With the dry season knocking on the door, a friend turned on his humidifier for his bass. the Humidifier is set for about 60%. Is this to much? Any suggestions would be great thanks.
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Double Bass to much humidity?
- Thread starter shadowhywind
- Start date
I had a talk with Bill Merchant about humidity a month ago while at his shop. I basically got the idea that as long as your bass is well adjusted to the humidity, then it should be fine. It is not necessarily low humidity or high humidity that damages your bass, but the constant fluctuations of humidity in a room that cause those dreaded cracks and open seams. Bill keeps his at a fairly dry (i forget but i remember it was somewhere around 40 %) humidity. His rationale for this is that many of the places you'll be playing at will not be at 60% humidity. They will be much drier than what you are trying to keep in your room. Therefore, when you take your bass out of the room, the bass is exposed to the same humidity changes that you were trying to prevent it from. Bill used to keep the humidity in his room higher, but once people took their basses out of the shop, they came back with cracks due to the humidity change.
Unless he has the humidity so high that there is condensation dripping from the windows or moss growing on the bass, it should be fine. I would prefer to error on the side of having too much humidity rather than not enough. I believe that it is huge changes in both temperature and humidity that are the biggest danger. Going from a warm house with 40% humidity to outside where the temperature is 20 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity zero can put a real strain on your bass. Fortunately, modern heavily padded cases can help insulate your bass for the short periods of time this occurs as in going from your home to a job.
Hide glue can act like a safety valve for most older basses (unless someone has used other glues for repairs). Don't ever complain to your luthier if a seam pops loose. Gluing up seams is a lot cheaper than having to repair a crack. Unfortunately, most factory basses built today are put together with white glues that won't allow the seams to release under heavy stress. As a result, I see more weather related cracks in newer basses than I do in well maintained older ones.
60% is way to high, at least in the northeast. Keeping the space where you keep your instrument/practice around 40 % is sufficient. You don't want to shock your instrument when you take it from a humid space to a very dry space.
I keep my bass at 35% and havent had a crack in years. I also do not and never will use a dampit. I've had way more problems using dampits humidifying from inside the bass.
This is really Smart advice... alot of what we deal with here in New England and the ever going saga of owning a Great bass...Please listen while I heat up my Hideglue....
