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Old 07-05-2007, 08:20 PM
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Cool 'The Comfort Factor'

I am starting this thread to discuss the comfort or discomfort of playing the Bass.

What factors to YOU are important in making playing more pleasurable and less strain when playing this 'bigger' Violin?

Points I want to personally touch is shape, corner style, size, Neck stop, Radius of FB and Bridge and any other construction issue we can find. I don't think String discussions should be included here because it wont make an uncomfortable Bass feel comfortable unless there is a huge mis-match to the Bass string wise.

For starters I love the looks of Violin Shaped Basses. For some reason, I often his the upper corners on either side of the upper bout with the Bow. Gamba corners stick out less and I hit them less as well. The one concert I played with my Cornerless Bass I remember playing about 8-9 hours on that day with a 44 1/4" string length and saying to myself "This is the most comfortable Bass I have ever played"!

I have used both D and Eb necks and at this point, I am not sure what I like better or even IF I like one better than the other.

On Strings lengths stretch-wise I prefer 41"-42". I have played bigger but only the Cornerless Bass seems easy to play at that longer length.

I don't mind large shoulders if I can get over them but I will overlook some or all of the above if the sound almost puts me in a Coma!

Two Basses that I have in restoration have features that fall into my 'problem zone' items.

One is the 'Hart Maggini Bass' which has strong violin corners bound to get whacked by my Bow, has broad shoulders and an Eb Neck. Most of the Basses I have been playing with the exception of me semi-retired Batchelder (I only play it in the office these days at best) have basically a 'D' Neck. The Tone of this Bass when it was literally 'falling apart' was one of the sweetest sounding Basses my ears have heard and was almost as loud as the Dodd which was in great condition and not in need of a massive restoration like the Hart was. For the sound alone, I will forgive all the possible less-than-perfect comfort items I have mentioned. We can talk looks at another time!

The other is the 'Mystery Bass' that has been in restoration for about 3 years now. This Bass is a 'big boy' standing at about 6"6" or so off the ground. The Top is about 46" to the Neck and longer to the tips. The Upper bout is almost 22" across and the lower over 28". Both Bouts were either cut or worn heavily as the Purfling is missing in the rounder areas of the bouts. This baby is HUGE! How does it sound? I have no idea! Why did I buy it totally unplayable and falling apart? It spoke to me! The wood and varnish is beautiful and I just have this gut feeling that this will be my organ sounding cannon when all is said and done.

When you like a Bass, many things are looked over. When the Bass is just not your 'grail yet, we seem to find fault at every turn.
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Old 07-06-2007, 11:31 PM
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Not that I know much. You learn what's wrong with one bass by finally playing one that doesn't have that deficiency. I've played a bunch of basses, but not long enough to know except on the two I've owned.
  1. The contour of the back of the neck: The first plywood bass I had this was wrong. It kind of came back to almost a point like the narrow end of a chicken egg if you cut a cross section through the neck. It made life miserable for my left hand. The bass I have now does not have this "mistake" It has a neck that is more like the other end of the egg, but perhaps even flatter along the back, like a classical guitar. It feels so good and so "right".
  2. The nut height. OK this is a set-up issue and not necessarily construction, but too high a nut is painful in first and half positions. Low is better down to the thickness of a business card at least.
  3. Shape of the upper bout against the body. If I lean down on my bass it just cradles my rib cage perfectly. It's that medium sloped gamba. May as well say a Josef Rubner gamba shape. That is what the maker now calls this model and of the Rubner gambas I have seen photos of, this shoulder is very close to those. I don't think I would like violin corners. I did try out a 5 string Christopher DB that had them and they were right away my most unfavorite feature of that bass.
  4. Broad fingerboard with good space between the strings. I don't like the spacing too tight anywhere, particularly at the nut. This could be considered a set up issue but really it depends a good bit on the neck width. If I'm in thumb position I like to be able to catch at least two strings with the upper part of my thumb, so appropriate spacing there is important too. I probably like it wider than most players.
  5. Upper bout width / depth: I'm thin with long arms so the upper bout and depth of the bass doesn't need to be narrow for me. I do like the shoulders to have some slope, but this can be restricted to the uppermost part of the bout. I can reach around most basses real easy. If I put the heel of the neck in my left armpit I can reach all the way to the bridge with my left arm. If the bass is smaller, it feels too small to me. On the 3/4 I could tap on the under side of the bridge with my left hand finger tips. My arms are way long for the rest of my size, so I need a bass with a somewhat longer body.
  6. I like the bridge to be low down when I am bowing. This may be a German bow thing, but I have the endpin set so that my arm is almost fully extended when the bow crosses in the middle area between the FB and bridge. I usually play about an inch below the FB unless I am up stopping close to the heel.
  7. FB arch and bridge. I might could do with a little more than my current bass has. It's a close call. I don't want to have to be wrenching my right wrist around too much to get at the BB string and more arch would increase that, but it would also make the E string easier to hit.
  8. Thumb position: I like the way my current bass plays in thumb position. It has a really broad and not too much arch in the FB shape up there and the fingerboard has almost no scoop. This is very comfortable in this area. Flatter arch feels better for the left hand while steeper arch might make the right hand's work easier. It is a fine balance when there are five strings. Everything becomes more critical.
  9. String height: I like that pretty low with almost no scoop. At the end of the board my strings are 6mm at G, 10mm at BB. The bridge is 6 5/8 tall from the center of the table arch to the center of the bridge arch.
  10. I don't know what the overstand and angle are off hand, but when I lay my left forearm on the treble side upper bout, my hand falls so that my thumb is right at the octave.
  11. Reference notes. The D neck is very good, but I still find myself "recuperating" from having played an E-flat neck for my first two years. I prefer the D at this point, but one thing I liked about the E-flat was that when I first started playing in a lot of horn keys, I could find the notes easier with the E-flat neck. To me the E-flat neck is the "jazz neck" and the D neck is the concert or rock-n-roll neck. The overstand point on my current bass is a perfect reference across all five strings for A, D, g, c, f. This makes playing at the heel easier for me if I am watching. On my first bass this was just a "place on the neck." That bass was not nearly the design quality of my current Rubner inspired instrument.
  12. I like a swelled back. It fits better against my leg and torso and I like the vibration that is produced out in the swelled part of the instrument. My own feeling is that the swelled back is just structurally superior to the flat back. It will move easier when the wood expands and contracts and hold less tension and it will vibrate, stretch and contract easier with the rib flexing motion. A back needs to bend and one that curves has a head start.
  13. Scroll. Why can't a maker get the scroll right? I've never seen one that was mechanically perfect. In fact all of them I've seen have the same mistake. Perhaps this is not a mistake to the makers. But to me, the scroll / pegbox design should not have the strings touching each other. It results in unnecessary wear on the strings every time one tunes.
  14. Endpin / block. There is room for improvement here on most basses. I think Hamm is the only one I have seen that has done something intelligent in that area. He put the tailgut on a peg that pointed backward. The endpin was a separate thing.
  15. Good night Mr. Smith!

Last edited by David Powell; 07-07-2007 at 09:06 AM.
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Old 07-07-2007, 01:26 PM
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String length and comfort / playability:

String length: longest whole step (half position)*, whole step at heel (D harmonic)*

41.5 inches: 39.1708 - 34.8972 = 4.2735, 27.6667 - 24.6481 = 3.01 inches

42 inches: 39.6427 - 35.3176 = 4.3251, 28 - 24.9452 = 3.05 inches

43 inches: 40.5866 - 36.1585 = 4.428, 28.6667 - 25.5391 = 3.1276 inches

44.25 inches: 41.7664 - 37.2097 = 4.5568, 29.5 - 26.2815 = 3.2185 inches

*Calculations of actual experienced stretches to reach across whole steps bases on the twelfth root of 2 as the factor between half steps.

The calculations show that the hand only must stretch slightly more than a quarter of an inch farther at the most between the shortest string given and the longest. The difference is dramatically reduced as one moves up the fingerboard. The difference looks daunting when considering the total difference of 2.75 inches. But that is a difference the hand experiences only in small fractions.
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Old 07-07-2007, 02:01 PM
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Anselm Hauke Anselm Hauke is offline
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david,

thank you,
very interesting. i´ve never thougt about it this way.

when i got my 5-string bass i did not knew the string length, i played it in the orchestra for 6 months without any problems or even thinking about the SL.
then, one day i measured it, it was 110cm (43,3´´) (!), my 4-stringer at home had 104cm. (40,9´´)
i think the playability/comfort can not only be measured in cm/inches

Last edited by Anselm Hauke; 07-07-2007 at 02:49 PM. Reason: added the inches
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Old 07-07-2007, 02:20 PM
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Cool Nice..

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Powell View Post
String length and comfort / playability:

String length: longest whole step (half position)*, whole step at heel (D harmonic)*

41.5 inches: 39.1708 - 34.8972 = 4.2735, 27.6667 - 24.6481 = 3.01 inches

42 inches: 39.6427 - 35.3176 = 4.3251, 28 - 24.9452 = 3.05 inches

43 inches: 40.5866 - 36.1585 = 4.428, 28.6667 - 25.5391 = 3.1276 inches

44.25 inches: 41.7664 - 37.2097 = 4.5568, 29.5 - 26.2815 = 3.2185 inches

*Calculations of actual experienced stretches to reach across whole steps bases on the twelfth root of 2 as the factor between half steps.

The calculations show that the hand only must stretch slightly more than a quarter of an inch farther at the most between the shortest string given and the longest. The difference is dramatically reduced as one moves up the fingerboard. The difference looks daunting when considering the total difference of 2.75 inches. But that is a difference the hand experiences only in small fractions.
This is nice to see in actual numbers. The more I think about it, the more I consider doing less cutting on my larger Mystery Bass in restoration. The restoration is mostly done crack-wise but now Paul is lining up the Ribs and Blocks at he did quite a bit of correction on the 'buckled' sides. The next step is to fit it to the Back and then just lightly tack on the Top to do some measurements for which I will be in attendance. At that point we will determine the best action. String length alnoe is not the only problem. It is reaching the F# before the octave on the G-String and making it a comfortable D-Neck as well. The Cornerless Bass has slopes shoulders buy this baby is NFL material.

With the FFs positioned so far down, some type or types of corrections will be necessary which can include Block cutting/Shoulder-Block trim, Top/Back cutting with some rib re.bending hence 'cutting the Bass down' and moving the bridge forward up from the notches. Being that the Top is very strong and the FFs placed wide across (the old bridge being 170mm wide and still inside the upper eyes) moving the Bridge up an inch will be no problem at all. The Bass Bar in that Bass is only about an inch or so tall (I will ask Paul for an accurate measurement) and is older than anyone on the forum. Still, the Top shows no sign of ever having any type of sinkage. The extra tight and possibly 'ice age' growth rings of the Top may have something to do with its strength.

The String Length is not as much a factor in this re-mensuring of the Bass as is the comfort of reaching the F# and thumb position. As the Thread says, it's all about comfort.
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