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Old 02-23-2007, 05:29 PM
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David Powell David Powell is offline
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What you described Stan, sound like what happens on my B string when I try to tune it to the E sometimes using the fourth /fifth harmonics. The string fights the bow and you can't get a clear note and the sound it makes, well, there is just no hope hearing when it gets in tune. I'm guessing that is why they call it a "wolf";- because it kind of howls in this wierd strained dissonance if you get anything at all. Fortunately it is only on the low B. Once you are at C and above, the string plays well. The body cavity resonance as best I can tell is about C and the fingerboard is A. I don't know if that effects it but the C's are really strong everywhere and the A is pretty strong too. It's just the low B forth harmonic that jumps like that against the bow. Stopped B on the A sounds really strong as do the F#s.

My work around is just to tune that string at the octave to an electronic source. If it is really carefully tuned then the wolfiness is not as bad. And on some days for unknown reasons, it just isn't there at all. I've thought about the Pecanic TP, the tunable ones or even just a compensated one as at least something worth trying, but on my bass, it's just a few notes on one string that suffer. The original TP is a dyed hard wood, not compensated, and looks pretty good so it's not the highest priority to upgrade it, but considering most of the better 5 string basses I see photos of have compensated TP's makes me curious.
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