From your pics, it seems the nut and bridge slots are excessively deep. Shallow them up a bit to free up the string. I also agree with the sound post addition. It transfers energy from the top to the bottom. In effect, this creates two "air pumps" to move sound. Watch because the shape you have May cause phase cancellations and create dead spots within your scale. I have a build on here using a wheelbarrow. I am still tweaking things after two years. I had a Dead e string with weed wacker strings. Once i switched to a higher tension string, the bass really came to life. Better tone, sustain and volume can all be expected. My next modification is going to be a composite archtop as i currently have a ply flat top with bass bar and soundpost. The resultant tension makes for a sag on the e-side of the bridge due to a lack of overall stiffness in the top. Keep at it. It someone wants to say something, tell them to buils one better and share note with you.
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Double Bass home built DB (warning carbon fibre content)
- Thread starter richtea
- Start date
- Aug 1, 2005
- 3,546
- 1,421
- Disclosures
- Private Inventor - Bass Capos
One idea. If it sounds good from the "A" up, then why not just tune it A-D-G-C? Whatever you do with this thing, you probably aren't going to drastically improve the low end, and the effort would be better spent on a new build. A "baritone" instrument would be way cool anyway.
No idea if the OP is still monitoring the two year old thread. But the one thing I would say is that reducing the sound hole diameter is probably better done with something rigid, as I think just taping over the ports the tape is likely to vibrate in and out and not really restrict the air passage in and out. After all, it's a very small amount of air actually passing in and out of the sound holes. Maybe take a thin piece of wood and block each port completely, then make a hole in each blocking piece and gradually increase the hole diameter. If it is easy enough to make these thin pieces of wood to block the ports, make a bunch of them with holes from small to large, and you can do easy A to B comparisons (just insert a port reduction piece, tape it down with masking tape, try, remove, change, repeat).
I suspect that the tone and power of the E can be improved by doing a lot of the same things done when a regular DB has a weak E. It will almost certainly never be as even as a well set up DB just due to body size and string length. Also you should consider weakening the ADG strings a little by lighter gauge strings, to even the whole thing out. I bet it's still louder than an acoustic bass guitar for horizontal playing, which has an even smaller body.
And the whole thing is just so darn cool and rock-and-roll!
I suspect that the tone and power of the E can be improved by doing a lot of the same things done when a regular DB has a weak E. It will almost certainly never be as even as a well set up DB just due to body size and string length. Also you should consider weakening the ADG strings a little by lighter gauge strings, to even the whole thing out. I bet it's still louder than an acoustic bass guitar for horizontal playing, which has an even smaller body.
And the whole thing is just so darn cool and rock-and-roll!
I would think that trying differing strings would be the quickest way to improve the e response. The suggestion of tuning up and down to see what tension the instrument responds favorably to should give you an idea if you should go with more or less tension.
