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Double Bass who uses Pops rosin?

#41
when i started playing upright at my school (forced by my orchestra buddies to convert to upright) my orchestra teacher handed me a fresh can of pops, and said "this is your rosin, and your rosin only, nobody but the bass section gets to use this. bow before the pops"

so as u can tell, im a pops man. its got that sticky feel, that i like. ive tried carlssons, i didnt like it as much. o well. yay for pops
 
#42
Monte said:
Steve,

Although I don't use either one, did you try the Clarity on fresh hair? This sounds like the symptoms I heard on the 2xbasslist, which suggested the Clarity didn't mix well with rosin already on the bow.

Monte
Click to expand...

Yes, I used it on a new student-grade German bow I recently purchased. I held off on rosining the bow until I received the Clarity rosin from Lemur. I also used it with my French bow on which I've used Pop's and Kolstein soft since last having it rehaired (which it's past due for). I had simlilar results with either bow and the Clarity. I play both French and German and for years have been unable can't decide which one I like better, but that's a story for a different thread.

- Steve

Link Removed
 
#43
hey, maybe this has already been covered, but i reached terminal annoyance with my cake of pops and found it became silly-putty after 50 seconds in the microwave, then squishing it around so a new part of it was on top solved the powdery-surface problem. anybody tried this? if it had exploded, i would have been just as happy with the results.
 
#44
Steve Boisen said:
I play both French and German and for years have been unable can't decide which one I like better, but that's a story for a different thread.

- Steve
Click to expand...

Is that thread running? Ever since I started playing, I've thought the bow choice was a matter of your personality. Not that you necessarily end up studying the one that's right for you - I do know people who strongly impress me as playing the wrong bow for them. Maybe you, Steve are truly ambidextrous. Some people are and that's really cool. Having two bows comes close to dividing the bass into two different instruments and it's fairly accepted that your choice of instrument has a lot to do with your personality, so I don't think it's too far-fetched to say your bow does too. Maybe we ought to start a poll/quiz about the secret life of German vs. French players :eyebrow:
 
#46
Don Higdon said:
You mean Steve bows both left- and right-handed?
That's not cool, that's far out!
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Haha :) . I'm afraid I'm not too good at playing anything left handed. I did finally switch to German bow, though. After struggling with tension problems with the French bow for years (squeezing the bow with my right thumb) I bought an inexpensive German bow and while I still felt more comfortable with the French bow at first, now the reverse is true. In fact, I can't really use the French bow much anymore. It just doesn't feel right. I initially went to some good teachers to try and correct the problem, but I guess the bad habits were too ingrained in my playing. I could play fairly tension free in the practice room, but in the trenches it was another story. Eventually, after altering my bow hold to try and alleviate the tension, nothing felt right after a while...like my bow hold had sort of "disappeared" after all the trial and error. I still find certain things harder to do with the German bow, like quick changes from pizz to arco and certain string crossings, but I find the more time I spend with it, the less of a problem I have.

Gee, that last post of mine was from nearly a year ago!

BTW I still like the Clarity Rosin although Pops is my #1 choice and my French bow is listed on the "for sale" forum in case anyone is interested.

- Steve

Link Removed
 
#47
Yeah, I'm a german player too; it initially seems to be easier to cross strings with French bow; brought it up to my teacher whose answer was to sit down and demonstrate a series of incredibly agile string crossings with German bow. Now I'm in the middle of revising my hold and right arm and have been practicing little more than long bows and slow scales for like 4-5 weeks - a long period of clumsiness while I'm learning to get the right motions to be automatic - happy to share more details if you care to discuss them some more, but now I'm dragging this off-topic - PM me if you want, and we'll start or find a new thread for it.
 
#50
.. I don't know if it's been said yet (3 pages is too much for me to read) but it's been my experience that pops loses its "playing qaulity" after being frozen or melted a few times. Anyone else notice it? Or is it just me? I don't know, I just like the stickiness of the pops rosin.
 
#54
bassbaterie said:
On a similar topic, do you apply rosin by drawing the bow in the downbow direction only, or updown updown? I was always taught downbow only, as that's the way to get the rosin into the barbs of the hair. The hair is supposed to be installed with its natural, microscopic barbs opposing the downbow. Applying rosin in the upbow direction flattens the barbs and makes them useless.
Click to expand...
Although softer bass rosin is awkward to apply upbow(due to bad leverage on begining half of upbow stroke), in the interest of smooth legato, wouldn't you want a more similar attack both directions and want an even application of rosin? Along the same lines, could an argument be made that it would be better to have the barbs opposing the upbow, since again, you are at a leverage/force disadvantage? Or maybe they should be mixed, half barb down, half barb up? From what I've been reading elsewhere on the hair-rosin interaction, the barbs are:(a) microscopic and really only affect how well the rosin clings;(b)the rosin is doing all the work.

I just acquired an upright bass(where I started as a youngster) and am playing catch-up after years of electric bass playing..... so forgive my jumping in on this topic which I now have need to ponder and experiment with.:D
 

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