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Double Bass Velvet tailpiece cord

#21
Jeff Bollbach said:
Lots of bassists have made beautiful music before Velvet went into business. IMHO there is a fine line between hoo-doo and hooey.
Click to expand...

Well, even though I was sceptical if it would make any difference, I put on the velvet tailpice cord yesterday. I have been playing with Compas 180s (new formulation) for the past 10 months. WHAT A DIFFERENCE this cord made:

1 - The bass is louder, quite dramaticly louder, in fact.
2 - The open strings bow easier, with a more even sound - when playing stopped notes and open strings, it is much easier to make the open strings not 'shout'.
3 - The bass is resonating alot more (i guess this is closely related to no.1!). I now feel the bass resonating alot more against my body, and i feel the vibrations in the floor, something that had not happened before i put on the cord.

I have been practicing in the same room for the past 4 months, and with the same set up. The only difference is the cord. Hoo-doo, hooey, whatever :spit: - this cord worked wonders with my bass.

Woo hoo! Go Velvet!:hyper:
 
#22
I just ordered a Pecanic tailpiece cord from Brent Norton at Invalid Link Removed. I figured that this would be a very good time to A / B the conventional braided steel cord vs. the super light weight cord since my Flat Chromesteels are still fresh but settled in about four weeks.

I'll post my impressions as soon as I have done the deed. $18 is a pretty cheap experiment in the DB world.

Cheers . . .
 
#23
I replaced my braided wire tailpiece cord with a synthetic cord from Upton.

The result is nowhere near as striking as when I changed the tailpiece to a lighter one. However, the bass plays well and sounds very nice for a ply bass, I think.

My daughter however, who plays with the school orchestra, told me last night that with a bow "the bass sucks". (Although she likes the pizz sound.... )

its not science, is it?
 
#24
I just swapped out the braided steel cable for the Pecanic cord from Brent Norton's shop. (Super fast shipping by the way . . . Thanks Brent)

The instructions (three pictures of the knot tying process) were easy enough, though I now recall that it took me a while to that it took me a few tries to get that merit badge in the Boy Scouts.

The good news is that it does feel like the strings are lower tension. The bad news is that I couldn't resist the temptation to lower my action just a touch when I put the bridge back on so, sound wise, it's not a perfect A/B test between steel and nylon.

I'll give it a couple of days before I comment on the sound. After just 45 minutes to an hour, the cord is still stretching like a new set of Obligatos.

Peace . . . .
 
#25
Just to let you guys know, the velvet cord isn't just nylon - there's also a hard white 'string' at the core. Which looks like it might be strands of some kind of plyable plastic stuck together.

Are these other cords the same?
 
#27
I've also installed a velvet cord from NortonCustom on my Christopher plywood bass.
Coupled with a composite tailpiece the bass produces a very powerful tone with much better volume than my previous Kay M1 ( hard wire tailpiece hanger )
I played with the tailgut length and found the best tone & volume was achieved when the tailpiece is less than 1 inch from the saddle.
My two cents !!

BT
 
#29
Your volume might have dropped because you lowered the action. Now you can't pull the string as hard because it will buzz. so less volume is realized.
If you observe any of the Norton basses you can get a good idea where the tailpiece should be. My bass sounds the best with the bottom of the TP slightly above the saddle.
BT ;)
 
#30
i recently got a new bass made by Link Removed. I am really happy with the bass, (especially at the price!) and I'm getting the legendary tom barret to set it up for me. there was a kind of braided metal tailwire on the bass, tom's going to put on a velvet tailwire - i'm hoping for the same results as with my old bass.

With my old bass, when i changed to the velvet wire i was very impressed, but said nothing to my teacher at the time - just to see if this improvement was all in my head. after a few notes he asked what i had changed, said it was amazing that "for €20 the bass sounds €1,000 better". The bass was making the floor shake for the first time.

i'll let you know if there's a dramatic change with the new bass (although it's going to sound better after tom's finished with it anyway).
 
#31
For what it's worth, I stuck a Velvet chord on my Strunal and even tone-deaf me thought it made a big improvement. The bass projected more and just seemed to resonate more freely. When you're talked thousands of euros/pounds/dollars/yen in our line of work it seems a small outlay for a noticeable difference. I think I saw it online for about €13 somewhere.

Conor - congrats on the new bass. You'll have to let us know how you find it. His instruments seem quite reasonably priced from what I've heard. Was it one of his old english makers copies or one of his own design?
 
#35
^ Flexible tailguts are always an improvement over the stiff, solid coathangers. Some claim that it opens up the sound, but that's subjective in my opinion.

For me, having a flexible tailgut makes the bass so much looser under the strings and much easier to play. My school's Juzek had a flexible cable on it, and it still wasn't the easiest bass to play because nobody bothered to get it setup for years. One of its saddle cracks started to buzz a lot, so I needed to dampen the crack. So I stuck an old shirt under the tailpiece, and it jammed the crack and prevented it buzzing.

The tradeoff was that the tailpiece couldn't really move anymore. It was as if there was an old solid coathanger there instead of a flexible cable. The strings became stiffer under the fingers, and it made an already difficult to play bass even harder.
 
#39
i replaced a wire tailgut with the nylon from upton. huge difference . the strings have a bit less tension. i use wiechs and the bass is louder and boomier. i had to raise the action a bit but man, im impressed. made my bass friendlier by far. its been a day or so and hasnt settled in yet but it gettin there. easy install if ya dont mind tinkering. they give ya instructions on the knot. im using a shen sb80 with the upton rev solo ll pickup, comin thru a genz shuttle 6.0 and a dr. bass 112. im happy with it.
 
#40
I've been reading this thread with interest.
I'm building archtop acoustic guitars & build my tailpieces to accept the Sacconi cello tailstrap, which is cable in a vinyl sheath that has threaded adjusters.
Was just curious if this design is available for the db.
Also, I've done some research & haven't found any info on after-length tuning for the archtop.
Can anyone point me to some reading on this?
 

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