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Double Bass The Concept of "Opening Up"

Matt R.

Matt R.

Jul 18, 2007
2,437
1,933
Huntsville AL
#1
In my torturous months of waiting for my first DB to arrive, I've done tons of reading, research etc to learn more about the instrument. One thing that kind of eludes me is what the meaning of the bass 'opening up' after a while.
I sort of have an idea of what everyone is talking about, but that's about it. What exactly happens when a bass begins to do this? Does it apply more to carved instruments than ply ones? My bass will be a Shen SB80. What should I expect in this regard?
Thanks.
 
#2
There's only one way to help a DB "open up."
Play the holy hell out of it, especially long open string tones with the bow. Sound vibrations running through the top is the only way to help encourage the wood to loosen up the sound both in terms of sound and playability. Tedious stuff for sure but the pay back is that not only will the bass sound better, but also feel better to play in terms of that "tight" sound that newer basses have.
Good luck.
 
#4
So if you practice every day, is this a process of weeks? Months? I know there's no concrete way to quantify it, but is there a ballpark amount of time before you start to notice a difference assuming you practice, say an hour or so a day?
 
#5
Matt R. said:
So if you practice every day, is this a process of weeks? Months? I know there's no concrete way to quantify it, but is there a ballpark amount of time before you start to notice a difference assuming you practice, say an hour or so a day?
Click to expand...

All of the adove, if you play frequently and take care of your bass it will continue to improve, that's why a 300Yo bass is worth more then a new one.
 
#6
all scientific studies performed on bowed and plucked instruments to demonstrate the "opening up" of an instrument have failed to do so.
in others words, science says its hogwash.
i believe it happens.a lot of people dont. it cannot be proved, even by the owner as memory is fleeting.
safe to say a laminate instrument will do so less than a carved.
just my $0.02.
 
#7
gottliver said:
all scientific studies performed on bowed and plucked instruments to demonstrate the "opening up" of an instrument have failed to do so.
in others words, science says its hogwash.
i believe it happens.a lot of people dont. it cannot be proved, even by the owner as memory is fleeting.
safe to say a laminate instrument will do so less than a carved.
just my $0.02.
Click to expand...

Could be a bit of both. It makes sense to me that vibration and time will subtly alter physical aspects of the bass. But more than that, practicing (especially long bows) a lot gives a player the opportunity to really learn how to draw the best sound out of that instrument.
 
#8
the wood/glue/varnish loosen and settle after a while, especially if you're playing hard and frequently. the "opening-up" process takes a long time (years really), but you will probably start to notice changes in the instrument within months. as you learn the idiosyncrasies of your bass, you will adjust as a player, which is part of the process too. i'd like to know exactly what studies have failed to demonstrate this... not only is it common knowledge within the music community, but i'm absolutely sure it's quantifiable. as the wood relaxes, it vibrates more freely... what's so hard to believe about that?
 
#11
Square Bear said:
the wood/glue/varnish loosen and settle after a while, especially if you're playing hard and frequently. the "opening-up" process takes a long time (years really), but you will probably start to notice changes in the instrument within months. as you learn the idiosyncrasies of your bass, you will adjust as a player, which is part of the process too. i'd like to know exactly what studies have failed to demonstrate this... not only is it common knowledge within the music community, but i'm absolutely sure it's quantifiable. as the wood relaxes, it vibrates more freely... what's so hard to believe about that?
Click to expand...

Sometimes intuition just does not suffice. For example, it's not clear, to me anyway, that such loosening and settling would, necessarily, lead to a better sound. What is "common knowledge" in terms of a phenomenon, may have its origins in factors not commonly considered. It used to be "common knowledge" that the earth was flat. The apparent evidence for that really stemmed from other factors. Your absolute certainty with regard to the effect being quantifiable, while perhaps theoretically supported, may not coincide with practical reality. Imagine the controls that would have to be in place to assess the "opening up." It would seem to me that what would be required would be a longitudinal study involving a number of detailed and relevant measures that includes many basses tracked from initial build across years, perhaps decades.

It doesn't surprise me in the least that studies have not revealed any objective evidence to support "opening up." I'd have to really dig in to how the studies were performed.

Now, when it comes down to it, I do believe that basses "open up," especially in their first months of life. That coincides with my experience but I must admit that it's difficult to separate any such effect from my adaptation to an instrument. I believe that luthiers will tell you that a bass can change dramatically in its first few weeks of life and those substantial changes don't seem to be reasonably attributable to adaptation by the player(s).

Beyond those initial changes, I'm just not so sure. I do believe that time and "opening up," no matter what the span of time considered, will not transform a mediocre bass into a gem. In my experience, the "voice" your instrument has a few days after its "birth," is essentially the voice it will have over its entire life (changes in setup aside). One should never buy a new bass with which one is not happy with the expectation that time will cause it to mature into one that will be substantially more desirable.
 
#12
gottliver said:
all scientific studies performed on bowed and plucked instruments to demonstrate the "opening up" of an instrument have failed to do so.
Click to expand...

I'm unaware of such studies, and would welcome more details. From an engineering standpoint, however, there's data that does appear to confirm dramatic changes in frequency response from "opening up", via the accelerated method of stimulating the process in a very short time--i.e., subjecting the top to an intense cycle of vibrations.

In an experiment, three well-known guitarists--Jackson Browne, Henry Kaiser and Lawrence Juber--submitted instruments that were clamped to a shaker table ("a kind of super–heavy-duty loudspeaker with a 7,500-watt amplifier and a three-inch magnesium plate instead of a speaker cone"). Their tops were vibrated for 45 minutes, producing the sonic stress equivalent of several years of regular play.

Here's the change in frequency response on Lawrence Juber's Taylor 514:

Invalid Link Removed

Subjectively, Juber said "It gained another octave of low-end tone, and the highs became much more complex...It was like when an adolescent’s voice breaks and becomes mature." All three instruments, the consensus ran, were noticeably improved in timbre and character. You can read the entire article [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], if you'd like.

These are workshop benchmarks, not a laboratory study. But an oscilloscope's an oscilloscope, and physics are physics. How much of this applies to the thicker tops of basses (much less to plywood tops) is a matter for further investigation, of course. But I'm disinclined to dismiss "opening up" as a collective fantasy.
 
#13
Jsn said:
...But an oscilloscope's an oscilloscope, and physics are physics. How much of this applies to the thicker tops of basses (much less to plywood tops) is a matter for further investigation, of course. But I'm disinclined to dismiss "opening up" as a collective fantasy.
Click to expand...

Indeed, but notice that the axes in that graph are not even labelled! Furthermore, from the original article, the caption describing the figure is:

The straight line represents the frequency response at the peghead before the shaking; the jagged line shows the response afterward.

This would have the reader believe that, before the shaking, the response was "ruler flat" with no variation whatsoever while, after the shaking, the jagged response was produced. Uh..... no!

There is essentially no information in that graph. Mind you, I agree with your view with regard to "opening up," but this study, if you can even call it that, leaves so much to be desired as to be useless.
 
#14
This article may shed some light “Musicians have said that the sound of an instrument gets better the more you play it, and we have found a basis for that,” he said. Dr. David G. Hunt of the School of Engineering Systems and Design at South Bank University in London Link Removed

What is interesting is how humidity changed the dampening effect. Has anyone notice a difference in the way their bass sounds winter/summer?
 
#15
I see where you're going with this, durb, and I'm glad we're unleashing full rigor here. However, that may not be the right way to interpret this graph.

It's not a comparison of two histograms, one before, one after. It's a charting of how much the frequency response changed after the process (the graph itself reads "headstock change').Therefore, the jagged line is presumably mapping degrees of variance, which would explain why the baseline is, in fact, a line.

I agree that the article muddies the waters with a misleading caption ("The straight line represents the frequency response at the peghead before the shaking; the jagged line shows the response afterward."). But since that contradicts the chart itself, and is anyways patently absurd--of course the guitar didn't start out with a perfectly flat response--I think that's an editorial error, not a procedural one.

Anyway, I agree that this is only pointing-in-a-direction data, not anything definitive. I would have liked to have seen labelled axises (axii?) as well.
 
#16
With flexing movement over time the connections between the wood fibers of the plates (mostly the top) are stretched and broken down a little bit, making them more flexible. Think of breaking in your new pair of hard leather boots or shoes. Any retailer who deals in a lot of new instruments and is paying attention can talk about his/ her observations. These changes may be hard to quantify, but it's been a consistent experience of mine in dealing with new instruments for over 35 years. Obviously, the plywood top developement will be much more subtle than for a solid spruce top, but it has been noticeable.
 
#17
I'd have to say the article on the three guitars is not science. The graph, as drurb points out, is pretty meaningless and the evidence in the article is anecdote. It even includes the most famous of anecdotal confirmations: "My wife, Hope, noticed it immediately when I brought the guitar home."

While I agree that there is something behind the idea of "opening up", I think that to understand people's experiences we have to keep in mind factors like confirmation bias more than physical characteristics of the wood.
 
#18
Jsn said:
I see where you're going with this, durb, and I'm glad we're unleashing full rigor here. However, that may not be the right way to interpret this graph.

It's not a comparison of two histograms, one before, one after. It's a charting of how much the frequency response changed after the process (the graph itself reads "headstock change').Therefore, the jagged line is presumably mapping degrees of variance, which would explain why the baseline is, in fact, a line.

I agree that the article muddies the waters with a misleading caption ("The straight line represents the frequency response at the peghead before the shaking; the jagged line shows the response afterward."). But since that contradicts the chart itself, and is anyways patently absurd--of course the guitar didn't start out with a perfectly flat response--I think that's an editorial error, not a procedural one.

Anyway, I agree that this is only pointing-in-a-direction data, not anything definitive. I would have liked to have seen labelled axises (axii?) as well.
Click to expand...

The real issue here is not that the initial response is a flat line. It's clear enough that they intend to plot a difference. The main problem for me is that there are no labels on the axes. As far as I know it could be the sound of a truck driving by.
 
#20
I have owned one of my carved basses since '78 or so. At that time it was 22 years old. The B and C on the E string (by the heel) did not speak that well. Now, 34 years later they are sounding good. The bass seems to have mellowed in tone also. If this is what opening up refers to, yes, it can happen, but in my case it happened very gradually over a long period of time.

My luthier has mentioned that he feels a major change can take 50 years and the next, another 50 years. At that time, my bass should be really nice. Too bad I won't be around to enjoy it!
 
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