Double Bass GUTS ARE SO MUCH FUN!!!

[Phil Rowan]

Yeah, a friend of mine told me he'd heard from an old bassist friend of his that when the winding of a wrapped gut string gets out of whack due to the gut becoming thinner, lime juice helps fatten the gut back up. Who knows.. perhaps I may as well walk around with a light bulb sticking out of one ear and murmuring nonsense to myself (unless someone can back this up). Anyway, it seems to do the trick on the Chordas A's.

And yes, I'm too broke to buy new strings.

 

[Bobby King]

I never heard about the lime juice trick But I've heard that if windings become loose on a wound gut string, putting it into a wet, humid environment (like a plastic bag in a warm room with a wet sponge in it) can cause the gut core to expand and the windings to tighten back up. I've never done this personally.

 

[Jason Sypher]

I used to soak mine in a little lime juice, rice wine vinegar and a little rum. If you want you can use either rock salt or raw sugar on the ends.

 

[Uncletoad]

I used to soak mine in a little lime juice, rice wine vinegar and a little rum. If you want you can use either rock salt or raw sugar on the ends.

Probably couldn't make it out the door to the gig.

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

Gut string player... What basses are you playing on?

Well used Chorda Carlos set on a '79 Wilfer ply with a fairly crude setup. I just got the preliminary mix of a CD recorded with that rig and the sound is IMMENSE. I would use a larger typeface to say that if I could figure out how.

Keeping the strings in tune during the session was a $^*(ing nightmare...but you all knew that already.

 

[Marc Piane]

Interestingly, with the weather a-changing here in Chicity, I am having a harder time keeping the Animas in-tune.

 

[kane612]

What I can't figger is why the wear is mostly on the Pistoy D only up to the F. The right hand isn't disturbing them one bit.

This is my problem as well. The E-G area, more like. I figure it could be due to shifting, but mostly due to the extra contact my sweaty left mit makes with the string while i'm playing the lower two strings.

I guess it's time to try baby powder.

 

[HateyMcAmp]

Interestingly, with the weather a-changing here in Chicity, I am having a harder time keeping the Animas in-tune.

I've had this experience with the Gamut/Velvet combo as well.

 

[Mark Perna]

Here a little wankfest I put together for you guys:

YouTube - gut string upright bass improvisation

It was recorded on my iPhone sitting on a music stand so it isn't exactly hi-fi but I think you can get the idea of what my bass and strings sound like. No plan involved. I hit record and played for about 4 minutes throwing a couple of melodies in but mostly just playing.

If you listen carefully near the end, you can hear my kids playing in the background.

mark

 

[Marc Piane]

Sweet. Nice sound and killin' playing.

 

[Jason Sypher]

That's cool man, guts with low action. It's a nice sound. You're playing just how I play when I've got that set up. They're so damn fast it's hard not to just wail! I can imagine Spiros would really cramp your style!

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

Mark, Nice playing. Now stop already 'cause you're raising the bar for the rest of us.

I don't hate the spirocores so much now. I loved them six months ago so I'll adjust.
This talk about lime juice and rum is crazy. I did what I could to maintain my strings but this is too much.

 

[Jim Dombrowski]

Nice bass face!

 

[Jason Sypher]

Do I hear reverb in there?

 

[Mark Perna]

Do I hear reverb in there?

Nope. I just threw an iPhone 4 onto a music stand and hit record and started to play. Stopped after about 4 minutes. It was all stream of consciousness. I transferred it into iPhoto on my Mac, moved it from there onto the desktop and transferred it directly into Youtube. No processing or editing (which you can tell by the choppy beginning and ending of the clip).

I wanted to demonstrate a couple of things: the sound of the bass that I've talked about for years but no one has ever heard. If you listen to it with headphones you can really hear the low end. And a demonstration that you can play quick lines on gut strings. It's all in the touch.

And, Jason, you're right about Spiros. I play differently on Spiros. Some of the lines I play on gut just don't sound very good on Spiros (and visa versa). I've always been a chopsy player even on Spiros. It's just what I hear in my head but I get such a human, vocal kind of sound with guts and I can technically play just about anything that pops into my head that it's really become my voice on the instrument.

mark

 

[Jason Sypher]

Well, that kind of speed could only work with either guts or very low action Spiros which wouldn't have any meat to it. Thanks for posting that, it helps better understand where you're coming from.

 

[Mark Perna]

Well, that kind of speed could only work with either guts or very low action Spiros which wouldn't have any meat to it. Thanks for posting that, it helps better understand where you're coming from.

I could get around on Spiros and I never had them painfully low. In fact, I have the guts about where I had the Spiros (G at about 7 mm). I could do most of what I did on guts on the Spiros but it sounded different. The guts have significantly more bottom and the "thup" is always there even in thumb position. The response on Spiros is faster and more mid-rangey and some of those lines with Spiros (like the rapid rising triplets up the neck) tend to sound a bit too much like Jaco on upright for my tastes (it doesn't have that quality on guts at all). On the other hand, hanging on a note on the D string in thumb position is kind of lame with the guts but brilliant with the Spiros. I tend to play much more up and down the neck and use the G string strategically with guts for this reason. I also try to hit the strong notes in a rapid run on the G string leaving the weaker beats for the D.

I can also play all of that stuff with much more confidence on guts. On Spiros, with the heavier tension, it's much easier to trip over something and bobble the line. Once you bobble the line, the effect is lost. The swing and groove get lost.

Interestingly, if I bring the string height up even a mm or two, the sound gets more traditional sounding and less focused. It also sounds great particularly when walking lines but I lose a lot of what I like about the soloing voice. This is all stolen directly from LaFaro. I'm just following his recipe.

mark

 

[Uncletoad]

HELL YEA!!!

That's some **** right there man.

Thanks for the post.

 

[Jason Sypher]

I think what guts have is "play through" which makes them so fluid. The fingers are allowed to continue through instead of going over Steels which are like speed bumps which disrupt the flow...

 

[Mark Perna]

I think what guts have is "play through" which makes them so fluid. The fingers are allowed to continue through instead of going over Steels which are like speed bumps which disrupt the flow...

Agreed. Once you get the touch down, they are really easy to play on.

mark