Double Bass Unidentified gadget

[JC Pat]

I saw this “J” shaped contraption over the weekend at a bluegrass festival on Chris Douglas’s Kay (he was playing with Michael Cleveland). Awesome bass player and a really nice guy. He said he had it installed to fix a tension issue he was having. Has anyone seen anything like this before and know exactly what it is?

 

[turf3]

Yep, that's a raised saddle adapter. It reduces the angle of the string afterlengths to the bridge, thus reducing the downforce the bridge applies to the top. As far as I know it won't have any effect on the actual tension in the string as that is detemined by the pitch, the mass of the string, and the scale length. It may make the overall bass respond differently as the forces in the bridge are different.

 

[Eric Hochberg]

I used one on a tight bass I used to own. It didn't help unfortunately.

 

[JC Pat]

Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense. I think he may have been talking about tension on the top of the bass but I didn’t ask for clarification. It didn’t sound choked off at all with Spiro Weichs on the bottom and Olivs on top.

 

[james condino]

Snake oil on an old Kay....