Does anyone reduce the mass of a bass bar using perforations, like in boutique guitars? I'm wondering whether a lighter bar could improve projection of fundamentals or responsiveness.
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Double Bass How about hacking the bass bar?
- Thread starter Steven Ayres
- Start date
There's a better way that doesn't involve a hacksaw. Regraduate the bar if it's too heavy and stiff, taper the ends and the curve better, and do all the usual.
I don't see any reason to make a perfectly good bass bar look like the linings in an EngelKay.
I don't see any reason to make a perfectly good bass bar look like the linings in an EngelKay.
Agree. Seems what OP is suggesting would take the spring out of the bar
Intuitively, I would say a thinnner, but solid bassbar, would be springier than this model. It's like a wide tube with narrow walls would be stiffer than a solid stick with the same amount of material, or even more material (to an extent). Ofcourse there is not so much inertia with a hollow construction, but still... Just my 2 c
I thought the function of the bar was to conduct sound from the front to the back. If so, stiffer should be better. I recently had a thin bar replaced with a thicker bar and it did improve the projection. Lightness would also be good. So maybe experiment with a carbon tube?
Those are two different engineering structures. On a double bass, you are working with downward pressure on the top and on the flat top steel string guitar you have the string tension pulling away from the body. I don't believe those ultralight boutique guitar designs will stand the test of time. Have you ever played one? I worked for Dream Guitars for almost five years. Every single day, there were dozens of modern attempts at voicing. Very rarely did I want to bring any one of them home. While there were changes in voice and projection and tone, at the end of the day, after going through 3-400 modern instruments, 99% of the time you'd find me in the corner blissfully playing an old 1937 Martin that did everything I wanted.
How to go about determining whether the bar is too heavy, or rather, whether the bass would speak better with less mass in the bass bar?
So tap on it, observe how far the bar makes the top ride over the c-bouts, and shave it down accordingly.
What you've gotta remember is that over the course of a millennium, somebody's had your idea before.
What you've gotta remember is that over the course of a millennium, somebody's had your idea before.
I'd thin it laterally before I would change the height...and I'd think about thinning the plates and ribs, if I thought there was too much mass somewhere. If you weaken that bass-bar too much, the bass side strings will begin to sound flabby...or at least I have run into that, and corrected it with a stiffer (taller) bassbar. But wood is mysterious stuff, and your results may indeed vary.
You can go too far with the plate-thinning stuff, too, so be warned: it is a whole lot harder to replace wood than it was to shave it off...
You can go too far with the plate-thinning stuff, too, so be warned: it is a whole lot harder to replace wood than it was to shave it off...
I'ts just that I think the most important thing is how or whether the bass bar is good at resonating/vibrating, and I am convinced that a solid piece of wood of the right dimensions is better at that than the examples pictured above. It will be springier more resonant. As an allegory: I do not think you would want to make a bow like that, at least not the parts of it that are supposed to "give".
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Just a thought, because I don't know how vibrations are supposed to travel through a bass bar (I'm not a materials scientist, nor do I play one on TV): Holes are used to prevent cracks from propagating through materials, so might they have a negative effect on vibrations in this instance?
Slight derail here, but I REALLY wish folks who are making those thinline semi-acoustic basses (like the EB2) would core out the inertia blocks like Steve suggested. Would remove a lot of fused vertibrae.
Matthew Tucker
Commercial User
- Aug 21, 2002
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Arnold Schnitzer teaches that a bass can have a heavy/stiff bass bar, high arching, or a thick top. Any two of these properties can make for a good sounding bass; all three won't work. My own application of this theory has so far proven successful.
- Aug 1, 2005
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I've never fitted a bass bar, but my instinct tells me that those holes aren't likely to be helpful. Slotting into the sides seems worth exploring, though.
Matthew Tucker
Commercial User
- Aug 21, 2002
- 2,686
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- Owner: Bresque Basses, Sydney Basses and Cellos
But Rob, who has honestly got time for this sort of thing? I know if I put a bassbar in, and glue the top on, the LAST thing I want to do is pull that top off again to try something else! Sure, sometimes it's necessary, because the results are sometimes difficult to predict, but no-one does it for fun ...
