[Dixielandjazz] Optimum sound from Double Basses - was Luckyhorse

[Stephen G Barbone]

Hey Allan:

Small world. <grkn >

You might want to buy Chuck's "Coda". It  is 60 or so pages and  
contains many new tips on Sound Post,  end pin peg and the use of  
teflon plus a few other good thoughts about bass sound. It is the last  
word Chuck will write about Bass Repair/set-up. Our bassist loved it.  
I'll talk with Chuck soon and will pass on your regards.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

On Jan 30, 2010, at 1:03 PM, Allan Brown wrote:

> Hey Steve,
>
> I've got that book - and I concur with all you say. It is an amazing  
> book and I spend many a happy hour leafing through it.
>
> I hope you don't mind me indulging in the story of my bass.
>
> Whilst at art college my pal Jerry (who now makes those electric  
> double basses) and I discovered a bust up student bass in a locker.  
> We asked if we could have it and when permission was granted we  
> decided to divide the spoils - I took the body and Jerry took the  
> neck and fingerboard. He went on to make a body and I a neck to  
> compliment our respective halves. (The art college joke being that  
> had a splinter come off the original bass, someone would have  
> stepped forward to make a whole new bass around it.)
>
> Luckily the landlord of the digs I was in at the time had a workshop  
> and he let me use it and his tools. So I set about carving a neck,  
> armed with nothing but my ignorance. I was, however, given  
> invaluable advice by a local double bass maker that I discovered and  
> he also gave me some old metal tuning pegs that I managed to fit to  
> my freestyle headstock. The scroll was an ugly, ungainly thing which  
> I've since improved. I was also unaware of the arcane art of shaping  
> the fingerboard and scooped out far too much wood in the middle of  
> the fingerboard to prevent buzzing, when I should have been raising  
> the bridge.
>
> The body is made of plywood, but underneath the horrible orange  
> lacquer lay a lovely grained wood. So I sanded it all down but I  
> didn't dare open it up to move the sound post and bar to the other  
> side of the bass in order to make it truly left handed. Getting the  
> neck and the body together was nightmare as the block the neck sat  
> on was the cheapest of the cheap and was wafer thin as the bass must  
> have been dropped at some point in the past and the neck must have  
> sheared off taking most of the block with it. In the end I just had  
> to screw the neck on in a move that would have Chuck's toes curling  
> in his boots. And that's how my bass stayed for over a decade. It  
> looked pretty but it was just too difficult to play.
>
> Despite the frustrations I really enjoyed making it and a couple of  
> years ago I was thinking of having a go at making a new bass,  
> including the body this time. Whilst researching I came across  
> Chuck's book and it totally opened my eyes to what's involved in  
> getting the optimum sound out of a double bass. I figured that  
> rather than making a new bass there was probably a lot I could do  
> with the existing bass. So i took it Jerry who's set up scores of  
> basses now and we pretty much stripped it right back. We pulled off  
> the fingerboard and re-glued it. He totally re-shaped the  
> fingerboard and we hacked off the scroll, which I re-shaped and we  
> pegged and glued it back on. A new bridge and a set of new strings  
> and it sounded like a totally different instrument - and so much  
> easier to play. (But not easy enough!)
>
> I just don't realistically have the time or a suitable workshop to  
> do it at the moment but at some point I've love to give it another  
> go. There are a couple of good books out about how to make double  
> basses and Chuck's book is a bible. My father-in-law is also a  
> fantastic carpenter and has made several classical guitars as well  
> as two astonishing lutes. So I feel I really should be doing  
> something with this knowledge and expertise that surrounds me.
>
> Pass on my gratitude and appreciation to Chuck, should you speak to  
> him. That book is a wonder.
>
> All the best,
>
> Allan