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Double Bass The Concept of "Opening Up"

#22
I would think, espcially with your first bass, it's both the bass opening up and the player learning to get the bes sound out of it. I also would think the wood, glue, etc just drying out more, and the temp. and humidity where it is would have thier effect too
 
#23
Jsn and crow--

I agree with both of you. I meant to edit my post but work got in the way and then you guys responded. :) Yes, the text does describe the graph as plotting the difference and that's not consistent with the caption.

Because the ordinate is not labelled, it's pretty meaningless.

Furthermore, there seems to be no objective evaluation of whether the shaking produced differences that drove the spectral profile closer to that expected from an aged instrument.

Now, in fairness to gottliver, he claimed that scientific studies failed to demonstrate an effect. He did not say that the studies demonstrated that there was no effect. Those are two very different things. In any case, the failure to demonstrate an effect, as I mentioned, is, to me, not surprising. It may have to do with the difficulty of designing a study that could reveal such effects.

Also as I mentioned, I do believe that basses can "open up" substantially early in their lives.
 
#24
i'll find the studies i am referring and will post later on today.

i can say that the strunal i bought a month ago had a subdued response on the e string above A. now it sounds more force full. is it me or the bass?? i think its me and my hard callous.....
 
#25
I'm probably in over my head with this conversation but going to chime in anyway.

I have a Mechanical Engineering background and I often have to diagnose failure modes. In reading this I couldn't help but wonder how (only) playing an instrument could physically change it in such a manner that "opening up" is perceived. Excuse me if this has been previously discussed, but fatigue comes to mind.

A force can be incredibly small, but when cycled billions of times even the strongest element can fatigue/crack/fail.

I'm wondering if every instrument has inherent frequencies or harmonics it naturally wants to resonate. When played, only fibers in the structure that resist these natural frequencies over time fatigue and break at the cellular level. These micro-fractures reduce the resistance to inherent vibrations allowing the instrument to constantly gravitate towards its natural harmonic...like getting the entire instrument in phase...and thus perceiving the instrument to "open up".

It only makes sense then that laminate instruments and hefty uses of adhesives that by design resist fatigue do not "open up" as willingly.
 
#28
drurb said:
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.
Click to expand...

uh... i just play the bass.
 
#30
Roscoe Vahorne said:
Though it's not exactly the same question, here's a link to an article about an interesting study (double blind) comparing real 300 year old Strad violins to modern ones. Very few of the professional players could pick out the "old violin."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivec...uble-blind-violin-test-can-you-pick-the-strad
Click to expand...

And here is a response to the article from one of the participants in the study:

http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20121/13039/

Either the participant misunderstood what was asked of her or that NPR article is very misleading.
 
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#31
powerbass said:
more grist
http://liutaiomottola.com/myth/played.htm
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. In the interest of cutting to the chase, I'll quote the piece's concluding paragraph:

The research referenced here and other efforts do indicate that there are good reasons to believe that there may well be a causal relationship between how much an instrument is played and how good it sounds. But to date (and to my knowledge) there does not exist a study with enough methodological rigor to support this conclusion. More research is clearly needed in this area.
Click to expand...

This pretty much seems to be the consensus we're reaching as well.
 
#32
Roscoe Vahorne said:
Though it's not exactly the same question, here's a link to an article about an interesting study (double blind) comparing real 300 year old Strad violins to modern ones. Very few of the professional players could pick out the "old violin."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivec...uble-blind-violin-test-can-you-pick-the-strad
Click to expand...

crowsmengegus said:
And here is a response to the article from one of the participants in the study:

http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20121/13039/

Either the participant misunderstood what was asked of her or that NPR article is very misleading.
Click to expand...


thanks, crowsmengegus, for providing that blog... i have to say this npr article is pretty horrible. they distort the facts and try to make great players look pathetic... very discouraging to read. one of my best friends is a modern violin maker who, not too long ago, was sitting in his shop playing his newest violin for me. i remember him commenting about the instrument "it has an old world charm... like something old and italian..." and it does! this is what modern makers are collectively obsessed with- recreating that particular sound. why is it a surprise to anyone that they could be pretty successful at it? furthermore, to just assume that someone's preference would be a strad or guarneri is ignorant. a modern instrument, especially under the conditions given in this study, would be in better health, which goes a long way when testing an instrument in a blind study. great players have often stressed the point that not all stradivarius violins are great instruments, and this is based on a number of factors from the instrument's initial creation to the subsequent few hundred years of it's life... there's WAY too many variables here to make any kind of generalization. these instruments, great or not, have intrinsic antique value though, which explains the outrageous cost. they are museum pieces, SOME of which are adequately healthy for the concert hall and belong in the hands of the finest musicians alive. the instruments that have survived in good health have been worked in like an old baseball glove, and must be a DREAM to play on. good luck finding one of those if you're in the market... my guess would be that the modern instruments in this study are the absolute best they could find to test. the old instruments probably are not the finest representations of their makers.

when i was bass shopping the last time, i was looking for an old french bass because that's the particular sound i wanted. i definitely noticed the subtle tonal differences as i tested out instruments from different regions... modern basses were all over the place, and i didn't think i could find something that could compare. one thing i noticed consistently was that the combination of a complex, high quality tone, good health, absolutely certainty regarding provenance, and easily playable dimensions was pretty much impossible to find in an old instrument though. not surprisingly, it turns out the bass that i liked the most was from a modern maker. a big part of that decision was the health and playability of the instruments i had available to me, but the sound of my savino bass was particularly captivating, and it honestly beat out the old instruments i was trying. about a year later, it's even better!

one final note... listening to the two examples on the npr page says it all. if you know what to listen for (the prominent vowel sound, complexity of the upper partials, general harmonic sound image, etc.) the two violins are strikingly different. i'm not making this up, either... the first recording is a great violin, no doubt. focused, dense, direct tone, very complex sound. the second recording is a human cry that makes me melt into a little puddle. there is a ringing halo of resonance surrounding this instrument, which can go a long way with a player's general comfort in a performance setting. the open-throatedness of the fundamental and sizzle of the upper harmonics are pretty astonishing, even from an internet recording. listen and see for yourself.
 
#37
I've recently experienced a phenomenon with my own bass, which is one of the nicer carved Kolsteins made in the shop in NY. Two years ago, here in Nashville, many parts of town were under water, including my house, ruining furniture, instruments, etc. The Kolstein was about completely apart when I found it, and was eventually returned to Barrie for restoration.

One thing he did, was make a large round patch for a saddle crack that was forming, but mostly he reformed the pieces and glued the bass back together. When I got it back, it definitely was more open and louder, and even easier playing than it was before. As I play the bass more, it continues to get better sounding. I can't recommend the process, but Barrie says he has seen this happen before.

I don't know what the explanation is, but I'm curious to see what others might have in mind for it.

Thanks, Ike
 
#38
Paul Warburton said:
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.
Click to expand...

This is so true. Just last night, my bass was feeling tight, as it has recently. I took a fairly long arco solo and after that the bass felt much looser. A good reason to warm up the bass with some bowing before every gig.
 
#39
Eric Hochberg said:
This is so true. Just last night, my bass was feeling tight, as it has recently. I took a fairly long arco solo and after that the bass felt much looser. A good reason to warm up the bass with some bowing before every gig.
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This certainly matches my experience. I make no claims with regard to the explanation. I've wondered to what extent the "warming up" was going on in my hands and muscles. Subjectively, and that's good enough for me for now, it sure seems to be the mostly the bass that's changing, the strings, or both. In any case, what I experience is that pizz. playing feels less stiff and the entire instrument just seems to respond more easily after extended long-note arco.

Do people experience this with ply basses? Perhaps the answer holds some clues.
 
#40
Jsn said:
Thanks for this. In the interest of cutting to the chase, I'll quote the piece's concluding paragraph:



This pretty much seems to be the consensus we're reaching as well.
Click to expand...

But don't forget an important caveat also expressed in powerhouse's excellent post: "...correlation in and of itself does not imply causation."
Does the crowing rooster cause the sunrise or vice versa?
 

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