Show your Extensions!

[Jeff Schwartz]

Lemur had this bass for a while:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2wWDdPSvnQ

It's the only other D extension I've seen.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Jeff Schwartz

Lemur had this bass for a while:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2wWDdPSvnQ

It's the only other D extension I've seen.

Watching them both open that extension, they need both hands to do so. Opening that thing on the fly if at all possible with one hand of the edge or it while playing will definitely cause injury. That Extension would not be useful in an Orchestra unless pre-set to D or E. Also, fingering the E note with the 'flipper' open doesn't look easy as well to get in there close.

If you have an Extension, it should be to a 'C' and nothing less. Why bother at all putting something on? I can tune down and back up as easy or more to D or Eb without any alteration to the bass. I did a rehearsal last week playing the New World Symphony, the 3rd time in a year as I did it with two other Orchestras last season. In the beginning are two low Eb's and I used my C-Extensions set at first to Eb for the start and later down the page I closed it to E for the rest of the piece. Last week I just tuned down to Eb for the start and tuned back up with no sweat being that it was just a rehearsal, leaving my bigger basses at home that I have extensions on.

I think putting on a D-extension is like doing it half way. It makes no sense to me and if you can't change back and forth while playing without interruption, it's not a workable extension in my opinion.

[Bryan Leinwand]

Well heres how it went:
I started of with a 1/8th size bass. (about 80cm i think?).
Its my feeling that at least for me qualitatively, a half size string length is the absolute minimum. So 97 cm. In order to achieve this with the same neck heel note, I had to extend the string length in both directions. I have a D extension on my Romanian 1/2 size with 97cm string length so this bass was made to match. BTW the D extension with the open A and D is great. The notes reinforce and actually swell when in tune.
Extra long fingerboard. Normal width tapered in the back to the neck width. With one tuner turned around and most of the bottom curve to the pegbox taken away, the two extra notes can be fingered in one easy motion.

Since moving the bridge down sets the bridge on a stiffer part of the top, some internal mods were done, and a lot of tension was taken off with a very high French style tailpiece. This is a low tension system. Sound post is above the bridge.

To bring out the upper bass resonance peak when playing acoustically a hole was made in the shoulder to compensate for the small cavity (and top and string length) that is expected to reproduce the same tuning as a normal instrument. In a smaller system dealing with the same low tuning, the alignment changes and the bass is much more critical and sensitive to small changes. The bass was made to amplify, but has a well balanced sound acoustically if not as loud. The goal was to make the bass work correctly "mechanically". I found that by only amplifying just the missing parts of the lowest octave it can sound like a well balanced normal sized instrument played acoustically. Mostly I play fully amplified though. As far as comfort, It balances well and the feel of the board and the string spacing are even better than my 1/2 size.

Oh, one last note. Its now tuned a d g c with a g extension. so I only lose 3 half steps. Evah pirazzi c was the only string I could find that wasn't thin and twangy. Same thickness as the spirocore G. A pleasure to play. The bass is now antiqued black like the bass I bought from Ken in 84. It was immediately taken more seriously as people tend to hear with their eyes.