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Double Bass professional players with low action?

J

jude4312

May 16, 2008
11
0
#1
are there any professional double bass players playing in low string height? what's the difference when bass is played through an amp? are there any differences? i mean with low and high action. thanks.
 
#3
I think the general rule is the higher your string height, the bigger the sound. This is one of the reasons why string heights were so high in the pre-amplifier days. Of course the trade off is having to work harder. That said, there are guys who manage a full tone with close string height -- Edgar Meyer springs to mind.

The sound that goes into your amplifier absolutely makes a difference. To paraphrase Rufus Reid, amplify a puny sound and you get a LOUD puny sound.
 
#4
Depends, u want a Lafaro sound or a Mingus sound. Also depends what kind of stuff you are playing I think. Like in a bigband setting I would go for a higher setting but if im playin in a combo id go for a lower. It doesnt only differ in difficulty its also a matter of sound imo. Id get a height adjuster if you will be playing with an amp all the time.
 
#5

Granted, Charlie has guts on top but the tone is punchier with less mwah and buzz.
His setup fits his style of play.

I saw NHOP interviewed on a DVD he did with Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown. When NHOP's amp died on an encor, he played Ray's bass and couldn't pull off all of his tricks. Ray just winked and told him, 'not on my bass'!
 
#8
I have a friend in his 70's who has been a full-time professional bassist all his life. He has arthritis in both hands, so his philosophy is to let your amp do the work. He plays a 150 year old German shop bass with a Realist into an AI Contra. His G string (Weichs) is approximately 3mm off the fingerboard. I can't even play that bass. Everyone who has heard him play (including myself) just raves about the sound that he gets out of that rig. The tone that you get is in your hands, not in your string height.
 
#9
I think the bass has something to do with it too. My Kay sounded better with very high string height. However my Juzek, sounds great with relatively low string height. I think it depends on where the "sweet spot" on the bass is as well as the players left and right hand technique. I saw John Clayton playing a duo gig (no amp) with his son in a medium sized concert hall. The sound was loud and beautiful. When he would play with the bow on the G-string, there was some rattling as if his strings were pretty low. Did I mention he was playing Ray's bass?
 
#10
clink said:
I saw NHOP interviewed on a DVD he did with Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown. When NHOP's amp died on an encor, he played Ray's bass and couldn't pull off all of his tricks. Ray just winked and told him, 'not on my bass'!
Click to expand...

Hilarious. A 1977 concert in Montreux is up on youtube in bits and pieces. Ray and Nils HOP really had different sounds.

If you pluck harder, the string moves more, and so needs more room, hence more string height. With bridge adjusters, you can experiment to get the height that fits your sound.

BTY, I think that in the clip you sent of Charlie Haden, his bass sounds like a big fretless bass guitar. That piezo p/u going direct into the board seems to do that. My main instrument is fretless bass, so that's fine with me.
 
#12
Yea, that Montreax date is the one. The incident didn't make the DVD, but in the interview, NHOP said that his amp got unplugged when going back onstage. Being so close to Oscar, he leaned down and told him he couldn't take a solo and Oscar told him to use Ray's bass. Ray had a go and handed the bass off to NHOP. It's a shame it didn't make the cut.

FWIW, on my bass just raising the height 1mm to 5.5 and 8.5 made a big difference.
There is def a sweet spot.
 
#14
heres my belief: just like any other profession, your instrument is a tool to perform a job in the way you want it to.

theres no doubt string height affects your tone, but to say "better or worse" is a subjective opinion based on what you want the bass to do, and how you play.

bromberg is a good example. you can bet hes been tweaking his whole setup for years and years looking for the perfect sound for HIS playing style. theres no point putting him on some thumpy wooden tuba, because he wouldnt be able to do what he does, and so it wouldnt be bromberg.

im in the low action camp, i always get good responses to my tone, and i have a lot of fun soloing as my ideas can flow out more easily because im not struggling with holding down high action strings. the bass works fantastic on ballads because the E string will ring out a soft "mwahhing" note for a whole bar, not just a big punch in the face on beat 1
 
#15
drurb said:
Brian Bromberg. If his strings were any lower, they'd be IN the fingerboard. :)
Click to expand...

I love his sound. Strings are slammed, but it is still a huge sound.


The link to Charlie Haden w/Pat Metheny, I opted to watch the Waltz for Ruth clip instead. I transcribed that one semester. It was a blast spending time getting into Charlie's sound-that made me consider gut strings.
 
#16
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#18
Agreed on Bromberg's bass. I was considering on of the Lemur copies (ISB 2007) and I had to jack up the bridge waaaay up to play it.

Lynn Seaton's action is very VERY low. His sound is huge.

I'm on the low side of medium height. I play a lot of 3-4 hour jazz gigs. I don't want to think about playing 4 sets on a bridge that's waay high.
 

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