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Double Bass Tail Wire Length / Tailpiece Position

#41
Batbass said:
Do someone have any idea about how 'tune' the afterlenght?

Thanks in advance for any advice from you.

Mauro
Click to expand...


The pitch of the after length changes as you adjust the tail wire. One Luthier tell me it's 2 octaves and a fourth.. Another says 2 n a 3rd... The slanted compensated TP is completly different..

I think the tension and tone of th Bass itself is more important that the notes 'under' the Bridge. I could care less what theu are as long as my Bass is at it's best.
 
#42
I had an interesting experience yesterday. For months now my afterlength was about 7" from the break angle on the tailpiece to the saddle on the E string. I use an MPM Compensated TP so the afterlength is even shorter on the G string (prob around 5"). Perhaps this was too short? I couldn't tell - the bass seemed to play fine and the tension was even amongst the strings.

A couple of days ago, I decided to take my old set of Anima's off and put some spirocores on. The tension was weird, the G string was very light tension but the other 3 were pretty stiff. So yesterday, as an experiment, I lengthened the afterlength drastically - to about 10" on the E and 6.75" on the G. The differences were unbelieveable!

The string heights on every string were very low and the tension went way down. Too low in fact. String tensions were pretty even across all strings. The string height thing was kinda shocking because I didn't expect the heights to come down just because I changed the afterlengths. Every time I tensioned up the strings, I made sure I lined up the bridge just right - square between the f-hole notches and right down the middle of the bass.

Usually I had my string heights pretty high when I was using the Animas. I jacked the Spiros up even further than where I had the Animas. The bass plays great now. Very fast and the spiro's are breaking in nicely.

Can anybody describe what I did right/wrong?!?

I'm tempted to put the Anima's back on with these afterlengths just to see how the bass behaves.
 
#43
After cutting the antique coat hanger off my 140 year
old german 5/8 bass, I installed a synthetic shoe string
type. New to the game, I muffed the job, slightly.

As I strung up the bass, I found a bit a stretching that
acted like really fresh nylon strings. Because of my knot
and the stretching, the tailpiece rode unnaturally high.
The G string red over-winding (sic?) was trying to climb
up onto the bridge.

I played it and found that the amazing mwah sound on the
E string has dropped away substantially (newer spiro-orch).
So I grabbed my handy SPL meter (radio shack, $80) set it up
on the stool and played pizz across the strings. I was seeing
between 75 and 80 dbm, with the lowest readings toward the
E side, and the G loudest.

Next, I took apart my little bass (Fish) and put another loop
around the end pin. This dropped the tailpiece 1.75 inches.
It was 2.0 inches above the saddle for the first round of
measurements.

I restrung the bass and retested it. I found that the E string
was deeper sounding with a more pronouced fundamental.
This showed up on the SPL measurements too. I had seen
the EA end come up about 3 dbm with no drop in the DG end.
The bass was showing basically even volume across the strings.
I could get 3-5 dbm variation with technique, so I had to try
to be consistent.

But the Mwah never really came back with this change.
It is still there, but the treble end of it is rather muted.
The more flexible coupling seems to have damped it out.

I wish I had done the readings with the meter before the
original job, but hindsight is 20-30, at best.
 
#44
So less Mwah was what you wanted? Also, I would check what the afterlengths are from the bridge to the TP, not the TP saddle to the TP. Or by saying "saddle" you mean the bridge saddle or something like that. In which case, 2" sounds awfully close.
 
#45
>So less Mwah was what you wanted?

No. What I wanted was to try to coax out a bit more bottom end from this little 5/8ths bass. I got it. I

think less Mwah was a side effect of losing the 40 year old
coat hanger that Sam Kolstein installed back in 1962.
I may take off the spiros anyhow, which would also reduce it,
so I am not wedded to it. It is just a data point to add.

>Also, I would check what the afterlengths are from the bridge
>to the TP, not the TP saddle to the TP. Or by saying "saddle"
>you mean the bridge saddle or something like that. In which >case, 2" sounds awfully close.

Sorry to confuse you. The tailpiece was riding up so high as
the tailcord tightended that the red thread wound over the G
string was starting slide into the slot in the bridge.

Getting the tailpiece back down evened out the volume by
bringing up the bottom end, just as Arnold has said it would.

I hope somebody finds this data point helpful in the future.
 
#47
OK Jake,

I made the measurements you requested.

The string length from bottom of nut to middle of saddle is 39.75". The string length from middle of saddle to tailnut is 6.75 ".

I used an electronic tuner to attempt to determine tones,
but sometimes their appear to be multiple overtones with
nearly similar magnitude that you can observe by tapping
at different places on the afterlength, i.e. no clear
fundamental.

String Tone A Tone B
_____ _____ ______
G F# C#
D A ---
A A E
E D G#

Mostly it appears the A/B tones are about a fifth apart.

But I suspect you are more interested in the string to
tone intervals. Note the A tones for the A and D string
were a full octave apart. The prominence of the A
overtone in the afterlength does not appear to create
an especially powerful A on this 5/8 instrument, unlike
my 3/4, where the A seems amazingly loud.

I hope this is what you want.
 
#48
Hi Maaven.

When I tune a tailpiece, I just pluck the afterlength and match it to the fifth position harmonic on the next string up. In other words, the two-octave harmonic on the G string matches the afterlength note on the D string, the two-octave harmonic on the D string is the same as the afterlength on the A string, etcetera. Works for all but the G string which I finger at the fifth position. It is two octaves low, but my ear still works a little! :)
I think an electronic tuner gets confused by all the overtones.

Try playing the after length and finding the note by ear to see if you come up with the same values. I'm still learning!

Seeya, Jake
 

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