Quote:
Originally Posted by David McKinney
I'm giving serious thought to going through with restoration...
Ken, I was wondering if you could give some detail on the tonal improvement you experienced with your similar bass.
I'd like to hear any changes you noticed, but in particular I'm curious if the bass developed more power and spread in the bottom...
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Well, on the Morelli Bass I really have no idea. When I bought the Bass, it was falling apart, the sound posy lying loose on the bottom and not strung up. The first time I heard the bass was after the work was completed. The tone was beyond any German Shop bass I had ever heard. Arnold;s comment to me was "you can play this bass in the New York Philharmonic"!
I played one big concert with it doing Beeth 5th. The low C ext. notes were clearly heard on stage. At one other dress rehearsal one of the other players in the section commented "that low C is the resonant frequency of the Stage' as it shook the floor.
If the bass is of good dimensions, good quality wood and then modified and restored skillfully then you will have a better sounding bass in the end from what you started with.
One of the Basses I own that I DID know its sound before the restoration was improved remarkably. It was a
good sounding bass before it went under the knife. It came out a
great sounding bass when the job was done. The spread and bottom was improved to a large degree on this bass. In the two years since the job was done I have notice even more improvement in the sound each year as well.
I do not know your bass personally so it's hard to tell from here what you might expect. What I can say is that a bass in its best possible condition including graduations is better than if left alone in disrepair or as-is from the factory. At this point, the fate of your bass is at the hands of the Luthier doing the work!