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Double Bass string responce/soundpost- realistic expectations

groooooove

groooooove

Supporting Member
Dec 17, 2008
9,050
6,900
Long Island, NY
#1
i bought a large shen bass recently intending for it to be my acro-only bass.

when i tried it out, it had orchestral srings on it, and the pizz responce was pretty lame sounding- tight and dead sounding. i'm a big fan of spiro mediums for arco, and since this particular bass is very dark sounding (and in combonation with my carbon fiber bow) i figured bright strings would work. i originally assumed the tight pizz sound was the strings fault.

so now that the spiros are on there, i was expecting it to be a killer jazz bass as well. but, the upper two strings- mostly the G though- still have that dead sound. this is after i had a new soundpost fit by a qualified bass-only luthier.

i'm planning to take the bass back to the luthier who did the soundpost- the day i picked it up i was in a rush and couldn't experiment. won't have a chance to bring it for another week or so.

so my question is, how much can one expect the responce to change? the spiros are brand new- maybe 10 hours of playing. the lower 2 strings sound awesome. as it is now i would never bring this bass to a jazz gig. i'm very happy with the arco sound and responce, though. i don't suspect it's a situation where D/G spiros "just dont work for this bass," since the original strings had the same characteristics.

i can record a little soundfile on an iphone if its neccesary to get a taste of exactly how dead it sounds.

thoughts?
 
#2
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the first bass is the one in question. for comparison, the second bass is a Shen SB80. both strings have spiro mittels, and both have been set up by the same luthier.

what do we think; can a soundpost adjustment turn this bass into a jazz giant? or am i asking too much?
 
#3
Hard to say, but since you want it as an arco bass, it might help to enlarge the distance to the bridge foot a bit (by your luthier, of course). It seems the higher strings miss a bit of fundamental and that might get better if the soundpost is a bit more away from the bridge leg.

You might want to measure the distance yourself by using two coupled parallel rulers, one inside the bass touching the soundpost and one on the top to get the distance from soundpost to bridge foot. On a larger bass the distance might need to be a bit larger than on the smaller one, but this also depends on the top thickness and other stuff. But you get a rough idea if the soundpost of your big bass is in the right area or too close that way.

Moving the soundpost changes the vibrational modes of the top, so even with a small adjustment things can change more than you might imagine.

Definitely worth experimenting with your luthier, the bass might sound much different when you return home.
 
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#4
as far as the posts current placement, it's in the commonly accepted "neutral" position, about a soundposts distance south of the treble foot.

i'm going to definitely get it adjusted; i just won't have a chance to for a while. so, i cant help but wonder what kind of results are realistically possible. i'd love for this bass to come with me on jazz gigs. arco, the sound is incredibly large and deep. it could work nicely for some of the duo stuff i'll be doing in the next few months if it could have that same depth, and some sustain, pizz.
 
#5
The first thing you should do is bow the living crap out of it for a few weeks to play it in a bit before you start driving hundreds of miles to have Mark or anyone else tinker with soundpost placement.

Start by alternating perfect fifths and flat fifth on each open string, as loud and forcefully as possible. That will do a lot to wake up the top. Then spend a few happy hours bowing two-octave scales in each key, so the top gets used to vibrating at a wide range of frequencies. Doing that will transform the response. Trust me. It never fails.

Remember, it's a new bass and the wood still thinks it's a tree.

If you really want to have fun with it, take the frog off your bow, run the hair OVER the strings and the stick UNDER them. Then tune the strings to an open D major chord and go nuts.

Arnold Schnitzer came up with that one. It's a glorious noise.

If the response is still hinky after a few weeks of that treatment, then moving the post closer to or further away from the centerline may favorably change the balance of the strings' response.
 
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#6
KUNGfuSHERIFF said:
If the response is still hinky after a few weeks of that treatment, then moving the post closer to or further away from the centerline may favorably change the balance of the strings' response.
Click to expand...

that's true, the bass is new and stuff- but if you listen to the soundfile, theres hardly any sustain on those strings. this seems like a soundpost/string issue, way more than it seems to be a "playing in" issue.

does anyone else think arco playing time can solve an issue thats this dramatic? i agree it would help, and have been practicing on this bass every day since i've had it. but i can't imagine that alone turning the same bass into one suitable for real-life jazz playing.
 
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#7
I would first have the soundpost looked at for fit (tension) and moved (experimentally) by your luthier. (And continue to play the bass, of course).
Also - I've never owned a new bass - is the theory mentioned above by KUNGfu widely accepted in the luthier community?
My $.02
 
#8
I'm home posting from my phone, so I can't open that file. I'll check it out when I'm in the office.

Soundpost placement can definitely tweak the response, and I'll hang my hat on my assertion that heavy bowing will wake up a sleepy bass. It even works on plywood tops.

But some basses have a baked-in personality. My Solano, for instance, is so dark that it swallows the Spiro growl. It's so deep that Spiros literally pizz like Flexocors, so I put the Flexos back on because there wasn't much to be gained from having Spiros on there.

Wonderful arco bass. So-so jazz bass.
 
#9
If you don't have a chance to go to your luthier, the best you can do is bow as much and loud as you can and all the notes of course. You can even try to play your jazz stuff arco. Why not. It was done before someone forgot to take his bow to the gig.
There is a special treatment for basses in Germany called "Vibrationsentdämpfung" (vibrational undampening), that loads the bridge of the bass with vibrations until the current the motor needs to move the bridge drops, which means this vibrational mode has less resistance than before, then the frequency is changed. That happens for hours for each frequency, the total treatment can easily take a week or more. It is also not forever but you need to play the instrument with the bow often enough, otherwise the effect may be reduced over time.
The Tonerite is a very simple device with too less force to get large changes, but it is the same principle.
 
#10
KUNGfuSHERIFF said:
and I'll hang my hat on my assertion that heavy bowing will wake up a sleepy bass. It even works on plywood tops.
Click to expand...

i totally agree with that. i'd say something like 30-40 hours of playing time seems to be around when the bass has woken up.

but, this is a massive responce difference on the upper strings. i'd love to be able to play jazz on this bass, but as it is right now i'm very happy with it just as an arco bass.
 
#11
another thought...

does anyone think this issue is due to the strings?

i forogt i've got an old set of superflexibles. they sound great on my other instrument, which right now has Zyex on it. i could take the zyex off one bass and put them on the other. but, string changing is kinda a pain - especially if im just going to undo it shortly after.
 
#12
Visit the Thomastik website and find the Spirocores (and Superflexibles) for bass. There is tension data for any string. Be sure to find the right Spiro Mittel set, 4/4 S42 or 3/4 3885.0.
But as I can remember there is nothing unusual with them (at least with the 4/4 set). The tension goes up a bit towards the lower strings, but I like that a bit better than equal tension. And the S42 wasn't weak or had a short sustain on G and D on my 5-string (with a high C).
 
#13
My very old mentor years ago advised me how to wake my bass up by lots of playing very heavily up and down the E string in half tone steps, up to and beyond the first octave. Really lash the bass, making lots of very loud, very long notes and looking for maximum resonance (by slowing the bow speed down and exploring bow weight and contact points). The E string is directly over the bass bar so string vibrations are very powerfully transmitted to the bass body. Of course it is impractical to use many of these notes because the shortened heavy string produces too thick a sound but being totally OTT like this works quickly, much faster than ordinary use of the fingerboard and bow.

Best wishes, DP
 
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#16
I just listened to your clip and am even more in the dark than I was before.

You have two basses (one ply, one fully carved) from the same maker, set up with the same type of strings by the same luthier.

These two basses sound radically different.

That's kinda totally to be expected when A/B-ing ply vs. carved basses.
 
#18
There are many proponents of bowing long tones to wake up a sleepy bass. That assumes that it's simply asleep and not in a coma. :) IME, if that approach doesn't change things in far less than six months, then I'd suggest that you visit your luthier for a possible adjustment of the setup. In fact, if it were me, I'd do that right away. Unless there is some aspect of the setup that is substantially out of whack, bowing long notes and even adjusting the soundpost can produce meaningful changes but neither will be transformative. IME, after, say, the first few weeks of its life, a DB pretty much has the voice it's going to have for its entire life. Again, I'm not saying that adjusting the post cannot produce substantial changes. It certainly can. What it will be, however, is a tweak to the fundamental (pun intended) sonic characteristics of the instrument.

groooooove said:
...can a soundpost adjustment turn this bass into a jazz giant? or am i asking too much?
Click to expand...

Not likely; likely.
 
#20
Here's another thought: what is the string height (bottom of the string to the FB at the end of the FB) of the first two strings on the "dead" bass? how does it compare to the string heights of the same two strings on the "live" bass? I've been driven crazy in the past by bridge cuts that leave the G string too low in relation to the other strings, and had to have the bridge re-shaped every time. It's possible that your bridge cut could be lower on two strings, which could account for the lack of "pop" on those strings. Just a thought.
 

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