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Double Bass Hole in the Heart (5 String) Double Bass idea.

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#21
I guess I don't understand the total negative feedback to this idea. Of course anyone can find reasons not to do it or ways in which it might not work; and we haven't even gotten into possible unanticipated negative effects, really, but on the other hand it does seem to be backed up by some loosely related experience - pitching a violin a fifth lower and gaining some low end resonance by this means. It's not like trying to use a saxophone or piano modification as a model; violins and violas are violin-family instruments like the bass.

Obviously the cost of the test instrument is a negative, but this could be a use for those bass-shaped objects - after all, the first attempts at something like this would be purely comparative tests. You can do a comparative test of low frequency response on a crappy instrument.

I doubt that it will enhance low frequency response enough to matter but it's not the completely idiotic idea y'all seem to think it is.
 
#22
JBarz said:
I just want to chime in and say I have a serious distain for meaningless graphs like this. Oscar, if you find a five string bass and decide to do this modification, please let us know how it works out for you, but I wouldn’t advise it, tbh. Seems like a really quick way to ruin a bass. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it?”
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Doesn't look meaningless to me. Looks like an FFT of the spectrum of a note played on this instrument before and after modification. Playing low D (tuned I assume CGDA like a viola), first we see weak fundamental, same thing we talk about all the time with the lowest notes of the bass, insufficient volume in the box; second FFT shows strengthening of the fundamental.

What's "meaningless" about that?
 
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#23
Oscar Stern said:
What if we could just purchase a 5 String Double Bass, use the Hole-in-the-Heart conversion on the soundboard, & then play it so we could hear the difference.
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the use of the word “we” here cracks me up.

I play on probably the most affordable and commercially available quality 5 string there is today - that bitchen Shen 7/8 flat back.

Get you one, Oscar!

I’m here to tell ya’ll if you’re wanting a five string, it does the job and you won’t be needing/wanting any theoretical holes in the top.
 
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#24
turf3 said:
Doesn't look meaningless to me. Looks like an FFT of the spectrum of a note played on this instrument before and after modification. Playing low D (tuned I assume CGDA like a viola), first we see weak fundamental, same thing we talk about all the time with the lowest notes of the bass, insufficient volume in the box; second FFT shows strengthening of the fundamental.

What's "meaningless" about that?
Click to expand...

There are too many other variables at play for the graphs to represent anything specifically. It looks like an example straight out of the “how to lie with statistics” book.
There’s a lot of assumed very hard to control scientific control needed to make this experiment worth a damn. How hard the string was plucked or where, for example, microphone placement. So many variables. Two graphs with no explanation at all of the methodology used to obtain are meaningless or what they represent, imho.

certainly not “higher lines =better sound”

to be clear, I’m not trying to hate on the idea, but more suggest it’s a “solution without a problem” situation and this is hardly science. Oscar is utilizing a marketing and salesman approach to convince someone else to try this idea out on their five string (presumably because he doesn’t have one nor would want to risk ruining it if he did)

I think Oscar wants a five string and I think he should get one, but that has very little to do with this theoretical hole in the top idea.
 
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#25
turf3 said:
I guess I don't understand the total negative feedback to this idea. Of course anyone can find reasons not to do it or ways in which it might not work; and we haven't even gotten into possible unanticipated negative effects, really, but on the other hand it does seem to be backed up by some loosely related experience - pitching a violin a fifth lower and gaining some low end resonance by this means. It's not like trying to use a saxophone or piano modification as a model; violins and violas are violin-family instruments like the bass.

Obviously the cost of the test instrument is a negative, but this could be a use for those bass-shaped objects - after all, the first attempts at something like this would be purely comparative tests. You can do a comparative test of low frequency response on a crappy instrument.

I doubt that it will enhance low frequency response enough to matter but it's not the completely idiotic idea y'all seem to think it is.
Click to expand...

Every game changing innovation in history was probably regarded negatively until someone proved it. "The earth revolves around the sun" was heracy until it wasn't. And everyone believed that the world was round until only a few years ago...

But, our OP has posted this before and someone pointed to the history of it. It's not new and was tried and generally considered a failure 100 years ago or something. The fact that a child's violin model with this mod creates a child's viola is not compelling evidence for me pertaining to DB. Children's instruments are not for sonic excellence, they are for small people learning.

I think the physics of this for DB remind me of a Jenga tower. There is a lot more and more forceful vibration happening.

But if someone qualified wanted to explore this or any other major innovation, I'd follow with interest. There is no indication that anyone is doing so.

And I don't understand what the alleged problem is. We have been able to make wonderfully deep and clear sounding doublebasses for hundreds of years with wood, tension, and hide glue.
 
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#26
upload_2024-3-26_16-17-12.jpeg


Is this a similar concept? Arnold’s Ergo bass.
 
#27
Cdnbassnut said:
View attachment 5398182Is this a similar concept? Arnold’s Ergo bass.
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I don't really see the simularity. I think this idea is to help the player hear better. It doesn't involve the sound post or the table. Ribs, as best as I understand, are comparatively inert.

But it is innovation.

The trap doors for sound post adjustment are an innovation.

The biggest innovation in the last x decades is probably removable neck travel basses. I'm certainly glad that someone didn't listen to neighsayers on that one.

Laborie endpins are an innovation that seems here to stay.

It's not that we're not open to change.
 
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#28
 
#29
JBarz said:
There are too many other variables at play for the graphs to represent anything specifically. It looks like an example straight out of the “how to lie with statistics” book.
There’s a lot of assumed very hard to control scientific control needed to make this experiment worth a damn. How hard the string was plucked or where, for example, microphone placement. So many variables. Two graphs with no explanation at all of the methodology used to obtain are meaningless or what they represent, imho.

certainly not “higher lines =better sound”
....
Click to expand...
I'm not suggesting the FFTs are conclusive proof of anything. All they are is evidence that reducing the stiffness of the bridge-top plate-soundpost-back system by having one bridge foot couple directly to the back COULD increase the predominance of the fundamental in violin family instruments whose body is too small to get good low notes. It's not proof. It's not peer-reviewed evidence. It's not a 200 page engineering report. It's an INDICATION.
 
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#30
LouisF said:
Just a point of info: some smaller bodied violones had carved rosettes in the center of the top plate:

Bass Violin Shop on Instagram: "We never know what might wander into the shop! This old 1972 Pollmann violone just started its new life in North Carolina, and we helped facilitate the shipment from Los Angeles. EDIT: not for sale! Need your bass shipped to or from North Carolina? Let’s talk! #bassviolinshop #bass #doublebass #uprightbass #stringbass #violine #earlymusic #earlymusicinstruments #gamba #baroque #baroquemusic #pollmann #pöllmannbasses #madeingermany #madeingermany"

I THINK (no chart, no physics major here!) it moved more air in the smaller body.
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Concept is different, but I do know that sound hole size has a very important impact on which frequencies are reinforced. I don't know the details.
 
#32
turf3 said:
I'm not suggesting the FFTs are conclusive proof of anything. All they are is evidence that reducing the stiffness of the bridge-top plate-soundpost-back system by having one bridge foot couple directly to the back COULD increase the predominance of the fundamental in violin family instruments whose body is too small to get good low notes. It's not proof. It's not peer-reviewed evidence. It's not a 200 page engineering report. It's an INDICATION.
Click to expand...


Hey man, I’m not arguing or in opposition with anyone here. I like you and Oscar. I only intended to point out the potenntially misleading nature of those graphs being presented as conclusive evidence to persuade someone to try this idea.

I just traded a busted up half size body I would have loved to try something like this on as a five string, but if the suggestion is that anyone should take a perfectly good functioning 5 string and try this - well, caveat DIY’r is all I’m saying
 
#33
JBarz said:
Hey man, I’m not arguing or in opposition with anyone here. I like you and Oscar. I only intended to point out the potenntially misleading nature of those graphs being presented as conclusive evidence to persuade someone to try this idea.

I just traded a busted up half size body I would have loved to try something like this on as a five string, but if the suggestion is that anyone should take a perfectly good functioning 5 string and try this - well, caveat DIY’r is all I’m saying
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In the real world of manufacturing, where people make stuff, prototypes are a way of life. An outfit like Shen wouldn't turn a hair at eating the cost of five top plates to see if an idea were of merit. No, it wouldn't be a good idea for an individual bass player (except the very very well-heeled) to take a bass and drill holes in it. But for a manufacturing company that considers prototype costs as part of R&D expenses, yeah, no problem.
 
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#34
turf3 said:
In the real world of manufacturing, where people make stuff, prototypes are a way of life. An outfit like Shen wouldn't turn a hair at eating the cost of five top plates to see if an idea were of merit. No, it wouldn't be a good idea for an individual bass player (except the very very well-heeled) to take a bass and drill holes in it. But for a manufacturing company that considers prototype costs as part of R&D expenses, yeah, no problem.
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So, why don't they do it?

Again, this is not new, as someone indicated in another thread. If there was a problem to solve and a reason to believe that this would solve it, why isn't Shen or Upton or Paesold working on it?
 
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#35
TroyK said:
So, why don't they do it?

Again, this is not new, as someone indicated in another thread. If there was a problem to solve and a reason to believe that this would solve it, why isn't Shen or Upton or Paesold working on it?
Click to expand...
It may be that it's of no merit.

It may also be that the absence of smoke only proves the fire is very well hidden indeed.
 
#37
LouisF said:
Just a point of info: some smaller bodied violones had carved rosettes in the center of the top plate:

Bass Violin Shop on Instagram: "We never know what might wander into the shop! This old 1972 Pollmann violone just started its new life in North Carolina, and we helped facilitate the shipment from Los Angeles. EDIT: not for sale! Need your bass shipped to or from North Carolina? Let’s talk! #bassviolinshop #bass #doublebass #uprightbass #stringbass #violine #earlymusic #earlymusicinstruments #gamba #baroque #baroquemusic #pollmann #pöllmannbasses #madeingermany #madeingermany"

I THINK (no chart, no physics major here!) it moved more air in the smaller body.
Click to expand...
Evan Davenport carves rosettes into some of his basses, but I dunno if they go through the whole top or are purely decorative.
 
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