and the nodal line where it is bending and not vibrating. If those vibrations are not helping the bass body vibrate at an important resonance, then the movement is wasted. Now put on a heavier fingerboard and the neck vibrates less and more energy stays in the body where it is making sound. Put on heavier tuners and the nodal (bending points) move up towards the head. Change two or three things at once and then you got to know how to work on basses and adhere to the guidelines that were passed on by trial for the last 400 years.

How is that for techie?

That's about as techie as techie gets! It's a cool site, and a great answer to my question. Thanks.

Yes. Heavy sounds good better now yes. Spend money new shiny tuners happy fancy. Yes. Now.

So you're saying I should bbuy new ttuners before thinking about getting a Nnew Sstandard ply as a bbackup bbass?