zbd1960

Yes, it was Jan. He's done a lot to sort out my cello. Made and fitted a new bridge, tuned the finger board, new end-pin unit and end-pin (he has them made out of tool steel), new (tuned) tail-piece to balance treble/bass and new tail gut, clean and polish (very big job), measure and reconfiguration of the bridge (moved it about 10mm towards the lower bouts - 'f' holes in the wrong place), and new strings.

Well, the family still seems to be making instruments - I think 5th generation? I did some internet digging to find out about the maker. My instrument is probably a 'workshop' instrument made by the journeyman under supervision rather than made by the master luthier. It seems to have been made around 1900

Agreed. I realise most will be small run by one person - I've dealt with luthiers for cellos, they're generally one person in a workshop. My main cello is German from around 1900 and I had it sorted out by a guy near Liverpool. He has a nice big Victorian house and his workshop is a mix of the cellar and the attic rooms.

Thank you for the feedback that has come in - it's all useful. I am looking around quite widely and will be travelling around as needed. I've already noticed one thing, which is not everyone replies to e-mails... there are several companies who will remain nameless who haven't replied yet to e-mails sent a week ago. It might be holidays... in which case put an 'out of office' auto reply in place... but it might not be. First impressions count.

My first time looking through and listening to submissions. I'm impressed by what you guys get up to! I've dabbled with more traditional composition - nothing serious. I need to give some thought to having a go over the coming months.

ooh - will pencil this in and hope that the confirmation comes through. Less than 50 miles for me, but horrible cross-country rural A roads route - about an hour's drive.

Background Waffle... For reasons I will explain in a moment, I am seriously considering commissioning a bass. I have always liked the idea of having an instrument made for me. I first thought about it with a tenor viol (viola da gamba). Whilst I love the viol, the problem is I find it impossible to find others to play with (almost all music for tenor viol is as part of a viol consort of 3 - 6 instruments). They're also expensive at around £5k+ and long lead times from luthiers. I did consider cello, but there are reasons for not doing so. First is cost - at least £10k and probably nearer £15k. Big problem is you have no idea what it will sound like and it can take about 3 years' of playing to 'break in'. Until 2 weeks ago I was going to leave thinking about a bass for another year or two until I felt 'good enough'... Then a work colleague and friend who I've been to lunch with for most days of the last 35 years dropped dead. He was 3 years younger than me and unlike me, still working. Complete re-think: why wait? I'm already over 60, I can afford to do it now, so I'm going to get on with it. The Plan After reading various posts/threads I have been looking at various web sites of various luthiers whose work I like the look of. I have e-mailed out, but replies seem to be on the slow side... I'm drawing up a list of things / options. Probably go with 5 string based loosely around J bass. Long term I am looking to playing jazz / big band but will no doubt get to play many other genres at times. So, probably want a clean and neutral sound (that can always be modified by amps or pedals). I realise an experienced luthier will be able to help and advise, especially when it comes to PUP and electronics options. Any thoughts on pitfalls to avoid? I'm hoping I get to start discussing with a luthier next week.

... Lesson #1... don't read threads like this.... Now I've been drooling on my laptop scrolling through various web sites...

I play tenor and bass, but not the violone / great bass which as you say is the ancestor of the double bass. Viols and guitars have a common ancestor... the vihuela.

Currently out of stock, but good to know.

Until recently I worked in IT in financial services. The online/web side of the business had a nightmare of GDPR, but even me working on the big box / mainframe type side had a nightmare with it. I had to design a system to do with GDPR compliance and it was tough going as you could not get a clear answer out of the regulators. Add in the poorly thought out PSD2 (Personal Services Directive 2) and the increase in costs was horrendous. I flagged up that the imposed changes would lead to increased complaints - which the regulators monitor and issue fines - regulator said 'tough'. It led to increased complaints.... Regulations / laws in this space need to be simple and unambiguous.

Before going down the instrument route, it might be worth paying to see a physiotherapist - taking the bass with you if necessary. They can both make an assessment of what you're doing and also diagnose what the issue is. I had pain in my left elbow from playing cello and it was faulty fingering technique due to gripping the neck of the cello. Round here a private 45m session is about £40.

oooh... shiny.... On my bucket list is to commission an instrument - more realistic and significantly cheaper and more predictable than commissioning a cello....

I'm just thinking about restringing my Fender for the first time.... As a cellist, I tend to think bass strings are relatively cheap.... Despite some of the manufacturers being the same... replacing my cellos C string (lowest string) will be around £120. On the plus side, apart from the A string (top string) cello strings last a long time. Just as well at around £300 to restring

Not a band but a group I'm involved with perfectly demonstrated the issues around use of social media for 'communication' and 'chat'. Someone takes a 'view' on what someone 'meant' and it gets toxic pretty quickly.

It's not unique to bands and it's a classic case of someone with an ego / narcissist who thinks they're the centre of the known universe and that everything ought to be in orbit about them. These people usually don't understand the concept of 'team'. I had a very unpleasant experience many years ago with an 'ego' and until you see through them, you can waste vast amounts of time trying to please them, keep them on board etc. It's remarkable how things improve when you stop trying to accommodate them.

You get these issues with all music groups of whatever genre, including classical. You get different types of choirs/orchestras - community ones that accept all-comers, auditioned ones, pretentious ones doing ridiculous repertoire etc. This gives rise to similar issues. The main difference is yo usually have a music director / conductor in charge of the music decisions. I've been chair of various ones over the years. When you're working to a deadline of a concert date and you need to rehearse and you haven't got the same team from one week to the next... it can get painful. My sax ensemble is fortunately very stable, but due to distances involved we can only meet monthly. As a relative novice on bass, I'm not in any sort of group/band yet...

The association of pitch/sound with colours is synaesthesia - it's not common, but I know two people who have it, one is an artist.

Several years ago I had to analyse a mountain of company data, which ultimately had to be signed off by the Bank of England... What was obvious when I looked at a breakdown of UK companies by size is that there are a lot of small ones, quite a few big ones, and very few in between. What that tells me is you have a lot of small family businesses and start-ups, but once a company begins to get to medium sized, the big boys step in and buy them out an eliminate the competition. It's bad news as it removes market diversity. It's basically a complex monopoly and needs some serious legislation to deal with it.

My music tastes have evolved a lot and probably opposite way round to many. In my teens through to around 30 I was exclusively classical music. It started off as mainstream classical in my teens and broadened out to early music as I got older (i.e. baroque (pre-1750) and renaissance (pre-1600)). Some C20th featured, but I'm not a fan of atonal music or of serialism etc. I started to listen to some jazz around 30ish and then some New Age / World music. I'm not a fan of bebop - zillions of notes and running up and down scales isn't very musical in my view... ymmv. I started classical singing lessons in my 30s, which got me singing with choirs and performing concerts. I started playing viol (aka viola da gamba) in my 40s which introduced me to English consort music. In my 50s I added cello and sax and that got me playing with various orchestras and wind groups and a huge variety of music including music theatre, film music, even orchestrated 90s dance music (pic is of that concert where I was playing cello). Bass is the most recent addition and I'm in the odd position of knowing very little 'rock' music - I rarely will know the title or artist of a piece even if it's something I've heard. I'm in my local 'Rock School' (joined 2 weeks before lockdown last year and have met once...) so I've had some bass lessons on stuff I've never encountered

I had a GAS attack...

I've acquired my first hefty rig, taking advantage of the heavy discount Anderton's are offering on TC gear... So, I now have a TC RH750 and a K-410 cab... If I move these around, especially the cab, it's going to get bashed without some protection... This is not something I've previously looked into. I suspect that the head can go into some sort of padded bag - flight cases seem to have heft price tags. It gets very pricey for the cab. Anyone any suggestions for either flight case options or alternatives that provide a mix of protection with mobility? Probably asking for the impossible, but thought I'd ask.

I don't think anyone ever accused me of being 'typical'...

Hey - we're civilised round here! Washing-up and laundry are both usually under control... dining table has a habit of disappearing under photography gear, astronomy gear, bookbinding gear....

How remiss of me....