Double bass voodoo

Let’s Keep it in Perspective!

While it’s obviously important to pay attention to details and optimize your setup and the quality of the components, there comes a point when this can become a counter productive psychological game. People start to obsess and lose sight of the real task at hand: practicing and playing! We’ve had people who agonize over whether their soundpost should be moved one millimeter here or there or lose sleep over the length of their tailwire. The sonic differences are usually minute to imperceptible and that time would be much better spent improving their skills as a player.

Another important thing to keep in mind regarding tonal adjustments: Every time something is changed on the bass, it takes the bass a little while to “re acclimate” to that change. It will need to be played for a while until it settles in. If you know your instrument well, you know this is true and is especially the case with the bridge, soundpost and tailwire. For example, moving the soundpost will perceptively alter the sound and response of the instrument, but moving it multiple times in a short period will give a false reading…or at least an unpredictable one. If we adjust the post and you come back the next day after you’ve played it a while, that is a much more accurate way to control the results of the adjustments.