Double Bass Odd sound after tunning back to A440

[Joe Taylor]

I am not sure exactly where to put this post so I will start here.

I just did the Messiah (3X) over the past week end. The organ A was at 438 so we tunned down not unsual at all for a pipe organ to be flat or sharp. The bass was tunned down for almost two weeks.

The strange thing is now that I tunned back to A440 it seems that my bass sounded funny. Kind of thin and nasal. After several hours of practice it seems to be regaining it's normal sound.

Any of you had this experience?

Joe

 

[arnoldschnitzer]

I don't know about anyone else, but I can barely hear the difference between 438 and 440. I respectfully suggest this phenomena you've experienced may fall under the realm of "psycho-acoustics".

 

[Joe Taylor]

The bass is back to sounding like I used to.

The best way to describe it is that it sounded stiff. Go figure.

The psycho part is probably right!

Joe

 

[Paul Warburton]

I've had this problem. It's your strings. After de-tuning your bass, the strings have found a newer area of the string to settle in, both at the nut and at the bridge. Be patient and pretend they're new strings!

 

[dvmweb]

Joe has a good ear. He played his bass out of tune bass for two weeks and eventually heard it to be ok that way. Then for a short while when he retuned it the bass sounded funny becaused he had "reset" his ear. He perceived his bass to be off until he got it tuned back in. Or, not. I'm going to go have a beer.





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