re- graduations explained ?

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Arnold Schnitzer

Ken, would you mind posting your experience with the big Morelli bass?

Ok, ok.. lol

That Bass came to me unplayable but with a reputation of a big sound. It was a 44" string length and probably that company's version of a 4/4 bass. It was quite huge.

I wanted to have it converted to a 5-string because I just wanted one at the time and this looked like the bass that could handle 5 strings. I had borrowed a Pollmann 5er earlier and played some Orchestra concerts with and thought that being big, this would be a good bass to convert. Because the Scroll/pegbox was 1" smaller internally in length for the 5 gears than the Pollmann we scraped that idea and saved it for a different bass.

Now, the Top had a few nasty long cracks on the outer flanks, upper and lower plus a fist sized hole punched thru the rib so, the Top had to come off.

This was a round back bass with high arches in both plates and the wood was of superb quality. Long straight medium-fine reeds in the top grain and super hard mountain grown maple with slight curl in it. The bass was about 100 years old or so as well. The Neck was long with an Eb heel as well, original to the scroll.

This bass came traded in towards a small Italian bass I had for sale. Sweet sounding but not big enough for an Orchestra section. A perfect bass for chamber music, solo playing, studio work or jazz with an Amp of which I did try the bass on a few gigs to know what she can do before this sale. The owner of the Morelli had NO idea what his bass could do if restored and modified. I will put money on that.

Besides the repairs needed, the top and back were extra thick. They were also high arched and super strong hard woods. This is all 3 of the traits of strength in one, density, arch and thickness. Two is maximum for tone.

Both the top and back were thinned down nad re-graduated in the process. The tap tone of the plates went from thunk/before to boooommm/after. Basically, from dead to alive. To combat the long string length, the Block was cut and the neck set deeper. If this were an expensive Italian bass then I might have gone for a neck graft and shorten the Heel to a D from the Eb and get the length down under 42" but in this case it came in at 42 3/8" when all was done.

I had Arnold make a fingered C-Extension as well in place of the 5-string conversion and had it strung up with Obligatos. When I picked up the bass Arnold mentioned to me upon me asking "How does it sound?" he replied, "you can play this bass in the New York Philharmonic!".

It was not only super loud but the depth was like an organ. Smooth, low, deep and a dream to play despite its slightly long length. My first concert was Beethoven's 5th. That bass handled the Low Cs and other fingered extension notes as loud or louder than the other two basses combined beside me and they were both pretty good old German basses.

Owning so many basses and this being a trade-in it went up for sale shortly after as I already had the Gilkes and the Martini so this was just inventory and a trade-in bass. Sound wise though it was a monster. It sold fairly quick and the player was an acoustic jazz non-amp person. This was the perfect bass for that venue.

One more thing. The Top had an integral Bar in it and that was replaced with a normal bass bar. Internal design-wise on the re-graduations, it was an Italian bass made with old German wood and it sounded like it to earn that description.

The re-graduations of the bass turned it from a big loud factory German bass to a fine as wine sounding old handmade bass. Arnold Re-made the bass using its own wood. Fantastic results. It was the first bass he worked on for me and in essence having not known him before this it was his Audition as I had plenty of work lined up and needed the right guy to do it. My Gilkes needed to be restored and hadn't found the right guy to do it that I could trust. The rest is history now.

For reference, here's the Morelli, Before and After..

[Eric Swanson]

Perfect illustration, Ken. Thank you. Sounds as if AES and you combined the needed ingredients of vision, cash, time, skill, and experience.

I am guessing that the craftsperson who first made the bass was working under a very different set of circumstances. Very cool that you both invested the time, effort, and money to make this thing happen.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Eric Swanson

Perfect illustration, Ken. Thank you. Sounds as if, AES and you combined the needed ingredients of cash, time, skill, vision, and experience.

I am guessing that the craftsperson who first made the bass was working under a very different set of circumstances. Very cool that you both invested the time, effort, and money to make this thing happen.

Craftsperson? This was an old shop/factory bass. Imported into USA by a firm that sold brands that they made up the names of. NOW, it is a real bass as if hand made over a 100 years ago. Before it was just a big old broken factory bass with good wood and fairly good design of its kind.

Eric, this was the first of many Basses that have experienced our combined efforts, Arnold and myself. On occasion, I barely break even on the money and the time spent on my behalf just a form of entertainment in essence. Still, when higher pedigree instruments present themselves to us one way or another, the experience makes the next bass that much easier to tackle or avoid. Yes, some basses are just not worth it. People today have often been lied to about what they have and their worth only to find out later that the appraised or sale value coupled with a professional deserved restoration far exceeds the value of the bass in question.

I saw one old bass sell recently for about double what it should have because it needed a ton of work to make it whole and orchestra worthy. The customer paid top dollar plus+ for that bass and probably paid a record price for that maker in a big shop that takes big commissions for selling basses. This was a loose-loose situation where only the dealer made out.

Be careful with project basses. It's like any other business. If you don't understand it well and all aspects of it, you stand to loose rather than gain unless your are more lucky than you are skilled.

[Eric Swanson]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

Craftsperson?

Yes, I literally meant a skilled worker who practices some trade or handicraft. I generally use the term interchangeably with "mechanic."

I didn't intend it as an assessment of the quality of their work or their knowledge; there are some very rough craftspeople out there, in my limited experience in the woodworking trade.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Eric Swanson

Yes, I literally meant a skilled worker who practices some trade or handicraft. I generally use the term interchangeably with "mechanic."

I didn't intend it as an assessment of the quality of their work or their knowledge; there are some very rough craftspeople out there, in my limited experience in the woodworking trade.

This bass would better be described as made by crafts-people rather than crafts-person being made by more than one individual.

[Eric Swanson]

I agree. The specialty or custom shops I have worked in have a fairly high degree of specialization; most mechanics do a handful of the relevant manufacturing operations; as you say, there is no single person making the product, start to finish. Rather it is the plant, as an entity. Craftspeople they were; of various and unknown skill levels.

Semantics aside, bless both you and Arnold Schnitzer for improving these instruments so much. You have both done something wonderful for those basses, their owners, and their listeners.

[Arnold Schnitzer]

Lest one assume that every repair/restoration job includes regraduation, I just want to point out that it is far from the first thing considered when trying to improve tone. Most well-made basses are in pretty good shape from day one as far as plate thicknesses. With those, the initial attempts to improve the sound will include string change, soundpost adjustment, fingerboard and bridge set-up, tailpiece change, etc. If all that fails to bring good results, and dis-assembly is on the menu, the bass bar may be altered or changed, linings reduced, and/or lumps removed. Complete top and/or back regraduation is more or less the last resort, unless the instrument is so obviously overly-wooded as to make it a clear necessity. An example would be a Claudot flatback I worked on several years ago. The top table, very strong spruce, measured 12mm thick in the center and 9mm around the edges. There's no way a heavy bass with a top that thick can make a reasonably good sound.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by wayne holmes

Ken - great story and you told it beautifully!

Well Wayne, it's easy to tell a story when it is true and you have lived it personally. The added information beyond the exact question originally asked helps to shed light on the concept and the business of bass restoration in its fullest.

[Adrian Levi]

spoken like true gentlemen !

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Adrian Levi

spoken like true gentlemen !

I've been called worse..