Double Bass let's be honest with string technology we don't need basses that big we need logistics

[Eli Brockway]

Forget Gaelic. What is the best bass for Welsh? The label would take up the entire interior.

Ew, Brittonic.

We only speak Goidelic Celtic languages here.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Ég held að við ættum öll að draga andann djúpt hér. Við virðumst vera með unga manneskju sem er ekki enskumælandi að móðurmáli sem er að reyna að brjótast inn í kontrabassaheiminn og nota þýðingarforrit til að reyna að ná til okkar. Það er engin leið að segja til um hversu mikið skilaboðin okkar til þeirra eru ruglað af þýðingarforritinu og öfugt. Það er sennilega betra að láta þá njóta vafans, að mínu mati.

It was Icelandic. For the record, what I said was:

I think we should all take a deep breath here. We seem to have a young non-native English speaker trying to break into the double bass world and using a translation program to try to reach us. There is no way to tell how much our message to them is being scrambled by the translation program and vice versa. It's probably better to give them the benefit of the doubt, in my opinion.

 

[Eli Brockway]

Jeg er enig med Chris.

 

[TroyK]

Slightly off topic, but I will say that bigger isn't always better. My main bass is the first NS LaScala hybrid made. It is shallower front to back than every other one I have run across, and I like its super articulate voice and have always wondered if the reduced depth is a factor in it sounding the way it does.

Sure, but that's not what is being discussed here. The posit is that in light of some non-specified "string technology" we should all tell the truth about 1/4 and 1/2 sized basses being superior to equivalent 3/4 and 7/8th basses.

Will a Moderator (or a Linguist, or a Physicist, or a Luthier, or a Principal Bassist), PLEEZE lock this ridiculous Thread? I think a small lock, not a big lock, would work best.
Or move it to Bass Humor (DB), where it can really thrive.
Plz and Thx.

I'm watching closely, but am not ready to step in yet. Giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. I might reply ban @Chris Fitzgerald, though.

It doesn't belong in humor, because I don't think the OP was joking. Everyone please keep your posts and replies respectful or walk away.

 

[Don Kasper]

I might reply ban @Chris Fitzgerald, though.

Yay!!!!!

or walk away.

Yes Sir! I'm "Walking Away" now. (Hey - that would be a great title for a jazz bass method book - "Walking: A Way")

 

[TroyK]

... I don't like it when people say this is right and this is wrong… there are many ways to get the same result ...

Good and fair, but please take this as being helpful: Virtually everything else you have written starting with "Let's be honest..." sounds like you are doing exactly that. Telling us why we, luthiers, and your future employers and colleagues are all wrong and/or just not admitting the truth, which you are insisting that you know.

You've also said that a) you're 18 years old (just at the age when you can start this journey in earnest) and b) that you are not confident enough in your abilities as a player to share any of your playing with us. Yet you seem to be lecturing people who are 40 years further down that road on how you think things should be. Pause, think about that before you push on, please.

Of course travel logistics are a real constraint, one that we all suffer through to greater or lesser degrees. There are instrument solutions to that, like electric upright basses and travel basses, but if you want to professionally play in an orchestra, you're not going to be able to do it with those instruments. If you end up inventing the masterbuilt 1/4 sized professional orchestral instrument and the industry follows suit, then you can come back and say "I told you so", but right now, you're just insisting that today's reality is actually different than all of us know it to be.


​

 

[keiranhohara]

What are the fractional size strings that a player would actually play professionally? Hint: there are very few choices

What are the choices for 3/4+ strings on the market? Hint: an overwhelming amount of choice making it difficult to try them all.

I feel market forces are here to tell us something about bass playing community.

 

[turf3]

Good and fair, but please take this as being helpful: Virtually everything else you have written starting with "Let's be honest..." sounds like you are doing exactly that. Telling us why we, luthiers, and your future employers and colleagues are all wrong and/or just not admitting the truth, which you are insisting that you know.

You've also said that a) you're 18 years old (just at the age when you can start this journey in earnest) and b) that you are not confident enough in your abilities as a player to share any of your playing with us. Yet you seem to be lecturing people who are 40 years further down that road on how you think things should be. Pause, think about that before you push on, please.

Of course travel logistics are a real constraint, one that we all suffer through to greater or lesser degrees. There are instrument solutions to that, like electric upright basses and travel basses, but if you want to professionally play in an orchestra, you're not going to be able to do it with those instruments. If you end up inventing the masterbuilt 1/4 sized professional orchestral instrument and the industry follows suit, then you can come back and say "I told you so", but right now, you're just insisting that today's reality is actually different than all of us know it to be.


​

Well, of course I can't speak to the motivations of every double-bass luthier for the last 300 years, but over and over what we find is that the "small bass that sounds as good as a large bass" gets limited to the 5/8ish size range. If all those talented makers COULD make 1/4 size basses that sounded as good as 3/4s, how come, then, no one's done it?

What IS true is that a 1/4 size bass, with a good pickup, well-equalized amp, and a skilled player, playing jazz pizzicato, can sound really darn good. But that's because he's using a different technology (electronic amplification) to supplement the shortcomings of the small body bass that are driven by laws of physics. I note that so far, said technology is still not accepted in the symphony orchestra, chamber music ensemble, etc. (yes, yes, I'm sure there's one unicorn counterexample, but to find it you're going to have to trawl through thousands of pictures of orchestra bass sections playing big 3/4 size basses without amps, so let's just not waste time going there, OK?)

OP, I suggest you do a little reading on the acoustics of stringed instruments, especially the relationship of tone frequency, wavelength, and the speed of sound in air.

 

[GretschWretch]

I would speculate that 300 years ago 3/4 basses were made for orchestral use, 1/2 & 5/8 for chamber ensembles and other small gatherings, and the 1/4 for strolling musicians,such as the bierbass referenced by Elgar in his books.

Size of bass was dictated by intended purpose. Nowadays it is determined by age level of the schools.

 

[ctrlzjones]

I would speculate that 300 years ago 3/4 basses were made for orchestral use, 1/2 & 5/8 for chamber ensembles (…)

Excuse me for nerding out, but 300 years ago, wasn’t every “bassist” playing a viola de gamba (that came in a lot of sizes) then?

 

[turf3]

I think that by 1723 the double-bass, in more or less the modern format, was well established. It appears three-stringers were still common; also as we all know, size and shape were much later to be standardized on bass than on the rest of the violin family (and even today are nowhere near as standardized as the other members of the family). I expect there were still a lot of fretted bass viols in use in 1723; in a time where every musical instrument was made by hand, a double-bass would have been an enormous investment for any but the very wealthy, so people who set out to play a bass stringed instrument used what was available, and what was available in 1723 would have been a lot of older bass viols.

But there definitely were double-basses in 1723 that we would recognize as such and be able to play.

 

[GretschWretch]

Excuse me for nerding out, but 300 years ago, wasn’t every “bassist” playing a viola de gamba (that came in a lot of sizes) then?

A lot still were, but the movement by the eighteenth century (which is 300 years ago) was to the violin family instruments and away from the viols. Just like three-string DBs were still in use in the 1930s although by then four-stringers were the norm.

 

[longfinger]

"we need" ... better than logistics are well paying gigs.

Bring enough money to the discussion, the logistics will happen.

Kidding aside, the new string string tech, wrapped metal core etc is already around and the new mensurs of 104-107 cm or 41"-42" are already shorter than the old 43" basses.

Peoples instruments now, are not setup up like they were 150 years ago. 3 stringers are gone, 4 stringers are the standard, with 5 strings and C extensions real options that work. No longer "rumbly and out of tune" playing the low notes, and people can also pay high notes that sound great too. One can even commission 5 strings with low C extensions and a high C string. The new string tech allows it to sound good through the whole range too.

Heavier strings can make lower notes, and steel strings are heavier per cm than gut strings. That technology change has happened.

Are not new commissioned instruments optimized for higher tension steel strings? They are different than the ones built many centuries ago. Neck angle, bridge height, internals.. also slightly different. How many new basses have 43" mensur?

The body sizes are smaller too... 3/4 is the full size instead of 4/4. Ribs can be shallower..

A lot has already changed, and the double bass can fit in very well to all sorts of newer music sounds of the last century. There is a lot more out there than European orchestral music to play.


About a decade ago I remember seeing a web page from a luthier building new instruments with only the new string tech in mind and making the basses slightly smaller too; mensur of 39", 40"? Might have been doing the same for cellos... I just don't remember who that was.

Anyways, just have your bass set up as well as can be, practice, learn and enjoy. If you find the mensur too long, get a bass with a shorter mensur. They exist. Be flexible. If you have the resources, buy several basses, a bigger one, a smaller one, etc... or just swap with your instruments friends for a bit.