Bridge placement and tone

[Maurício Habert]

Hi there, new to the forum. And new to the DB world of self-induced neurosis.

Two days ago, I took my DB to a friend who has a lot of experience and is a very excellent and successfull player. I wanted some feedback on my new Spiros and string height, and my biggest complaint was how mid-rangy the instrument was sounding. Some regions (specially the A string at the C-Eb position) sounded dreadfull, really.

He made fun of me and said I was exagerating, and nitpicking. But he complained about the position of the strings in relation to the fingerboard, saying there was no room for the G string.

Before I could say anything, he gets a siliconed hammer and bumps the bridge sideways! The bridge slided towards the E string f-hole something about 2.5 mm from its orginal centered position (it has been recently centered by a luthier, and we marked with pencil its "rightfull" place).

He got pleased with the new position of the strings. It felt better to me, too. But I couldn't believe how much better the bass was sounding!! The awful midrangeness is gone, and the sound is now perfect!! I have more bass too! Less twanginess!

I'm really curious about this. For starters, ¿why would there be more bass if the bridge is now away from the soundpost?

I googled about this and didn't find any comments on experimentation on bridge placement. Can't find it here in the forum as well. ¿¿Anybody ever heard about messing up with the center position of the bridge?? I'm very pleased with my sound now, but would like further knowledge for when I upgrade to better bridges...

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by mauriciohabert

Hi there, new to the forum. And new to the DB world of self-induced neurosis.

Two days ago, I took my DB to a friend who has a lot of experience and is a very excellent and successfull player. I wanted some feedback on my new Spiros and string height, and my biggest complaint was how mid-rangy the instrument was sounding. Some regions (specially the A string at the C-Eb position) sounded dreadfull, really.

He made fun of me and said I was exagerating, and nitpicking. But he complained about the position of the strings in relation to the fingerboard, saying there was no room for the G string.

Before I could say anything, he gets a siliconed hammer and bumps the bridge sideways! The bridge slided towards the E string f-hole something about 2.5 mm from its orginal centered position (it has been recently centered by a luthier, and we marked with pencil its "rightfull" place).

He got pleased with the new position of the strings. It felt better to me, too. But I couldn't believe how much better the bass was sounding!! The awful midrangeness is gone, and the sound is now perfect!! I have more bass too! Less twanginess!

I'm really curious about this. For starters, ¿why would there be more bass if the bridge is now away from the soundpost?

I googled about this and didn't find any comments on experimentation on bridge placement. Can't find it here in the forum as well. ¿¿Anybody ever heard about messing up with the center position of the bridge?? I'm very pleased with my sound now, but would like further knowledge for when I upgrade to better bridges...

Here are a few must's for a bass set-up.

1, The neck must be centered in the block lining up with the center of the top.
2, the bridge feet must be centered on the top as well.
3, the width of the bridge feet must be so that the low string foot is centered over the bass bar. The wider the bridge, the deeper the sound or in reverse.
4, the top of the bridge once centered must be cut so the spacing is even across the fingerboard at the desired width string to string.
5, before the top of the bridge is cut for height and slotted, the fingerboard must have a proper camber/curve across the board with the bridge matching somewhat but gradually higher from the G to the E string as the lower strings need more room to vibrate.
6, the soundpost is usually centered under the G-foot of the bridge about a soundpost thickness below it. Moving the post towards the F-hole slightly will make it deeper but maybe less focused sounding.

Those are some basics. Many many basses are out of alignment from the start and the bridge or soundpost set to compensate. Without examining your bass in person, it would be difficult to tell what is doing what..

[Arnold Schnitzer]

Your bridge is now making better contact with the bass bar. It may have been too narrow for the bass.